Today I finally finished going through my search terms and the Cleveland Press collection. The subjects that I dealt with today are sports, transportation, and bridges. In sports I looked for information about the football, baseball, hockey, softball, and basketball teams that have resided in Akron. I did not find anything. Most of the teams were very early in the 20th century and I am not surprised that there was no information available in this collection. Next I focused on transportation. This included railroads, roads, and canals. I found many pictures on these topics because the Ohio Canal ran through Akron and the canal system is what put Akron on the map. Some of the pictures were labeled with lock numbers and I had to find what locks were found in Akron. There was a whole file dedicated to the AC&Y train line but nothing else in the general file. I also looked for roads in Akron but nothing turned up here either. Bridges did have some information available in the Akron General file mostly on the Main St Bridge and the renovation of the bridge.
I also revisited the 'crowd' picture from yesterday to see if I could find anymore information about it. I thought on my way to CSU this morning that it could have been a preseason game or a exhibition. I looked through NFL.com and other stat sites but did not find any information. I then e-mailed a friend that is a librarian and she suggested contacting the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I e-mailed the hall of fame and they suggested calling their archivist and ask them about the photo. I will do this next week.
Finally to round out my day I started to make a list of the books that the Special Collection department has on Akron. I will not limit my search on Akron alone I will also search for Summit County. In searching in the county the books that are here could have information about Akron.
27 May 2010
Day Three, 9.00-16.00, Total Time= 17 Hours 40 Minutes
Today I did the same thing as on last Friday. I continued to work on my search terms that deal with Akron. I have not gone outside of the Cleveland Press Collection yet but I should be done with it soon. I went through the other industries found in Akron other than Rubber and Aerospace etc. This included newspapers, places, airports, landmarks, hotels, airships, and events, i.e. riots and murders.
Also today I went through the file labeled Akron-General. In this file I found a lot of things that I looked for on Friday. One of the biggest things that I found was pictures on the U.S.S. Macon. I looked for it on Friday but did not find any information. When going through the general file I found several pictures. In the general file I found many other photos that fit into other search terms that I had defined.
Finally, I spent some time on one photo to try and catalog it properly. It is a photo of a group of people in stands of a stadium or something of the sort. On the back of the picture it said "Rams-Giants, Akron Bowl" and the date stamped was 31 August 1942. I automatically assumed that it meant the Rubber Bowl which was built in 1940 and the Rams pertained to the Cleveland Rams the first NFL franchise in Cleveland. After some research I found that the Rams and Giants did not play in 1942 and in the previous years the two teams had played. However, they played in New York each time. I am not sure where to go with this photo but I think that if I move on then the solution will come to me.
Also today I went through the file labeled Akron-General. In this file I found a lot of things that I looked for on Friday. One of the biggest things that I found was pictures on the U.S.S. Macon. I looked for it on Friday but did not find any information. When going through the general file I found several pictures. In the general file I found many other photos that fit into other search terms that I had defined.
Finally, I spent some time on one photo to try and catalog it properly. It is a photo of a group of people in stands of a stadium or something of the sort. On the back of the picture it said "Rams-Giants, Akron Bowl" and the date stamped was 31 August 1942. I automatically assumed that it meant the Rubber Bowl which was built in 1940 and the Rams pertained to the Cleveland Rams the first NFL franchise in Cleveland. After some research I found that the Rams and Giants did not play in 1942 and in the previous years the two teams had played. However, they played in New York each time. I am not sure where to go with this photo but I think that if I move on then the solution will come to me.
21 May 2010
Second Day, Time: 8.30-16.30, Total Time= 9 Hours 40 Minuets
Today I was able to dive into my project. After Lyn showed me the in's and out's of the finding aid and where all the photos were located I started the project. Anyone who knows a little about the history of Ohio knows that Akron was the "Rubber Capital of the World", so everyone would first think about the rubber plants and tire making companies. The next thing that I thought of was the Akron Air Dock and everything that deals with airplanes, blimps, and space. After that I was at a loss as to where to go next. After that I started by searching the internet for iconic aspects of the city of Akron. This brought out many different people, places, and things for me to search in the archive. After writing down the information I found I typed the information into a coherent list, this list is on Google Docs and I can provide you access at any time.
After defining the terms that I wanted to search I started to use the finding aid for the Cleveland Press Collection. I started with the names that I found but this turned up nothing. After a few of the bigger names of Akron, i.e. Perkins, O'Neil, Seiberling, etc., I decided to change my search subject. I moved to the neighborhoods of Akron. There was a little information found here but not a whole lot. Next I moved to the Blimps and the industry surrounding it. Here I found a lot more information than the other searches that I preformed. The next thing that I started to search was area Churches, Synagogues, and Temples. This did not net many results either. Finally I searched the rubber industry and here is where I found the most information for the day’s work. I found pictures on almost everything that I searched and some things that I did not know that I was looking for.
Something that I discovered was that I could find pictures about Akron in "General..." folders. This I did not expect but it does make sense, because this is a Cleveland Collection and why would there be a folder for one or two pictures of Akron when they could be placed into a larger folder. All of my findings are on Google Docs and just ask if you want access to them. I still have a lot of work ahead of me because I have not finished my search term list and I have only looked at one collection.
After defining the terms that I wanted to search I started to use the finding aid for the Cleveland Press Collection. I started with the names that I found but this turned up nothing. After a few of the bigger names of Akron, i.e. Perkins, O'Neil, Seiberling, etc., I decided to change my search subject. I moved to the neighborhoods of Akron. There was a little information found here but not a whole lot. Next I moved to the Blimps and the industry surrounding it. Here I found a lot more information than the other searches that I preformed. The next thing that I started to search was area Churches, Synagogues, and Temples. This did not net many results either. Finally I searched the rubber industry and here is where I found the most information for the day’s work. I found pictures on almost everything that I searched and some things that I did not know that I was looking for.
Something that I discovered was that I could find pictures about Akron in "General..." folders. This I did not expect but it does make sense, because this is a Cleveland Collection and why would there be a folder for one or two pictures of Akron when they could be placed into a larger folder. All of my findings are on Google Docs and just ask if you want access to them. I still have a lot of work ahead of me because I have not finished my search term list and I have only looked at one collection.
20 May 2010
First Day, Time: 13.00-14.40, Total Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
Today was my first day of my practicum. I met with Bill and we set out what my practicum will involve. We found that me living in Akron was a good place to start. The area that I will be working in is the Special Collections; this is not the traditional library environment. In that I will not be dealing with a lot of people and this practicum will be more of a project that will take all 150 hours. The project will start with me looking through the holdings of the library to find what they hold in regards to Akron and Summit County. Bill suggested that I look for Akron, Bridges, major infrastructure, the Rubber Industry, the Siberlings, government, major employers, i.e. Firestone, Goodyear, etc., neighborhoods and the Akron Air Dock. This is not a finite list but some of the idea that we kicked around in regards to the subjects that surround Akron. I really like the idea of this project because I live in Akron and I feel that living here will help me to understand and better convey the story of Akron via the Cleveland Memory Project.
Along with what my project will entail, we talked about the infrastructure of the Cleveland Memory project. This includes the areas of the Western Reserve and south. I found out that the project uses Multi-Site Server, M.S.S., between several schools and library systems. All of these systems use CONTENTdm for their metadata and this made it easy to pool all of their resources under one harvester, Ohio's Heritage Northeast. This makes good, rich, metadata very important because patrons researching can search a topic and find the information that they are looking for. With the O.H.N. the user can click on a picture and the site will direct them to the website of the library that holds the resource. I look forward to working on this project and I think that this will be good experience.
Along with what my project will entail, we talked about the infrastructure of the Cleveland Memory project. This includes the areas of the Western Reserve and south. I found out that the project uses Multi-Site Server, M.S.S., between several schools and library systems. All of these systems use CONTENTdm for their metadata and this made it easy to pool all of their resources under one harvester, Ohio's Heritage Northeast. This makes good, rich, metadata very important because patrons researching can search a topic and find the information that they are looking for. With the O.H.N. the user can click on a picture and the site will direct them to the website of the library that holds the resource. I look forward to working on this project and I think that this will be good experience.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)