After a relaxing spring break, I was able to quickly get back into the swing of things for the 12th week of my internship. The majority of my work had to do with researching and entering place names into the skeletal metadata. Other than this work, I had the usual team meetings that had useful presentations and exercises.
Since the Groeschl metadata contained little information on receiver place names, I have spent the last two work weeks researching and entering the correct places. This week I improved my process using advice from Astrid and my own experiences. For every single letter, I would first find the digital ID located in the Endnote metadata. I would then go to the AFSt-renamed folder on Teams (where the original documents are found) where I would search for that specific ID. I would always check the last page of the document first, as that is often where the envelope was included. I quickly found that the bottom right of the envelopes is where the place name would be located. If the place name was hard for me to read, I would ask someone else for their expertise. Professor Beiler was helpful in this regard, helping me to identify the location of Glaucha despite the hard-to-read handwriting. If I couldn’t find the location on the last page, I would go through the rest of the pages before checking back through the skeletal metadata. If I got no hints as to the location from the abstract, I would turn to a few sources. For information on where the receivers were when the letters were sent, I would check sources that others had put on the Teams as well as the Francke Foundations website and Deutsche Biographie. If none of these sources gave me any insight, I would turn to a simple google search. If nothing could be found at that step, I would simply put the receiver’s place in as [unknown]. When the sources pointed me in a certain direction but could not give me an answer with 100% certaintly, I would place type the likely place into the skeletal metadata surrounded by brackets.
Other than this work, I attended my three usual meetings of the week. The team meeting was incredibly insightful and productive, including a more in-depth presentation by Casey on how she conducted research for Linked Open Data. While her presentation two weeks ago had good information, seeing her process step by step with real examples made me feel more prepared and confident in my own Linked Open Data abilities. Outside of Casey’s presentation, we discussed protocols for place names, landing on the conclusion that state names were to be included in the AFSt metadata. For example, instead of us simply entering “Halle, Germany”, it is preferred for us to enter “Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany”. This is better for place accuracy as certain city names (Halle for an example) are used for multiple German cities.
As always, the transcription workshops were the highlight of my week. I enjoy the transcription process tremendously, and I hope to continue participating in it even after my time with PRINT is done. As the semester winds down, I am working hard to ensure that we reach all of our goals for this semester. It’s been a great 12 weeks so far, and I expect the next few will be just as enjoyable!