VOINOVICH
POLITICAL PAPERS PROJECT
User-selected digitization:
Politics & access, hand-in-hand
Janet Carleton, Ohio University Libraries
Midwest Archives Conference - April 20, 2013
Talk
• Senator overview
• Project overview
• Where we are
• Lessons learned &
issues
• Future
GVV Overview
• Native of Cleveland, b.1936, of
Croatian Serb & Slovenian heritage
• Ohio University, bachelor’s in
government / OSU law degree
• Elected to more public offices than
any other Ohioan
• Only person to have served as
both Chairman of the National
Governors Association & President
of the National League of Cities.
GVV OVERVIEW – ELECTED OFFICES
• 1963 – Assistant Attorney General of Ohio
• 1967-1971 – Ohio House of Representatives
• 1971-1976 – County Auditor, Cuyahoga County (Cleveland)
• 1977-1978 – Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners
• 1979 – Lieutenant Governor of Ohio
• 1979-1989 – Mayor of Cleveland
• 1991-1998 – Governor of Ohio
• 1999-2011 – US Senator from Ohio
Project Purpose
•
Expose requested items from Voinovich collections in
single interface for study and research
•
Involve faculty in selection process as means to
promote classroom use
Project Partners
Cleveland State University
•
Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs
•
Center for Public History + Digital Humanities
Ohio University
•
Ohio University Libraries, Mahn Center for Archives &
Special Collections
•
Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs
(Senator George V. Voinovich)
Content owners
Ohio University Libraries, Mahn Center for Archives & Special
Collections
• George V. Voinovich Gubernatorial Collection 1991-1998* (1400 cu. ft.)
• Senator George V. Voinovich Papers 1999-2011 (500 cu. ft.)
• George V. Voinovich Campaigns Collection (180 cu. ft.)
Western Reserve Historical Society
•
Records of the Mayor of the City of Cleveland, George V. Voinovich* (127 ln.
ft.)
*State Archives of Ohio, Ohio Historical Society
Content owners, con’t.
George V. Voinovich
•
Personal collection
Core Project Team—
Cleveland State University
•
Melanie - Project manager (Maxine Goodman Levin College of
Urban Affairs)
•
Erin - Omeka site designer (Center for Public History + Digital
Humanities)
•
Faculty
Core Project Team—Ohio University
•
Sara – Head of Art & Archives (Libraries)
•
Janet – Digital Initiatives Coordinator (Libraries)
•
Alex – Programmer (Libraries)
•
Diana - Cataloger (Libraries)
•
Doug – Mss Curator (Libraries)
•
Student Workers - (Libraries)
•
Faculty (Voinovich Center)
Project Team--DI
• Digital Initiatives unit
• Report to AD for Collections &
Access (along with Preservation,
Cataloging, Stacks, etc.)
• Undergraduate student
workers
• Collaborative metadata work
w/ cataloger
Current site
Where we are now
• First faculty-selected
materials from Senatorial
& Gubernatorial collections
online
• Digitizing campaign
material
• Prepping mayoral material
for ingest
What is “popular”? What is “interesting”?
• 2 very different things
• Lucasville
• Rock Hall
Some issues
• Tone
• Design
• Metadata
• Eye candy
• Content
• Profs pick groups of documents
Issue: Tone
• Let the documents tell the story
• Balanced accounting
• Hard to let go of campaigning
• Please the donor
Issue: Design:
Metadata
• Metadata display
• Metadata folks want more
metadata—design folks want
less metadata
• Accordion hides metadata
Issue: Design: Eye Candy
• Not so visually interesting for a lot of folks, so archivists
search collections for eye candy
• May or may not have anything to do with documents
currently on site
Issue: Content
• Profs pick by subject/groups of documents
• Picking and choosing individual items seems against the “archives
way”
• Yet, putting subject files online doesn’t seem workable either
• Reference material GVV & staffers used, but not suitable for
online due to IP issues, donor confidentiality
• White papers, newspaper clippings, journal articles, etc.
• What works for a visit to the physical archives doesn’t seem to work
for this…
Future
• Faculty fellowship for fall 2013 / more faculty participation
• 1804 grant funding
• Additional mayoral
• Additional campaign
• More video/audio
Contact
Janet Carleton
Digital Initiatives Coordinator
OHIO University Libraries
Athens, Ohio
carleton@ohio.edu
@jcarletonoh
http://media.library.ohiou.edu
http://pinterest.com/ohiodigiarchive/
http://www.voinovichcollections.library.ohio.edu/