Sheet Music Cataloging Project- Emily Perkins, 12/19/13

Today I inputted data from 53 cards (202-255). I also broke down and added a third subject column! I kept having to make decisions about which subjects to include or place elsewhere because there were 3 or more subjects...but to heck with that! Jeanette said I could just make a third subject field so that is what I did. One thing that threw me today was the Publisher field. While I have often seen publishers spelled or abbreviated different ways, I have never seen a catalog card with 2 publishers and/or 2 locations on the same card. In three neighboring cards, the publisher "Peso Music" was coupled with three different cities: Hollywood, New York, and Hialeah Florida. For the card that had "Peso Music, New York," "Warner Bros." was in parentheses. And for the card that had "Peso Music, Hialeah, Fl.," "Columbia Pictures Publications" was in parentheses...which one is it?? All of these cards were one after another, in the same time period, and composed by the same writing teams. Either they are typos, some other mistake was made, or the music industry (and by extension, music cataloging) is far more complicated than I thought! I will revisit these another day, as it may require some research into the history of that publishing company. I shall leave you with the silliest song title I came into contact with today: "(Boop-boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem chu!) Three little fishies. (Itty bitty poo.)"

Herrera Metadata Project - Michelle Godfrey, Dec. 18, 2013

Today, I continued working on MSS160-b4-f01. Fortunately, there were no problems encountered.  It's still a little hard to tell how much of this large folder is left to do but it looks like at least the half-way mark has been passed. Many of the documents are just duplicates so that makes some of the process go by faster.

Sheet Music Collection Project - Emily Perkins - 12/12/13

Today I inputted data from 20 cards (181-201). I got a lot of my questions answered by Jeanette today. But the fact remains that music cataloging is hard! This is the first time in my volunteer/intern career that I've really struggled with cataloging. Each place is different, but this one has been the most challenging, and I think will be most helpful to my growth as a librarian! One thing that really relieved me today is I realized both the title and "words by" sections are both MARC21 245 fields. Now I can stop worrying so much about where to stop the title and start the "words by," as a lot of these cards are not so clear on where the title stops and the description/attribution begins. Now that I know that they go together in the MARC record, I feel as if I can stop worrying about that. Jeanette also informed me that I can just add a new subjects column if I continue to encounter cards with more than two subjects! She assured me that I've been doing the right thing by making sure all of the information is recorded into the spreadsheet somewhere, and by continuing to place data in fields where that data was previously recorded. Keep doin' what I'm doin' basically. I can also ignore/drop the "t," "T," and "title:" nonsense that appears in the subjects. The good news is I got to The Doors and Bob Dylan is coming up soon!

Herrera Metadata Project - Elaine Patton, 12/12/13

Today I worked on MSS160-b3-f13. Lots of letters = very straightforward. (The downside is that when I do come across the rare newspaper article, it's several records later before I realize that I didn't switch the "Primary Source" descriptor over to "no"!) A few of the records had already been completed, it seemed, as well.

Still a few records left (though only a handful, I think). :)

Sheet Music Collection Project - Emily Perkins- 11/21/13

This is a belated post. The 21st was my second day working on the Sheet Music Collection Project, and I inputted data from 74 cards from drawer 4 (106-180). I struggled with publishers, as most cards had incomplete citations. I finally decided "Berlin" was a publisher, perhaps a shortening of Irving Berlin, after thinking it was the place of publication for several of these songs. The songs were classical, which contributed to the confusion. I was able to use the Library of Congress authority records to establish Waterson, Berlin & Snyder as a music publishing company. Another thing I found odd that week was that I found several cards where two songs were listed one after the other, but with different composers. I ended up putting the other song in the "other title" field, and the other composer as a co-composer. I continued to be unsure about the 240 and 246 fields, and which rules govern what goes where. I resisted making my own subjects, and was mystified by the "t" subject placeholder. Adventures in Cataloging!

Herrera Metadata, Michelle Godfrey - Dec. 11, 2013

Still making progress on MSS160-b4-f01. There was a problem with the computer shutting down to that awful blue screen for no reason and that slowed things down a little. I was able to resume and complete more items and now this folder is probably close to being half way finished.

Here's a look at the official letterhead from the City of Houston in 1948.
 

Herrera Metadata Project - Elaine Patton, 12/5/2013

Today I completed: MSS160-b3-f14, -f15, -f19, & -f20.

In folder 14, there is a Viva Johnson poster that apparently was not digitized.

The finding aid description for folder 20 has a misspelling, I noticed: Allan Shivors: Telegrams to and Speech on Behalf of, by John J. Herrera. The governor's name should be Shivers. I included it in the Notes as it's written in TARO, but wanted to point that out.

One letter in f19 was hard to follow since it seemed to be partially in some shorthand:

Continuing in the vein of how little politics really change...

MSS160-b3-f14-05

Shab, sheet music collection project

Today I managed to input the data from 64 cards of drawer 3 of the sheet music collection project (therefore, I have finished the C's and am now in the D's section of the drawer).  As usual, most of the cards were routine.  However, I did encounter some more foreign languages pieces of music which I used Google Translate to help me catalog (Cecilia, I have highlighted these cards in blue on the spreadsheet to have you review them and make sure I didn't make any errors).  I also had a lengthy note field one of the cards due the table of contents being included.  Aside from these, I had no particular concerns, except I'm uncertain whether short descriptions of songs included next to the title on the card are to be cataloged in the title field or should be in some other field like the note field - for now, I've included them in the title field (Cecilia, please let me know in two weeks if that is incorrect and needs to be changed).  Thanks!

Herrera Metadata Project, Michelle Godfrey - Dec. 4, 2013

Still working in MSS160-b4-f01.

For the most part, everything seems to be working well except for a small inconvenience when accessing the document scans. After clicking on the image thumbnail, the new window would open as it should but nothing would appear on the screen even after waiting several minutes for it to load. Fortunately, clicking on the Refresh/Reload button once or twice worked to bring up the document scan.

Herrera metadata project - Elaine Patton, 11/21/2013

'60s font! Barely-smiling disembodied face on a STAR!

Today I (finally) got to finish MSS160-b4-f12 and MSS160-b3-f12. No major problems-- couldn't physically confirm whether one item was a scan of a sticker, though it almost certainly is. A pamphlet for Bill Blakley didn't name a particular compiler or publisher, so I left those fields blank, but it was almost certainly created by his campaign team. Little things like that.

 Also, I love old campaign literature because it reminds me of how little politics change in many ways...

Sheet Music Collection Project - Shab Vakil, 11/21/2013

This week (11/21/2013) I managed to input the data for 67 more cards of drawer 3 of the sheet music collection project.  Most of the cards were extremely straightforward, but I did run into another couple of cards where this is spelling discrepancy in the name of the publishing company.  Google did not seem to be helping clarify the correct spelling of the company, so I've highlighted it in yellow to review with the hard copy sheet music upstairs when the time comes.  

Herrera Metadata Project, Michelle Godfrey - Nov. 20, 2013

MSS160-b4-f01

Today, I was able to access the project to continue working on folder 01 and made some corrections to a few items from last week. The only problem I found was that this week the system seemed to be slower than usual updating the records after hitting the 'Publish' button.

Herrera Metadata - Elaine Patton, 11/14/2013

Today I started on MSS160-b4-f12 and struggled with UNT's system on-again, off-again ability to load pages completely. On the plus side, when that happens while trying to save a record, it seems that record does actually get saved, even if the page can't complete its normal refresh cycle, so it could be worse.

Sheet Music Collection Project - Shab Vakil, 11/14/2013

Last week (11/14/2013) I managed to input the data for 65 cards of drawer 3 of the sheet music collection project.  I had no real problems save for a few difficulties cataloging a couple of Italian cards due to Google Translate being down (but Cecilia has since taken care of those cards, thank you Cecilia!)  

Herrera Metadata Project, Michelle Godfrey - Nov. 13, 2013

Today I continued working on MSS160-b4-f01. I only got a few items done before running into problems with the editing system. We could access the records, but were not able to update them. I will try again next week in hopes that the system will function normally.

Sheet Music Collection Project - Emily Perkins, 11/12/13

Today was my first day working on the sheet music collection project, and I inputted the data from 57 cards from drawer 4. I had three composers whose names were spelled differently on two or more cards, and I left these fields highlighted in yellow on the excel spreadsheet so that they can be verified later before MARC records are made. I found the non-popular music cards to be more troublesome than the popular music cards. These classical music cards simply contained more information than the others, and I struggled to find the appropriate fields in which to record the information. Publisher names gave me trouble as well, as many were single words without the words "corp" or "publishing" in their name. I think this may get easier with time though, as I begin to recognize more of these publishers by name, such as "Renwick." My favorite song title of the day was "Shaddap you face," to which I gave the other title (MARC field 246) of "Shut up your face." I'd like to hear that song.

Herrera Metadata Project - Elaine Patton, 11/7/2013

Today I continued to work on MSS160-b4-f11 [and finished it, it turns out!]. Nothing particularly weird encountered (except for a large number of envelopes, which get the most boring titles and descriptions created), though I did come across another couple of Social Security numbers, flagged in the non-displaying notes.

There were, however, several gems-- utter, hilarious gems.

For example, the 2 resumes which volunteered various information like height/weight and physical health (after the name/address heading and before the education & experience parts):

Did that used to be a 'thing' in the '70s/pre-hiring protections?

Then there was the fairly lengthy letter to Herrera explaining the author's daughter had met a man who seemed like a phony (supposedly had attended a number of prestigious universities, claimed to have a number of degrees, planned to become a cardiovascular doctor but spent most of his days "smoking and drinking coffee" in restaurants, claimed to have been a racing driver but owned no car...) and had given Herrera as a reference. She says it's possible Herrera himself is a phony, but there weren't any better options than to contact him. The post-script of the letter casually asks for the driver's license and Social Security numbers of the man in question, if Herrera could procure them.

This one... I don't know what to make of this one, particularly the second half pictured below:

Shab, sheet music collection project

Today I managed to input the data from 68 more cards from drawer 3 of the sheet music collection project.  Most of the cards were very typical information, allowing me to catalog them at a faster rate than usual.  However, I do have a concern I need Cecilia to check on when she has time: Cecilia, I just want to remind you of the card we discussed, the one where there was information on both sides of the card and we weren't sure if it was because there was a duplicate piece of music upstairs, or some other reason (I have highlighted the row in yellow and the piece of music is titled "Symptoms of True Love" by Irmgard Klarmann).  After that card, I discovered another card with a similar problem (information on both sides of the card) but unlike the previous card, the information is almost identical on both sides of the card - the only difference is that the page numbers for each side are different, leading me to think one of the card sides has the wrong number of pages on it, which might be why the other side has the same information (the cataloger was trying to correct a mistake?)  But neither side is scratched out, so the only way to verify will be to check the sheet music upstairs (I've highlighted this row in yellow, too, and the name of the song is "We Were Dancing" by Noel Coward).  Please check these cards whenever you have time.  Thanks!  :)  Otherwise, I have no real problems to report. 

Herrera Metadata - Michelle Godfrey, Nov. 6, 2013

Today I was able to finish MSS160-b4-f03.  

It was nice to be able to resume work with those last few items that had the broken links. I am not sure if other folders in this collection have the same inconsistencies with letters and envelopes. Folder 3 had at least one record that contained both a letter and the corresponding envelope. There was also an undated letter scanned alone without an envelope and then there was another record with just an envelope scanned by itself.

I was also able to continued work in folder 01 and found no problems so far.

Herrera Metadata Project - Michelle Godfrey, Nov 1, 2013

This week I was able to continue work on MSS160-b4-f03 and finish the few even-numbered items that still remained in that folder. I was also able to begin working on f01. Everything went smoothly and I should be able to continue next week as usual.

Shab, sheet music collection project

Today I managed to input the data for 33 more cards in drawer 3 of the sheet music collection project.  I had 4-5 cards specifically which have name spelling discrepancies in the cards with regard to the composer's last name spelling - 2 of the cards spell it one way, the other 2 another way.  Although I did Google the name and think I know how it is spelled, I think it's still best to highlight the relevant fields in red and yellow and check them against the actual music upstairs later.  Otherwise, there were no real problems (Cecilia, thanks much for your comment on my entry last week - I've made the necessary corrections). 

TeachingTexas.org records - Elaine Patton, 10/24/2013

Today I submitted selected items from the digital collection relating to Texas history to TeachingTexas.org. 

Very straightforward, no real problems. One item was a French map of the Louisiana territory which didn't easily fit into any of the time periods, which jump from "prehistory" to "Spanish Texas." The record only had a vague c. 1800s date, so I went with Spanish Texas. It was sometimes challenging to map the content to a TEKS skillset, as well.

Shab, music collection project

First off, thanks to Cecilia for the feedback.  I apologize for any confusion on my part about the color coding; if there are any more problems with this, let me know and I will correct the problem.

Today I cataloged 50 more cards of drawer 3 of the sheet music collection.  Most all the cards were routine cataloging.  The only particular problem I came across (highlighted in yellow, text in red) requires checking the actual music upstairs because of some discrepancies in the way the publisher(s) name(s) is/are written.  Otherwise, everything was normal and it didn't take me long to get through these cards. 

Herrera Metadata Project - Elaine Patton, 10/17/2013

Today I completed MSS160-b4-f10 and got started on MSS160-b4-f11 (the latter is huge!).

I did run into the awkward situation (with HPLM_MSS160-b4-f11-38) where I technically had a name for a creator/contributor, but since the item is just an informal birthday card, only a first name was given (Lee).Not sure how/if this should be entered.

There was also a duplicated piece of correspondence that, somewhat annoyingly, had 2 different letters printed on it. I've encountered that before, but with this one it really wasn't clear exactly which one had come first (and to further nitpick, the topmost message didn't seem to make internal chronological sense -- obviously some context must have been missing). Nothing prohibitively weird, just...weird.

Herrera Metadata, Michelle Godfrey-Oct. 16, 2013

Made more progress on MSS160-b4-f03 today. The only unexpected thing I came across was an envelope that got scanned with a letter it did not belong with. This folder also contains quite a few handwritten letters which are somewhat challenging to read through and describe.

Here are a couple of things I saw that caught my attention. There was an actual signature from Senator Lyndon B. Johnson on a letter sent to John J. Herrera.

signature of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson in 1954

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month and it was a timely occasion to see this postal stamp from 1954.

Hire the Handicapped - It's Good Business

Herrera Metadata - Elaine Patton, 10/10/2013

Today I created metadata for the items in MSS160-b4-f09. Most of this folder contained letters, which are very straightforward. There was one Deed of Sale and one copy of a legal brief, which required some scrutiny before I could decide what exactly to title them and how (and who) to list as creators/contributors. Two Spanish-language items: this time I left the long one alone, but the other was just a short 'Happy New Year' greeting.

One personal letter to Herrera included this funny bit:

... dogonne it"***!XXxx@"! ...

I also got started on MSS160-b4-f10: so far, so good. This folder actually contains some photographs, which is a nice change of pace!

Shab, sheet music collection project

Today I managed to input the data for 53 more cards of drawer 3 of the sheet music collection project.  As before, most of the cards were typical and routine to catalog; however, the cards presenting the theme songs [to television shows, movies, news broadcasts, etc.] presented somewhat more of a challenge due to the title and theme information, among other things.  The ones I am uncertain about, I have highlighted in green and red for Cecilia to review since sometimes it is difficult to ascertain whether the theme, when written in the title field on the hard copy card, would still be inputted as the title or the note or both.  Otherwise, I don't believe I encountered any new problems.  The location of bracketed information also continues to be a bit challenging because that information is often all over the place on the card (such as place or publication info not normally found in the same place as with most cards) - for now, I've broken down the bracketed information into different fields for Cecilia to review and will wait for her feedback on whether or not to change this method of cataloging it. 

Herrera Metadata, Michelle Godfrey - Oct. 9, 2013

Today, I continued working on MSS160-b4-f03. The folder is now about half complete.

A recurring issue is with having the original and duplicate copy of a document and creating a unique title for them. Many of the remaining items in the folder are handwritten, so fortunately there won't be duplicates to deal with. I also came across a few items that did not have a creation date.

Herrera Metadata - Michelle Godfrey, Oct. 3, 2013

Today I worked in the new folder, MSS160-b4-f03. It got a little confusing right from the start because the first item I opened was a telegram. What I didn't notice was that the telegram actually had two pages and once I read them together, things made more sense. Otherwise, there were no other problems with anything else in the folder.

Herrera Metadata - Elaine Patton, 10/3/2013

Today I finished up MSS160-b4-f08, which I had started last week.

Mostly there were no surprises, though I did catch one document that didn't have a page count or size written in. I also encountered a few letters written in Spanish, which necessitated some transcription and a trip over to Google Translate. One, involving a Volkswagen car possibly being transferred to the younger son of a couple, was a bit difficult to parse, but the other two were fairly straightforward.

I got a kick out of a couple pieces of correspondence with Houston Lighting & Power Co., like this bill describing the amount of electricity used as the hours Reddy worked and the amount owed as "Reddy's Wages."

Electricity bill, circa 1960

There was also this line in a letter of apology about a billing error that led to Herrera's power being wrongfully cut off:

"It seems that whether our records are kept by a giant electronic brain or on the back of an old envelope, we must always content with clerical errors caused by human intervention. ..."

I just like the "giant electronic brain" imagery, particularly for 1960.

Shab, sheet music collection project

Today I cataloged 40 more cards from drawer 3 of the sheet music collection.  Today's cards didn't go by as fast as last week's because although most were straightforward, there are new questions coming up along with the old ones such as what field to catalog the genre into, multiple publisher headings or other information often in brackets, what to do with notes written next to the dates, and whether something should be in a note or instrumentation (or some other) field.  I've highlighted the questionable text in red and the fields in blue for Cecilia to look at.  I also found some music cataloging websites that may offer more help next week, such as the Yale music cataloging directory.  http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/music/musicat.htm  I will look into this further next week.

Herrera Metadata Project - Elaine Patton, 9/26/2013

Today I worked on folders MSS160-b04-f07 and -f08 from the John J. Herrera Collection. I completed all of folder 07 and some of folder 08. No real trouble, except that filled-out forms are still tricky with regards to creator/contributor attribution. There were also a few instances of duplicate documents-- I'm surprised the UNT editor doesn't an option for labeling something as a "duplicate of" in the relations field; the closest thing is "version of" or maybe "replaced by." For these, whichever I encountered second is the one that got labeled copy or duplicate with all other metadata remaining the same.

Herrera Metadata Project, Michelle Godfrey - Sept. 26, 2013

Today I continued with MSS160-b4-f02. There were more duplicate copies of documents and I was unsure how to create a unique title for them because there is no indicator as to which one was created first. All the signatures on the pages look original because they are in blue ink. It would be nice to know if  they were signed at the same time or on different dates. All the items from this folder are now complete, but a few of the titles will most likely need to be revised.

Shab, sheet music collection project

Due to the fact that most of the cards today were very straightforward to catalog, I managed to input the data for 50 cards of drawer 3 of the sheet music collection project today.  There weren't any particularly new problems, just more obvious typos I overlooked as well as name spelling discrepancies which will need to be checked against the actual sheet music upstairs.  Otherwise, everything was routine.  I am still working on correcting any subject heading errors. 

Herrera Metadata Project, Michelle Godfrey - Sept. 19, 2013

Today I continued working with MSS160-b4-f02.

It turned out to be a day of duplicates because I have worked on some of these documents before. A couple of the legal forms appeared to be draft copies containing revisions and then some of the other documents may have been original copies without signatures. The only problem I found was when there did not seem to be any noticeable differences between two items and figuring out if they were simply copies of each other or if they actually had some slight variations. It also did not help matters that the dates were missing on the pages.

Shab, sheet music collection project

Today, after I did some minor administrative correction work on the sheet music spreadsheet, I inputted the data on 35 more cards for drawer 3 of the sheet music collection project.  Most of it was routine and straightforward, except for one set of cards which will need to be checked against the actual music upstairs due to there being some discrepancies in the spelling of the names.  Otherwise, I didn't really face any major problems.  I am still trying to figure out the difference between the note and content note fields and correcting any previous subject heading errors. 

John J. Herrera Collection Metadata - Elaine Patton, 9/12/2013

Today I entered metadata for MSS160-b4-f05 & -f06 from the John J. Herrera Collection. Both folders were mostly letters and went smoothly.

I did hit a brief snag in f05 with a couple of pages torn from a calendar with regards to who counted as the creator and/or contributors to it. One page was completely blank on the calendar grid (i.e. no notes written on it), and I suspect it was only included because the image printed on it would have accompanied the next month, which did have some notes. The other folder had the somewhat thick "Abstract of Title to Part of Block 4 of "Westview Addition"..." which was a little perplexing to document. It took me back to some of the Old Vault Letters with the ongoing listings of Block X Lot Y, Block Z Lots ABC...

Shab, sheet music collection project

Today I first went back and corrected some mistakes made on the publication date and date fields.  Additionally, I corrected some other general typos and errors I noticed, including some subject/instrumentation/note field errors (per my earlier confusion about what information goes in what fields, and also some mistakes Cecilia pointed out).  All the date and publication date fields should now be correct; however, correcting the subject, note, and instrumentation fields will take longer to review and will be a work in progress for at least another week or two.  I also completed inputting the metadata on 23 more cards, most of which were fairly straightforward except for a few odd anomalies here and there which I've highlighted for Cecilia to review later. 

Herrera Metadata, Michelle Godfrey - Sept. 11, 2013

Today I worked on MSS160 and completed more items from box 4, folder 2. The only new problem was how to title a multi-page document that was split into four parts and contained more than one contributor on each section. I was also able to go back and edit some of the titles for the letters I created earlier and add the dates to them. There are about 15 more items left to do before this folder is completed.

Laney Dwyer-Herrera Metadata Project and Proofing Finding Aids- 9/9/2013

Today I worked on box 1, folder 8 of Herrera.  I haven't had any problems so far.  Also, I was trained on proofing finding aids in Archivist Toolkit.  I worked on four different finding aids- MSS0108 Felix Tijerina, Sr. Family Papers, MSS 0150 Dr. Charles Bellinger Stewart Family Papers, MSS 053 Horace Dickinson Taylor Family Collection, and MSS 0137 Stuart-Allen Collection.  MSS 53 and MSS 137 required considerable revisions, so I had to pull the boxes for both to examine the collections. 

Parts of MSS 53 need to be re-written, bringing up an interesting dilemma: how do we cite sources in a finding aid?  I am working with Emily Scott, Liz Sargent, and Jeanette Sewell to decide how we want to handle this.  We are still undecided as of yet. 

I have one item from MSS 137 that I need to examine before I can finalize the proofing of this finding aid.  Otherwise, the edits for MSS 150 and MSS 108 are complete. 

Collections & Themes - Elaine Patton, 9/5/2013

Today I perused the Houston Area Digital Archives looking for items that could be showcased for the themes of football, weather (flooding, hurricanes), and the Houston Livestock Show. Football ended up with the most items, though the latter two each have about 15. I tried to search for specific names or places associated with either (e.g. the founder of the HLSR, J. W. Sartwelle), sadly without much luck. I did turn up a bunch of my old KHOU news footage reels, near and dear to my heart since last summer. I also tried searching through Google using the modifier site:digital.houstonlibrary.org, which helped me find a few more things.

Unrelated to anything above, I also noticed this ad in the scan of a 1940s newspaper (the Southwestern Times, I think-- I neglected to bookmark the exact file): This Thanksgiving, EAT OUT.

Herrera metadata - Laney Dwyer, 9/4/13

I finished up box 1, folder 6 and began folder 7.  I struggled a bit to decifer some signatures on a Senate legislative document, but I think I found what I needed online.  I also came across the acronym "H.E.E.P" and could not figure out what it stood for.  I don't think it's a critical element, but I thought I would see if anyone else has come across this.

Old Vault Letters - Elaine Patton, 8/29/2013

Finally back (from a scheduled break and then unexpected scheduling conflicts from my librarian job). Today involved reviewing the last few Old Vault letters previously decoded and assembled, in a couple of cases, by Michelle:

• MSS0113-b01f15-06
• MSS0113-b01f19-03
• MSS0113-b01f20-05
• MSS0113-b01f21-02

I was able to add in a few words here and there, made much more straightforward by the work already done by Michelle & Cecilia to get the oddballs in the right order to be legible. Other difficulties remained, i.e. that letter with random(?) slashes after many of the words and at the ends of lines. Same letter also had very expansive, spidery writing. I also learned the term "chirography" from the letter to Eliza Fannin, a good counterpart to the better-used 'typography.' Good stuff.

Shab, sheet music project, 8/29/2013

Today I completed cataloging almost 40 cards in the sheet music drawer 3.  Some of the cards mentioned in last week's blog post - the Italian multiple composition music pieces - will need a new field added to the spreadsheet according to Cecilia.  Otherwise, I didn't face too many obstacles in particular.  I noticed some typos on the cards and I need to re-review what the AACR2 parenthesis rule is.  There's also slight uncertainty whether something belongs in the instrumentation or note field. 

Herrera Metadata Project, Laney Dwyer 8/29/2013

Today I was introduced to and trained on the Herrera Metadata Project.  I completed Box 1, folder 5 and started on folder 6.  I didn't really encounter any problems, but I did notice one duplicate in folder 5.

Herrera Metadata Project, Michelle Godfrey - August 28, 2013

Today, I continued working with MSS160-b4-f02. The folder still has several items left to complete. There were no major problems, but I will need to revise the duplicate titles by adding their corresponding creation dates.

Shab, sheet music project - 8/22/2013

Today I completed about 18 of the cards in drawer 3 of the sheet music cataloging project.  Nothing particularly new from last week; however, I will need to reflect somewhat on how to catalog cards that have multiple and unpublished pieces of music and compositions on the same card, as well as deal with some Italian names and titles next time. 

Herrera Metadata Project, Michelle Godfrey - August 21, 2013

Started working with the Herrera Metadata Project today. I began with MSS160-b4-f02. This folder contains 42 items and I completed just 8 of them. The process will go faster with more time and experience. I only found one item difficult to complete because it was written in Spanish.

Shab, sheet music project, 8/15/2013

I entered 24 cards of information into the sheet music project for drawer 3.  I may need to refresh my knowledge of AACR and AACR2 rules. 

HADA collections and themes, Michelle Godfrey - August 14, 2013

Today I reviewed the collections in the Houston Area Digital Archives to locate items that could be featured under the themes of baseball, politics, and Latino heritage. I found about twenty items for each of the collection theme groups and some of them can be in both Latino heritage and Politics. I listed those on the Latino spreadsheet and included a notation. 

Old Vault Letters, Michelle Godfrey - August 7, 2013

This week I completed two more items from The Old Vault Letters, MSS0133-b01f20 and -b01f21.

The first letter was a bit difficult to get through because the writer added a slash (/) at the end of many words for no apparent reason. This would occur both mid sentence and at the end of a line. 

and extensive/ acquaintance/, in/ the selection/

The second letter got a little messy at the end of page one. It appears that some of the writing was added at a different time because the ink was not as dark as the main part of the letter. 

Also, the writing seemed to be crammed into that section as if it had originally been left blank and filled in later.