1.
Introduction
This report covers the fourth six-month period of the IMLS National
Leadership Grant #LL-90160, awarded to the University of Miami
for the Digitization and Preservation of Selected Afro-Cuban & Cuban
Exile Collections. This project is being carried out in conjunction
with IMLS Directed Grant #CL-00006 for the Cuban Heritage Collections
Digitizing Project under the rubric Cuban Heritage Digital
Collection (CHDC).
2. Personnel
María R. Estorino was hired in May 2001 as Project Archivist. She
has assumed the duties of Project Director. Ms. Estorino has a
MLS from Simmons College in Boston with a concentration in archival
management and is knowledgeable in Cuban and Cuban American history
and culture. She is responsible for selection and description of
the materials to be digitized and overall project planning and
scheduling, reporting, and outreach and publicity.
Pedro A. Figueredo continues to serve as Project Manager with oversight
of the imaging and encoding processes for both grant #LL-90160
and #CL-00006. He supervises the project's research assistants
and manages their workflow and encodes finding aids using Encoded
Archival Description (EAD). Mr. Figueredo is the technology coordinator
for the project and as such serves as liaison to the library's
systems support.
Two new research assistants joined the CHDC team in August 2001.
Alejandra A. Valencia and Eugenio A. Alonso are both focused on
scanning, storing, and converting image files.
3. Content
In June 2001, Ms. Estorino and Esperanza B. de Varona, Head of
the Cuban Heritage Collection, evaluated the collections selected
for digitization for the CHDC. After an extensive review that took
into consideration such factors as processing status of the collection,
subjects and time periods covered, and researcher demand, a new
list of collections was drafted and approved by Mrs. de Varona
and Jeff Barry. From the original list of collections selected
for digitization under this grant, the Ramiro O. Casañas Collection
was removed and the Polita Grau de Agüero Collection was added.
This collection consists of letters, clippings, and photographs
of Polita Grau, the former first lady of Cuba who later served
14 years in Cuban prisons for conspiring with the CIA to topple
Fidel Castro and for her coordination, with her brother Ramón,
of Operation "Pedro Pan."
Digitization of the Tomás Estrada Palma Collection was completed,
and its EAD finding aid with linked digital objects is now available
on the CHDC website under both the "Collections" and "Finding Aids" sections.
A MARC record was created for the collection with a link from IBIS,
the University of Miami OPAC, to the online finding aid. The access
scheme for this project is as follows, with the search function
to be developed at a later date:
The
availability of the Tomás Estrada Palma Collection was
announced on several academic listservs and sent to a
selected list of approximately 60 scholars and librarians
specializing in Cuban or Latin American studies. With
the assistance of the University of Miami's Media Relations
department, a press release was submitted to the local
press, and an article about the Tomás Estrada Palma Collection
appeared in the Spanish-language newspaper, Diario
las Americas.
The Cuba: Capitanía General Collection has been completely scanned.
It consists of royal decrees and proclamations of the Spanish colonial
government in Cuba during its War of Independence, 1895-1898. This
collection's finding aid and its digital content will be delivered
online during the next phase of the project.
In the last interim report submitted, we reported that the Lydia
Cabrera collection was being digitized and prepared for online
delivery during this reporting period. During the summer of 2001,
the Cuban Heritage Collection received eight additional boxes of
Lydia Cabrera's papers. These materials will need to be integrated
into the Lydia Cabrera Collection, and its finding aid will need
to be re-drafted. Due to these circumstances, we have postponed
the further digitization of the Lydia Cabrera Collection until
a final finding aid is available in February or March 2002.
4. Technology
As reported in the last interim report, the technical strategy
for this project centers around developing EAD finding aids and
utilizing the Digital Archival Object (DAO) element of that standard
to display digital images as part of the finding aid. A process
for creating EAD finding aids and templates for their development
have been established. Locally developed Perl scripts have been
implemented to facilitate the delivery of images via the Web from
the finding aid.
Procedures have also been developed for the storage of our master,
or TIFF, images onto gold CD-Rs and their conversion to compressed
formats. Using the DeBabelizer software, we are batch converting
the TIFF images to three sizes of JPGs for online delivery. The
compressed JPGs are then stored on a Sun Server. Tools for tracking
the scanning and imaging processes have been developed and are
being used to monitor workflow.
The CHDC website was redesigned to enable the delivery of EAD finding
aids as well as to facilitate access to information about this
digitization effort. An aspect of the site that is currently being
drafted is the "Cuban Heritage Digital Collection Production Guidelines" which
will document the workflow and adopted technical standards of this
project.
5. Objectives for
Next Phase
1. Make Cuba: Capitanía General Collection available on the Web.
2. Begin digitization of the Polita Grau de Agüero Collection.
3. Complete processing and arranging the Lydia Cabrera Collection.
Principal
Investigator: Jeff Barry
Report prepared
by
María R. Estorino
Project Director/Archivist
October 2001
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