Sheet music collection - Mary Sommerfeld May 30.2013

A few more hours today on the 5th floor.
Got a total of 10 entries completed (including add-ins).
Some in very bad shape dating back to early 1900's.
Two covers to share:
This one reminds me of my recent job at David's Bridal. Think this could be a bridezilla?

The second cover just has a lovely design.

 



 

Sheet music collection, Mary Sommerfeld May 29, 2013

Today I came over to the 5th floor wearing my new archivist hat.
This week due to the current HMRC staff schedule I will be doing some pick-up work with the sheet music collection.
Today I started at row #207 and went to row # 221 for a total 14 entries.
Add ins went from row #1277 to row #1283, a total of 6.
Grand total was 20 entries.
One of the more successful actions was finding the birth/death dates for a number of composers.
In a few cases I was able to get these from the New Grove Dictionary of Music... found in the stacks on the 5th floor. Others I located using websites such as allmusic.com

Scanning, Michelle Godfrey - May 29, 2013

Today, I completed scanning the second issue of the Athletic Review IV. I ran into a few problems with the scanner color settings and consequently had to rescan several pages to get better images. This book was also missing four pages out of it, so the page numbering had to be adjusted for that. One of the ads in there was for a refrigerator that is "cleanable".  What that means exactly, I don't know, but that must have been a major feature of the product.

I also began scanning the book, Norma Trist and was able to complete the first half of it.

Updates and Reminders about Sign-In Sheet

Andrea Lawrence from Volunteer Services recently updated the Time Sheet that you use to document your time. Instead of selecting "Digitization" in the Location Name field, you will now need to select "Cataloging and Metadata." This better reflects the area you work in and the work that you are doing. It also help me tally up your hours at the end of each month. Please do not use "HMRC" location even if you are volunteering over in the Digitization Lab or working on HMRC materials. They calculate their volunteers hours separately, and your hours may get overlooked or double-counted.

A refresher on the Time Sheet:

1) Your Name: first and last

2) Today's Date: MM/DD/YYYY

3) Time In: Enter the time you arrived, rounding to nearest half hour

4) Time Out: Enter the time you leave, rounding to the nearest half hour

5) Enter the Total Hours you were here. If you take a break, or take a lunch, do not subtract that time from your total. Count the time that you were in the building

6) Select Adult (we do not have any Juvenile volunteers)

7) For Activities you can enter one of the following (or something similar) in the Other field: scanning, cataloging, metadata, inventory, transcription

8) For Location Name: Enter Cataloging and Metadata

9) Click Submit!

Thanks! Y'all are the best!

Scanning, Michelle Godfrey - May 22, 2013

Today I finished the book from last week, Port of Houston "Where Seventeen Trunk Lines Meet the Sea".  Among the many pages of interesting information, there were rate tables for all the commodities that could be handled at the Port. These lists had a lot of common things like cotton and food items, but then some odd things like 'hogs hair' and 'stacked bones'.

I also completed two other items: the Report of Examination Temporary Housing Projects, 1950-1952 and the "Athletic Review II" from 1908.

 

 

 

Schlueter Panoramic Photographs

Today I scanned panoramic photo prints done by photographer Frank J. Schlueter, MSS0100-1076 through -109_ and MSS0100-1225 through -1274, give or take. I think the biggest difficulty was getting the long wooden trays back and forth between the archives and the digitization lab! I noticed that glossy photos with a lot of black/dark areas tended to gain a few thin streaks of color across the image, but that will be cleaned up later. A couple of the more sepia-toned images seemed to confuse the scanner's auto-cropping ability, as well. A few photos had crumbling edges or cracks, but thankfully, everything passed through the scanner just fine.

The third tray, containing photos from an apparently out-of-place MSS0223, was a little perplexing. It turned out to be mostly negatives (many of which are in poor condition, I'm sad to say), which was actually good for me, since a lot of the labeling was...well, a lot of labeling. I.e. there was the item number (MSS-etc), usually, plus some other serial number and sometimes two sets of other numbers (e.g. 15, 16, 50).

By the by, gas was 13 cents in 1925:

Favorite image, though, was MSS0100-1096. It has all these little splotchy artifacts that end of looking like stars in an impressionist painting, lending a sort of dreamy air to a rather straightforward industrial/rural setting:

The Neutral Magazine, Michelle Godfrey - May 15, 2013

Today I scanned The Neutral Magazine. This publication had some interesting articles and some of the recurring feature columns were “Strange Characters in Houston”, “Motion Pictures” and “Newsboys’ Department”. The book was bound with some of the pages out of order. One of the issues went up to page 9 correctly then had pages 14/15 next. That was followed by pages 12/ 13, 10/11, and 16/17.

Another issue contained an ad that had the word, 'Lades'. I did not know if that was a typo for ladies or lads. It would definitely be an attention grabber to have the keywords 'ladies', 'soliciting', and 'attractive' in the same ad.

I also started scanning another book for the Port of Houston and got about halfway through it.





Old Vault Letters & Franklin Beauty School - Elaine Patton, 5/13/13

Today's Old Vault letters: MSS0113-b01f15-04, -b01f20-04, and -b01f21-03.

The first letter is again addressed to Eliza Fannin and is so parental in tone, from "you haven't written..." to a quotation advising care of mind over appearance (the unnamed source here) to chastising her to take better care of her teeth (recommendation: rub with pulverized charcoal and a toothbrush). For some reason the last page (with the address) is largely occupied with a list of rulers of England.

The writer inserts forgotten words into the left margin with a ^ added wherever it belonged in the sentence. It was a little confusing to encounter the first time, since (unlike the pictured example) the word belonged further down the line, and I wasn't sure where the extra word was actually meant to go.

The second document is deceptive. It starts out as a typewritten article that had been OCR'd, but near the bottom and on the back of the page is begins handwritten (in smudged pencil)...notes? An addendum? It's a bit messy, and the paper is thin enough that on the back that the type shows through and further muddies things.

The last item was another transfer of property and so-so in difficulty.  Pretty legible with some difficult places helped along by remembering the general language of these things from past documents.

Last box (#49, photos 721-810) of Franklin Beauty School photos went by with no complications. This set had been skipped over initially, and I added them to the spreadsheet in order (I highlighted the left column yellow to distinguish them, since I wasn't sure whether they should be in order or just come at the end).

Sheet music collection - Mary Sommerfeld May 9, 2013

There were a  few challenges along the way today.

But it was fairly productive, rows 192 to 206 were dealt with and 6 new entries added.
That gave a grand total of 20 entries.

I left my USB cable at home so I will be adding some cover art in the next few days.

Old Vault Letters, Michelle Godfrey - May 8, 2013

Today I worked on MSS0113-b01f15-06, -b01f19-04 and -b01f19-05.

The first item was another letter to Eliza Fannin. It had some condition issues, including a large hole in the paper. The pages were scanned in such a way that the endings of some of the lines rolled onto the next page and looked like they were part of the text there. With both pages side by side, it was possible to make out some of those questionable areas.

The second and third items were actually part of the same letter but the pages were out of order. We previously worked on a portion of the letter a few weeks ago. It was easy to recognize because of the letterhead on the stationary.

Old Vault Letters and Litterst Dixon Photographs - Elaine Patton, 5/6/2013

Today I reviewed the letters Michelle worked on previously, MSS0113-b01f13-01, -b01f15-02 , and -b01f15-03. Not much for me to add (though I think I actually had to add some misspellings to the second letter!). The second and third letters are part of the correspondence between Eliza Fannin and her family (-b01f13-01 dated 2 years after -b01f15-02). Her education was obviously paying off-- such a difference in style and spelling between her letter and the one from her father!

(He charmingly refers to influenza as "influenzy" a couple of times in his letter: )

The Litterst Dixon photographs were great, though one image was mislabeled. MSS1248-2910 was supposed to have been the Preston Hotel but was instead a duplicate of MSS1248-2911.

Just for fun, another comparison photo with modern/historic Houston. As near as I can tell, this is the same area on Main Street (the red flag possibly being where the movie theaters had been in the first modern photo; where the Kirby theater had been and looking from the opposite direction in the second modern photo), 1930 vs 2011:

 

(A 1961 postcard photo is shown on this page about the theaters.)

Sheet Music Collection, Mary Sommerfeld May 1, 2013

Working with the sheet music found on the 5th floor.
I worked through 19 entries (row 172 to row 191).
I also added in 3 new entries to the spread sheet.

One of the folders contained two different covers for the same music.
What was interesting was that each were published in the same year and stated the song was featured in two different shows.

The other cover that stood out has a very pleasant picture. The song title "The Children of the Clouds" refers to raindrops.

 

 



 

Old Vault Letters, Michelle Godfrey - May 1, 2013

Today I switched to the group of letters Elaine previously completed which included MSS0113-b01f12-08, -b01f15-01, and –b01f15-05. I only found a few extra words to add since she had done a great job getting everything else figured out.   

The first document was like the one last week with the property sale listing an endless list of block and lot numbers. 

Our second letter was not in the best condition and was obviously really old, unfortunately, there was not a date written on it anywhere so it's a mystery as to when it was written.

The last letter written to Eliza Fannin seems to be connected to one of the letters I worked on last week (-b01f15-05).  Both letters mentioned the same things about clothing, especially underclothes, traveling to Salem for a visit, and family news updates.