Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 5/5/16

Bye This Week In Texas! Not forever, of course. I need to see what happens in Burt's life with Vera, and also what the San Antonio scandal is all about (I'll see issue 3, volume 2 for details). I left off on volume 2, issue 2, which covered April 10-16 forty years ago.

I had a lot of fun reading this magazine and working with it on CONTENTdm. Thank you to Rice for connecting me to this project and for Jeanette for working with Rice and me. I'm sure whoever works on it next will enjoy it lots! Thank you HPL!! I am leaving Houston to return back to the Northeast, and I have to say I'll miss this place and the people I met.

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 4/14/16

Today I worked on two issues: the last one in the first volume and the first one in the second volume. The 52nd issue did not have as much to say about the 1 year anniversary as I thought it would, but I think these magazine's publishers were just modest.

There were no changes in the magazine's format today. Some of the ads were different, but that's due to the changing times!

I will present the work that I'm doing with This Week in Texas here at the Houston Library this weekend at the Humanities Research Symposium at Rice. I'm looking forward to it!

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 4/12/16

Today, I started working through the final issue of volume 1. This is number 52, which makes sense, because there are 52 weeks in a year! The 52nd issue has a "1 year" graphic on its cover - I'm excited to see what the "Sampling Texas" section has to say about the birthday. In the thumbnails, the section looks longer than usual, so I'm expecting some heartfelt response from the author (I wonder who writes those sections - perhaps the publisher?)

As far as editing went, there was nothing new in terms of layout, but there were new ads that had to be dealt with. I also availed myself of a recent discovery - the End key. I found it a couple weeks ago, but today I finally figured out how to use it in the "Advertisers' Index" section of the magazine and the "Description" field of CONTENTdm. It allows me to insert page numbers in the former and semicolons in the latter more easily.

Highlights in the content I've covered for the week were "Life With Vera" (of course) and "Answers by Adam." But where are the answers by Eve? 

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 4/7/16

Today I went through issues 47 and 49 of volume 1. I skipped 48 because it looked TERRIBLE. Well actually just because it's not included in the collection. I also went through the first few sections of issue 50, so next week I will start off with "Sampling Texas."

The only trouble I had today was with the "Advertisers' Index" section, which I think I've written about a little. This section in the magazine is formatted like this, for example: The Briar Patch. . . . . . 13. It includes the name of an establishment and then the page number on which its ad can be found. The only problem is that this is not always how the index shows up in the transcript. It's hard to describe, but it looks pretty funky, and always different week to week. So sometimes I put the . . . . in and sometimes not. So much indecision!

The "Life with Vera" serial is still so outrageous. Ha!

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 4/5/16

Today I got through the end of issue 46, so on Thursday I'll start on issue 47. In this last issue, the publishers of TWIT decided to change up the format of their "Supporters" section; instead of breaking it up by city and then by business type, each business type is now also prefaced by the city it's in. This results in mini-headers such as "Houston Poodle Salon," for example. This new format seems to help condense the section. It also will mean the "Description" section on my end will be more condensed; there will be no more titles like "Lounges:" between the businesses, at least as long as this new format is used.

The newest "Life With Vera" installation made me want to cry... not in a bad way, just because it is so overwhelmingly scandalous, in a fun way. Christopher Savitch reviewed some great movies in his "Screen Shop"s. I'm going to pay attention to my "Skyline" horoscope. I peeked ahead to some of the issues coming up and it looks like there are new sections on the way. Bring them on!

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 3/29/16

In issue 44 of volume 1, the serial "Life With Vera" by John Gardner began, and its second page is where I've left off today. So far, it's so good! There's a very interesting twist at the end that I want to think is funny and that I hope is not tragic...

The magazine has been playing around with its format in the last few issues so a few of the patterns I've gotten used to are no more. However, for some reason, the changes seem to be making the process of digitizing the magazine go more quickly. I got through more issues today than I'm used to, I think. Maybe the pages are more condensed - maybe there is less content (in the form of ads?). I'm not too sure.

Thursday I'll be in Connecticut or New York, so goodbye, Texas until next week.

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 3/24/16

I started the New Year today! However, the volume remains the same. Volume 1 continues until issue 52, which is at the end of March/beginning of April and marks the one year anniversary of This Week In Texas.

I almost got through the first two issues of 1976 - I've still got a bit left in issue 41.

Rather than try to go back to the 1975 issues of TWIT in order to copy and paste some of the ads that made it into 1976, I decided to just type out those repeated ads. This may have lead to some differences in the way those ads now appear in text in the transcript field, but I'm happy with how it's turned out! There were also some new ads to transcribe; I'm looking forward to seeing even more pop up.