Maneater Newsletter Digitization

The Project

For the final project in my course, Digital Libraries, we were tasked with creating a digital archive for the campus newspaper, The Maneater. Specifically, they asked us to create an archive for their daily newsletters that was easily accessible and searchable on a free repository. Each person was required to be the head of a group focused on different aspects of the digitization and a member of a secondary group. I was head of the Usability group and also worked with the Preservation Group.

Starting Out

We started out with research into Usability standards and best practices. We put forth several archiving softwares to the Software and Systems group, however due to lack of budget for the project and a compressed timeframe this was not possible. Eventually it was decided that the Archive would be stored on the University’s academic repository, MoSpace. This change in software from a service we would build ourselves, to one that was already maintained by University staff necessitated a change in focus.

Final Product

After the changes in the project had been decided, I switched Usability’s focus from front-end users to back-end users. This meant that our focus was no longer on testing and building as was the initial plan, but instead on creating a set of best practices that would be able to continue through multiple generations of students. I was able to take the research we had done into Usability best practices and combine them with MoSpace’s current best practices to make an easy to understand list of guidelines for Maneater staff to follow through when sending files to the MoSpace staff to upload and digitize. Though the project had many setbacks from the lack of budget and server space to the compressed timeframe, ultimately a final product was presented and hopefully the groundwork has been laid by the class for the Maneater to continue the work on their own.