Week 8, August 3-9

The second to last week, I found my first real blunder on the website I have been working with. For the subjects of "The Unpublished Papers of Edmund M. Morgan," many of the links to resources in the collection were dead URLs. This made the majority of the week a slog. Luckily, the resources were still up on the old website, so I was able to complete much of the metadata. This also presented an opportunity for me to modify the spreadsheet I have been working on. Each resource that has a dead URL is color coded, with a special disclaimer at the top of the spreadsheet stating what the issue is. The purpose is, of course, to make it easier to discern a resource that needs updating on the website.

Now remember, last week I wrote about some murky areas within the "publisher" and "contributor" section. This has continued, especially since many of the documents were not officially published. One example has been prevalent. There have been many resources of memoranda and correspondence. Typically on these documents there is a label at the top of the page which says "Office of the Secretary of Defense." For the majority of this section I have been using that as the "Organization Responsible for Publication." I am not so sure that is truly the case, but there is no evidence either way. I could possibly have made a separate classification, but I decided against it.

For the most part as I go into my final 4 days of working on the metadata, I am beginning the process of reflection on the project. While these thoughts are formulating, I am thinking about how I may go about my finishing my portion of the project. As I began, way back in the late June, my goal was to complete the collection so that my supervisor can have some closure. I was supposed to have had a partner on the project so that this goal could have come to fruition. Alas, for one reason or another, the other intern opted out of the project, and I was forced to work solo. This left me without a collaborator to bounce ideas off of, and it also left the last part of the project in the lurch. I have no doubts that should I have had a partner, we would have completed it with time to spare. My only hope is that this project doesn't fall by the wayside and that one day soon it can be completed.