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!