Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/29/16

What is interesting about today is that it is Monday instead of Tuesday or Thursday when I normally make entries. This is because next week is spring break so I'm heading off to CT tomorrow!

Today I ended on the Weekly Bulletin Board of issue 31. This section is a recent addition and it seems to have taken off pretty well with the readers. There is also the new horoscope section; it may be from 40 years ago and... a horoscope, but I thought mine was pretty accurate.

A new bar seems to have opened up in Houston in October, possibly September called the Depository. It seems like a great place, but their advertisements are not so friendly to the software that converts them to OCR text.

I have been seeing more and more ads for groups, most notably for the Christian groups, motorcycle riding groups, and the Gay Political Caucus. I've been adding to them in the description.

'til next week

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/25/16

In one of his Screen Shop essays, Cristopher Savitch says that "capitalizing on a human tragedy is disgusting animalism." Then he asks, "Does greed know no bounds?" I don't know, Mr. Savitch.

I finished today on "A Fairy Tale of Sorts" in issue 29 of volume 1. I would like to make note to myself, on this blog, that I should go back to This Week's Supporters in issue 28 to switch the little dots that appeared to dashes. Also, I came across today for the first time an ad specifically for Dignity/Houston, a group for gay Catholics and Christians. I've come across it before in the "Around the State this Week" sections and possibly in the "Sampling Texas" sections, but I haven't been adding it to the descriptions because it's not one of the businesses/bars; in other words, it's a group, not a place. I've also not been including names like the Gay Caucus, TADS, MCC, and others for this same reason. Now I am wondering if I'd like to do this. I put it in the description of the page in which it appeared as an ad, which is, for now... a start. 

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/23/16

I think the magazine is getting funnier all the time. Today's issues were very enjoyable. I miss the disco of the 70s and I wasn't even there.

I started in issue 25 today and ended once again on the Doctors Bag, this time in issue 27. I believe that today there was more typing involved than usual, although now that I think of it I'm unsure why. I think I'm getting better at discerning when it would make more sense to type something out and when it would be better to copy and paste the same/a similar ad from another page. This latter method can be quicker, unless it takes a while to find the ad or if it turns out that the ad is not so similar to the one on the current page. My favorite ad might be the Swamp Trash one - not because it pretty much never changes, although that does come in handy, but because it has an alligator and a fun font.

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/18/16

Today I finished up on Doctors Bag of issue 25 of volume 1. I was a little scared that I would have a very hard time getting through as many pages as I wanted today. When I first started working, the PDFs were opening up in a way that I was not used to. This made it so that when I clicked on the CONTENTdm page in order to edit the OCR text in the transcript, the PDF would minimize. I'm not sure how well I'm explaining the problem, but it made it so that I couldn't look at the magazine's PDF form while at the same time editing the OCR text on CONTENTdm - I had to switch from one to the other. However, it turns out that this was pretty easily fixable! I changed a few settings in Internet Explorer so that the PDFs opened up via the browser rather than Adobe. This makes it possible for the PDF window to stay maximized even if I start clicking around other programs.

Other than that, progress has continued as usual. I know I keep saying it, but I definitely want to go back and try to use the same business names as I write them in the descriptions. The example that comes to mind today is Mr. Frizby's. Is it Mr. Frizby? Mr. Frizby's? Mr. Frizby's Bath Club? Some combination of those ways of writing it and others? This remains to be seen!

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/16/16

I've stopped today on the Answers by Eve cont. page of issue number 23. This is the first issue with an Answers by Eve section and it was so cool coming across it.

I have found that I move more slowly now through sections with a lot of text whereas before I had more trouble with the ads. I think this is because I'm getting used to doing those trickier, image based ads and because I'm usually really interested in what the advice, movie, medical, and sampling Texas sections have to say.

Besides the new Answers by Eve section, there are some new businesses choosing to advertise in the magazine as well as a new format for numbering the pages that has popped up in issue 23. The page numbers are no longer preceded by "Page," which makes it look a little funky in the transcript in CONTENTdm, but I think it's okay.

Another interesting thing I came across was an ad for The Spur that didn't use the word "spur" but instead a picture of one. I chose not to write the word in the transcript although I did include the bar name in the description.

'til Thursday.

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/11/16

I've ended today on Face & Places of issue 21, volume 1 of This Week In Texas. I think my pacing has been pretty consistent! Today went without issue. The magazine really seems to be finding its rhythm. There are sometimes typos in the PDF text that I leave in the OCR text because it seems to be more loyal to how the magazine is. I think a lot of the typos have to do with the fact that they didn't have the internet back then (I'm pretty sure). For example, I just quickly checked on my phone to make sure that I spelled "rhythm" right. Back in 1975, I would've needed a big dictionary.

I hope to get through issue 23 on Tuesday.

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/9/16

I was able to get through the last pages of issue 17 today as well as issue number 18 and about half-way through number 19. Issue 18 took a while because of the ad for the Bath Club Hawaii Tour. I bet that was so fun for the people who went. Luckily, when it was repeated in issue 19, I was able to just copy what I already had previously.

Since I've been doing a lot of copy and pasting, next week I plan to try searching for certain advertisements that show up a lot and are harder than other ones to type out fully using the OCR text already in the transcript.

I almost lost part of the short story "It's a Boy (Death Notice)" on page 14 of issue 19 because I somehow selected all of the text in the transcript and replaced it with a solitary "b." The good news is that Jeanette was able to help me close the software so that my progress was reverted to where I had last saved - just one page back! This will encourage me to continue saving.

I've been mostly sticking to just putting bar/business names in the Description section since I haven't decided on how I will consistently format them. I think it could be quicker to go back and edit them later.

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/4/16

Today I finished up issue number 15, 16, and almost 17 of the 1st volume of This Week in Texas. It's really interesting how the magazine is evolving. Some of the newer sections are so funny.

I am still unsure how I will end up formatting the descriptions. As I continue to go through the issues and come across the same businesses, I'm leaning towards trying to format them more consistently than I have been. It doesn't look like the basic information (name, address, phone-number) is changing, but how I write it does vary. Just as one example, the bar "Detour" comes up a lot, and sometimes I write it as "The Detour" while other times I skip the "the."

On a couple pages in these issues were maps. On page 22 of issue 15 and page 13 of issue 17. In the OCR text for the first map, some of the street names were picked up from the map and I left them there. However, I removed them the second time around. I did this because not all of the street names were picked up. Next time, I'll take out the street names that were detected from the first map. Actually, I have a few minutes to spare, so I will go ahead and do that now. 

Alicia, "This Week in Texas" project, 2/2/16

Today I went through half of issue number 8, all of number 12, and I've got just a little bit left of number 15. I was a little surprised that there weren't any issues between these ones. I wonder what they're like! I think they're similar to the ones I've gone through, but these most recent issues that I've worked on have changed a little bit. There are new sections, new businesses, etc.

It turns out that for now I don't have to worry about my previous "dot" vs "dash" problem. I am also going to postpone making a decision on how I will make the business information in the description section consistent. I'd like to do this but for now I'll just write the information down as it looks on the page. I've also decided to keep the business types as written in the "This Week's Supporters" section because I think they could be useful. Maybe if it turns out that they're not, I will remove them.

Since the content is starting to change I'm really looking forward to the next few issues. The advice columns are better made into OCRText so... mostly I just get to read them :) There are very few edits for these.