August 16, 2024 • 60 mins
PART 1 of THE STORIES ARCHIVES TELL
Guest: Katie Gentilello, Digital Projects Coordinator at the Georgia Tech Library
First broadcast August 16 2024.
Transcript at: https://hdl.handle.net/1853/75507; Playlist here
"One might think you have an agenda..."
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:00):
OK, Fred, before we start the show,
(00:02):
I need to give you some context.
We did episode 605on June 7, 2024.
No broadcast problems,but the station's encoder
was, we'll justsay, on the fritz.
FRED RASCOE (00:13):
So there was no podcast version.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:16):
So there was no podcast.
We're taking a Mulligan onthis particular episode.
FRED RASCOE (00:22):
Well, this is going to be part one of a series.
And we've already done part two.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:28):
Just roll the cold open, man.
Let's get going.
SUBJECT 3 (00:31):
As an archivist, there is one question I dread.
Not, what is an archivist?
I love my job and I cantalk about it at length.
It is, after all,looking after the written
heritage of the world.
Not, it must be lovely workingwith all those old documents.
It is.
(00:52):
The question I dread is, aren'tyou going to digitize it all?
The answer is simple.
No.
[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:23):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta,
and this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thevirtual studio with everyone--
Marlee Givens, FredRascoe, and Alex McGee.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
(01:45):
Whichever you tune infor, we hope you dig it.
ALEX MCGEE (01:49):
Our show today is part of our new series,
the stories that archivestell, and is called "You
Can't Digitize Everything,"the Lyman Hall edition,
which I hope let's youknow, out the gate,
I'm looking to break some heartsand set some stuff straight.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:02):
Alex, one might think
you have an agendafor this episode.
ALEX MCGEE (02:06):
Yeah, I kind of do.
In archives, weoften hear from folks
that we should digitizeeverything and put it online.
And that would be the best.
But the reality is so muchmore complex than that.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:18):
And so you have brought some backup.
ALEX MCGEE (02:20):
That's right.
To talk more about thecomplexity of digitizing
everything and a recentmass digitization project
we are doing hereat Georgia Tech.
I've invited my colleagueand resident digitization
expert, Katie Gentilello.
FRED RASCOE (02:33):
And our songs today are about easy solutions,
solving plans, andtelling stories.
As Alex said, alot of people think
the solution to archivaland access problems
is to just digitizeeverything and pop it
on the world wide web.
Easy, right?
Well, that's an easyto understand idea,
but it's very wrong.
(02:55):
It's harder to explain whywe can't digitize everything.
So here's "Hard toExplain" by Coriky,
right here on Lostin the Stacks.
[CORIKY, "HARD TO EXPLAIN"]
ALEX MCGEE (03:10):
That was "Hard to Explain" by Coriky.
Our show today is "YouCan't Digitize Everything,"
the Lyman Hall edition.
And we are joined in the studioby current and future guest
Katie Gentilello, DigitalProject Coordinator
at the Georgia Tech Library.
KATIE GENTILELLO: Thanks for having me. (03:26):
undefined
ALEX MCGEE (03:28):
I guess we're going to start
with why digitizing everythingjust simply won't work.
We know that itis time-consuming.
There's a cost to it, the laborcosts, the environmental cost.
But let's talk aboutall of that, Katie.
KATIE GENTILELLO (03:44):
So I've been doing this for, I think,
28 years at last count.
So I've seen a lot of differentcollections over the years.
Lots of different materials havedifferent levels of usefulness,
I think, for researchers, forjust the community in general.
But there's a lot of it.
(04:04):
And there's a lot ofdifferent types of materials.
I just recentlyhad a conversation
with a friend ofmine who said, well,
isn't it just easy tojust digitize that book
or digitize that rare material?
And I explained tohim just how long
it took to preparethe materials,
the selection, the handling.
The digitizationis the easy part.
(04:25):
Then to make those images usefuland adding all the value added--
metadata, description,and then the systems
that they'll go into.
It's a very long process.
And when you multiplythat times thousands
upon millions ofpages of documents,
it really does eat up alot of time and resources.
(04:46):
So yeah, it's a piein the sky idea.
Wish it was a lot easier to do.
But unfortunately,it's a challenge.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:54):
And Katie, I remember the beginnings
of digitizing everythingmany years ago,
watching you take very carefuldigital photos of maps.
So I think you might even beminimizing the digitization
requirements.
Because you're good at it.
You do it now.
But taking a picture ormaking a scan of page
(05:19):
after page or objects, eventhat's not very simple.
People seem to thinkthat it's like, run it
through some machine.
But the machine is you.
KATIE GENTILELLO: Yeah, I mean, there's (05:29):
undefined
a lot of different digitizationequipment out there.
I think most people are familiarwith just flatbed scanners,
which is take your single sheet,flop it down, take a scan,
and then you've got it.
But that doesn't workfor archival materials.
You have books, youhave bound volumes,
you have oversizeddocuments that
require special handlingand special technology
(05:51):
to be able to digitizethose in a way
where they're not goingto damage the original,
bending pages, orcracking book spines,
or even down to the lights,they can't be putting out heat.
So there is a technologyspecific to the materials
(06:12):
that you're using.
And so there's a learningcurve of learning how to use it
and then and then using itcorrectly with the materials.
Yeah, so it's yetanother challenge
to point that you pointed out.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And you then said (06:25):
undefined
you have to add stuff to it.
And that's themetadata, of course.
And I feel like this is wherewe turn it on you, Alex,
and start asking you questions.
Do you work with digitizedpapers that come to you
and then have to come up withthe metadata, the filling in all
(06:45):
the forms, all the stuff?
ALEX MCGEE (06:47):
So I don't do that part usually.
I do the ArchivesSpacedescription,
which kind of influences themetadata, or the metadata
can influence theArchivesSpace description.
I mean, same idea,thinking about how
people find these things whenthey are digitized online,
(07:07):
what's useful.
That is an additional layerof description beyond just
the digital files themselves.
So there's the scanning andthe metadata for the scans.
And then there's thedescription piece
in our repository, ourfinding aid system.
FRED RASCOE (07:25):
Do you have a sense, Katie or Alex,
how much time or money orboth that one piece of paper
in the archivecollection scanned
and then made accessible fromzero to fully accessible,
what kind of effort, money,resources are we talking about?
ALEX MCGEE (07:48):
This is a thing that everyone is trying to quantify.
There's lots of calculatorsand things online.
People have writtenpapers about this.
And it's so dependent on whatyour setup is and the level
of detail you're doing.
(08:08):
I mean, Katie, I don't knowthat we've done it here.
But I mean, we havestudent workers.
There's the cost ofliterally the storage space
that we keep for our files.
If you're talking aboutdigital preservation
on top of just the access copy,that's another layer of cost.
(08:28):
It's not cheap.
KATIE GENTILELLO (08:31):
I mean, I can address
based on the Lyman Hallletters about how much time it
takes to do 50 pages.
Scanning, I believe, we weredoing it over several hours,
so we would probably getmaybe 200, 250 pages done
in that period of time.
Then you take those raw scansand I have to quality control
(08:54):
check them.
Then I have to runthem through a filter
to make them readablebecause they faded.
The text is faded somuch that you can't just
look at the documentand be able to read it.
I have to run it through a redfilter to make it contrasty.
So there's thatpreprocessing, getting
it ready for transcriptions.
Then we're hand-transcribingthem because we cannot apply
(09:16):
OCR, which means [AUDIO OUT]which is optical character
recognition software to it.
And then to transcribe,just to actually
read and transcribe 50 pagesprobably takes about 10 hours.
And then after that,I follow back up
and fill in any gaps that weremissed and formatting issues,
save it, createderivative files,
(09:37):
and then from there thosefiles go into a queue
to be added to the repository.
So you can just seethat for 50 pages.
And we're dealing with 10,000pages with this Lyman Hall
collection.
So you can do the math.
FRED RASCOE (09:51):
No, thank you.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I can't actually. (09:52):
undefined
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
I sometimes want to say whensomeone does that quick kind of,
well, we justdigitize everything
and then you'll be able to getto everything on the internet
or something.
I want to ask them,when's the last time
you went through andcaptioned every one
of your digital photos?
MARLEE GIVENS (10:11):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
We'll be back to talk more aboutthe difficulties of digitizing
everything or not everythingafter a music set.
File this set under BD71.S37.
[BEST COAST, "HOW THEY WANT METO BE"]
[VOCALIZING]
(10:38):
[BE YOUR OWN PET, "BIG TROUBLE"]And when I tell you I want you
to believe
That was "Big Trouble"by Be Your Own Pet.
And before that, "How TheyWant Me to Be" by Best Coast,
songs about recognizing theflaws and easy solutions.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in the Stacks.
(10:58):
And today's show is called "YouCan't Digitize Everything,"
the Lyman Hall edition.
We have Katie Gentilello,Digital Projects Coordinator
at the Georgia Tech Libraryin the studio with us today.
We've talked about howtime-consuming, how
expensive of all the processes.
Let's talk abouthow we decide what
(11:19):
we digitize in the archives.
Katie, how do wemake our decisions
about prioritizing what getsdigitized for a large scale
project like the Lyman Hall one?
KATIE GENTILELLO (11:30):
Yeah, that's a good question.
There's a lot ofconsiderations that
go into how do we decidewhat is worthy, I guess,
is maybe not a fairassessment, but because we
have this limitation, we haveto decide on a rating scale.
We have a prioritizationmatrix that we've come up
with as a department that looksat different factors, such as,
(11:53):
is this material unique?
Is it something that'salready been digitized
and is available onlinewith another group?
How many requests do weget, research requests do we
get for this type of material?
What is its historic value?
Do we rate it pretty high inits uniqueness and the impact
that it has on our researchers?
(12:14):
Or is it low?
We also look athow diverse is it
in terms of what arewe offering online,
what story is it telling.
And then the usual ones likecopyright-- is it in copyright?
Is it not?
Available metadata.
We keep talking aboutmetadata, but when
you're handed a collectionthat has very little processing
(12:38):
done to it and you're kindof doing that in tandem
while you'redigitizing, it makes
for a very, very-- you'readding more time and more labor.
So all of those factors go intoa rating system that we apply.
With the LymanHall situation, we
chose this collection outsideof that prioritization matrix
because it was identified assomething that was at risk.
(13:00):
And that's also anotherone of our parameters.
The risk of thisparticular collection
being lost to theages was so high
that all of the other factorsbecame kind of a moot point.
And when I say at risk, theseletters are over 120 years
old and were typed on onionskinpaper that is very brittle
(13:21):
and it was falling apart.
And so you're dealing with fadedtext and you're dealing with,
literally iscrumbling into shards.
So we were able todigitize that and then
be able to augmentits quality so
that we could get the content.
So that was a bit of a uniquedigitization prioritization
(13:43):
situation.
That's a lot of words.
But it was necessary inthis particular situation.
And I'm glad.
I'm glad that wedid it because it's
been very enlightening touncover so much rich Georgia
Tech history thathas been inaccessible
for quite some time.
MARLEE GIVENS (14:02):
I was just curious
if the matrix also has anoption for farming it out,
like hiring a contract service,or if that's just something
that every individuallibrary decides if they want
to do that in house or not.
KATIE GENTILELLO (14:18):
Yeah, that's a good question.
It's not part ofthe prioritization
matrix officially.
But it is somethingthat we will certainly
look at on a collectionby collection basis.
Just as an example, we havethe living history collection
(14:38):
that is a collectionof DVDs, DV tapes, VHS.
And it was actuallyproposed as like,
is this a collection thatwe should outsource or is
this something thatwe can do in house?
And having sent collectionsfor outsourcing,
I mean, the biggest,I think, elephant
(14:59):
in the room withthat is the risk.
Your collections areleaving your custody.
So then you have tomake sure shipping
and just the act of gettingthem to some other unit
outside of yourorganization is concerning.
I've also had successfuloutsourcing projects.
So yeah, it's just acase by case basis.
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:20):
Katie, let's get the listeners up
to speed on this collectionbecause we all know Lyman Hall,
both as a building and a person.
But what is this collection ofletters and why is it important?
KATIE GENTILELLO (15:32):
OK, So just as a quick recap,
so Lyman Hall was the secondpresident of Georgia Tech.
And he was instrumental infundraising for Georgia Tech,
especially getting theFrench textile school up
off the ground.
He was also responsible forseveral dormitories being built.
He was a military man, sohe had very strong ideas
(15:53):
about discipline on campus.
His letters started in 1898.
So he was about, I think, on histhird year of his presidency.
They run untilhis death in 1905.
They're letters fromoutgoing correspondence
that he was able to documentthroughout his presidency.
And they run thegamut from just,
(16:15):
hey, here's some informationabout Georgia Tech to asking
Andrew Carnegie formoney for a library,
and asking the city ofAtlanta to pave North Avenue,
and writing letters to Mr.Peters about the land where
Peter's parkinglot is, that he was
trying to get some of that landpurchased for Georgia Tech.
(16:36):
So there's a lot ofrich history in there.
And every now and then,I'll uncover something
I get particularlynerdy and excited about
and I have to share it withthe Archives Department.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:45):
We need an example of that.
Get nerdy with us.
KATIE GENTILELLO (16:49):
OK, you're putting me on the spot.
So he was heading into theChristmas holidays of 1899.
And he had come upwith a list of students
who were worthless and notworthless-- or hopeless,
I'm sorry, hopeless.
(17:09):
Hopeless.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:10):
Wow.
KATIE GENTILELLO (17:11):
In his mind, I think,
based on reading allthese letters for--
I've read now like 3,500letters of his-- and hopeless,
it's I've given them anopportunity multiple times
to show me that they'rebeing responsible students
and they're not.
So in his mind, thisis my hopeless list
and this is mynot hopeless list.
(17:32):
And he sent letters to theparents during the holidays,
letting them know that theirstudent may need to consider not
coming back to GeorgiaTech, which you can imagine,
during the Christmasholidays, now,
his outgoing correspondencechanged to a lot of fielding
angry letters fromparents saying,
"you're kicking my kidout of Georgia Tech?"
(17:52):
It's funny and interesting.
FRED RASCOE (17:54):
I think it would make
national news if auniversity president called
students worthless.
KATIE GENTILELLO: I think so, too. (17:58):
undefined
Yeah.
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Alex, these letters, (18:01):
undefined
are they an exampleof the content
is a lot more importantthan the object itself?
ALEX MCGEE (18:09):
Yeah, I would say the information in the letters
is what is valuable as opposedto the physical item itself.
Because preserving onionskin is a losing game for us.
And so that's why this is areally great example of why--
this is an idealdigitization project.
We are rushing tosave the content
because of how rich it is.
(18:31):
And now we'll havethese digital scans.
That is the primary usecopy we will have now.
And that's our preservationcopy now, too, almost.
MARLEE GIVENS (18:42):
You are listening to Lost in the Stacks.
And we'll talk more aboutarchives and digitization
on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON (18:54):
Hi, I'm Kim Stanley Robinson,
science fiction writer and a fanof The Ramblin' Recks of Georgia
Tech.
This is WREK.
[MUSIC PLAYING] And I know
And I know
And I know that everybody
And I know thateverybody be happy
It's happy as you and me
(19:15):
'Cause I know.
CHARLIE BENNETT (19:18):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
And our show today is called"You Can't Digitize Everything."
It's the first in anew occasional series,
"Recalling StoriesThat Archives Tell,"
which is shorthand for theunwieldy original title.
Let's consider what we'veput into archives in order
to craft the rough draft ofhistories both local and global.
And remember, that if youfind something in an archive,
(19:40):
it's because an archivist putit there, not some random event.
And also, let's stop imagininghuge single-action solutions
for the ever-changing problemsof access, preservation
and discovery in ourcultural institutions.
And I thank Alexfor joining the team
and getting ashorter title there.
I want to tell youall a quick story.
(20:01):
On May 10th, 2009, Computerworldpublished a piece by columnist
Mike Elgan titled, "Why YouShould Digitize Everything."
So I had to read that, right?
Here's how it starts.
"Two events this week,one personal and another
that is makinginternational headlines,
made me rethink what canand should be digitized--
(20:22):
everything."
From here, Mr. Elgansays that his work
as a writer and the natureof the internet at the time
meant that he no longer neededto be in the same house year
round.
So he and his family were goingto become semi-nomadic, spending
most of the year traveling.
This meant selling the house,downsizing dramatically.
(20:42):
That's his personal event.
The international eventwas raging wildfires
in CentralCalifornia, which made
it unflinchingly clear that anycollection of physical things
that his family kept wasin danger of destruction.
His proposed solution wasto get rid of everything,
and whatever was somehowimportant and irreplaceable
they would digitize.
(21:02):
He wrote, "When itcomes to deciding
whether to keep ordiscard something,
where do you draw the line?
Old holiday and birthday cards?
OK, those can be discarded.
Mother's Day cards from kids?
Hmm.
Trophies?
Yikes.
There are a millionitems that make
you feel a loss when you toss.
But if you keep them, they'llbe buried unseen for decades."
(21:23):
His solution was afive-step process.
One-- capture.
Take digital picturesof everything.
Two-- index for search, and letme quote him at length on that.
"Sign up for an accountwith Evernote," he says.
Download thedesktop application.
And I should say, members ofthe show are now laughing.
Download the desktop applicationand drop all your pictures
(21:45):
into the application.
Evernote will uploadthem all to its servers.
And here's the best part--
index all words it findsin the pictures, which
makes them searchable.
Later, you can just searchEvernote as if it were Google.
I'm going to let that one go by.
And find pictures ofjust about any item.
You can also categorize,tag, sort, or file everything
(22:06):
in any way you choose.
Then he says, "Stepthree is share.
Upload sentimental and appealingpictures to social media
accounts.
Four-- backup."
And he suggests a paid service.
"And finally, number five--
discard."
As he says, "Here'sthe best part.
Shred, recycle,burn, or discard most
of this stuff you digitized.
(22:28):
We no longer have tomanage all those boxes.
Best of all, neither fire nortime nor neglect can destroy
the photographswe took of them."
OK.
Here is a post by a man namedMark Foerster on an Evernote
forum on March 10 of this year.
(22:48):
Quote, "Evernotehas now forced me
to change from thelegacy version, i.e.
the version that actuallyworked, to Evernote 10.
Now that I have beenforced to leave Legacy,
I found that 10 iseven worse than it
was when I first tried it.
In fact, it's anabsolute nightmare.
Nothing in the right place,nothing is intuitive.
It's very ugly,difficult to use,
(23:09):
and missing some of the featureswhich I used a lot, for example,
presentation mode.
I've been with Evernotefrom its very earliest days.
I have got a vastamount of stuff in it.
Moving would be amajor effort, yet I
think I'm going to have to.
What are the latestrecommendations
for alternatives?"
(23:30):
I hope everyone can drawtheir own conclusions.
And we can file thisset under PR6037.C23.
[DAVID BYRNE AND BRIAN ENO,"STRANGE OVERTONES"]
(23:51):
That was "Strange Overtones"by David Byrne and Brian Eno,
a song about figuring outhow to achieve a goal.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in the Stacks.
And our show today is called"Stories Archives Tell--
You Can't Digitize Everything,"the Lyman Hall edition.
Our guest is Katie Gentilello,Digital Projects Coordinator
(24:13):
at the Georgia Tech Library.
So Katie, you saidin the last segment
that you've read a lot ofthese Lyman Hall letters.
Do you have a number in yourhead, how many you've read?
KATIE GENTILELLO: Probably about 3,500. (24:25):
undefined
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:28):
3,500.
I don't even know how to start.
What's good about them?
What's in there?
What have you learnedreading 3,500 letters from
an ex-president of Georgia Tech?
KATIE GENTILELLO (24:41):
I did a presentation to the department
about a year ago about some ofthe things that I've uncovered.
I would say, I introduced LymanHall as my friend Lyman Hall.
Because when you step back intopersonal letters like that, even
in the position that hewas in as a president,
you get a sense ofwho that person was,
(25:03):
what's important to them,what isn't important.
We know that he hadan untimely death
while he was the presidentof Georgia Tech, likely due
to the stress.
And you can get asense of that stress
that he's increasinglyunderfundraising
and dealing with an increasingnumber of matriculated students.
(25:26):
They started out at 150.
In 1900, they're up to 400.
They're asking for more dorms.
They're askingfor more resources
from the legislature thatare not being forthcoming.
He's asking his friends andbenefactors for more money.
He's asking for, with thetextile school coming online,
(25:47):
he's asking for local cottonmills to donate materials.
He's not gettingmuch of a response.
So you can see that he'sin a hopeful position,
but he's also dealingwith the large amount
of stress of just tryingto get this institution up
off the ground.
He mentions overturesto go and be
the president of otherschools and turns it down
(26:09):
because he has strong feelingsabout getting Georgia Tech up
and being the preeminentengineering school in the South.
He's very proud of that.
And you sense it.
You sense just howconvicted he is
about the success of the school.
It's a really neat kindof like pulling the wind,
(26:30):
opening the window and seeingwhat early Georgia Tech was
facing in terms of its successand just how much blood, sweat,
and tears went into getting theinstitution up off the ground.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:41):
And if anyone tried to do this project again,
these letters would startfalling apart in their hands,
right?
KATIE GENTILELLO: Oh, well, they-- (26:46):
undefined
Yeah.
They are falling aparteven as we scanned them.
Yes, unfortunately.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:52):
How many have you lost, do you think?
KATIE GENTILELLO (26:56):
Well, the volumes themselves are intact.
The individual pages arebrittle and are falling apart.
I can think of 2of the 10 volumes
right now that arein critical shape,
to the extent that theyprobably need to just be closed
(27:16):
and restricted from now on.
ALEX MCGEE (27:17):
And I think we made that call earlier this year, is
that we will not provide accessto those physical volumes
anymore.
Because with the scans,there's just no reason for us
to do that, to jeopardize them.
And people freak out when youstart having flakes of pages
(27:39):
fall apart anyway.
So we can all just spareeveryone some stress.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Katie, what have (27:43):
undefined
you learned about digitizingdoing this project maybe
that you didn't know before?
Or did you learn a new process?
Or did you figure out howto avoid an old mistake?
KATIE GENTILELLO: Yeah, so this is (27:55):
undefined
the first project where I'vehad to manually transcribe
this many words.
It's always a decision,a very weighty decision
at the front end whenyou have to decide
is this collection usefulin its current digital form.
(28:18):
And by that, I meantjust scanning the pages,
is that enough?
And I realized that it wasn't
And I tried multiple ways of--
I tried OCRing.
I tried differenttechniques to try
to make that happenprogrammatically
and it just was not successful.
(28:39):
And so to make the decision tohave to manually transcribe them
was a very bigdecision to do it.
And before I set out asking mystudent assistants to do it,
I did a few pagesmyself just to time it,
just to see how difficultit was going to be.
And once I figured out aPhotoshop filtering strategy
(29:00):
for the derivative files--
I have the originalcolor files and then I
make them black andwhite and punch up
the contrast-- once I wasable to get those contrasted,
digital surrogatescreated, it made reading
the letters much easier.
And so that was a processI hadn't had to do before.
And then hand-transcribing isdefinitely something that--
(29:23):
nobody wants to undertake thismany letters doing it by hand.
But everyone that's hadsome involvement in it
has really enjoyed uncoveringthe information in it.
And I'd say the bonus isthat, yes, it's a lot of work.
But the knowledgethat just myself
(29:44):
is gleaning from having to readevery single page for quality
control checkingis kind of making
me an expert on Lyman Hall.
And just case inpoint, when we started
digitizing this collection,the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill
exhibit was gettingready to come online.
And the timing ofthe digitization
(30:05):
of this collection and theexhibit coincided to the point
where we were able to makeconnections from Georgia
Tech back to Oscar Ellis andFulton Bag and Cotton Mill
and what their relationshipwas that had not
been able to be known before.
So we were able to connect thedots and use some of the letters
from that collection to supportthe narrative in the exhibit.
(30:27):
So just being able to uncoverthese little breadcrumbs
like this has beenreally, really fun.
CHARLIE BENNETT (30:35):
So Alex, is Katie now your subject matter
expert for LymanHall presidency?
ALEX MCGEE (30:40):
Oh yeah.
For Lyman Hall.
Yeah.
KATIE GENTILELLO (30:42):
I wasn't kidding, he's my friend.
My friend, Lyman Hall.
FRED RASCOE (30:47):
You probably know more about Lyman Hall than
anyone else in the countryafter reading 3,500 letters.
KATIE GENTILELLO (30:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll know more becausethere's 10,000 letters total.
FRED RASCOE (31:00):
Oh my gosh.
KATIE GENTILELLO (31:01):
Yeah.
So we're about a thirdof the way through.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:05):
Alex, as university archivist,
can you speak a little bit towhy is this a good thing to do?
ALEX MCGEE (31:12):
Obviously, as Katie has already talked about,
there's a lot of reallycritical information
about how Georgia Tech wasdeveloping in the early years.
The first president ofGeorgia Tech, that was just
like opening the doors.
Lyman Hall really pushed bothour academics, our growth,
our campus development in a waythat we haven't seen quite yet.
(31:35):
And with his abilityto fundraise,
that was something that wasvery new for Georgia Tech.
And it really, veryrapidly changed campus.
So his presence in GeorgiaTech history is really notable.
And so to think that there was apreservation concern where we're
worried about losing thisinformation, that is then
(31:58):
another layer of thisis even more critical
that we preserve this reallyunique, significant piece
of our institute's history.
And to have itdigitized, obviously,
the access component ofit cannot be understated.
I mean, there's areason why everyone
wants to digitize things.
It's because it makes thingsimmediately more accessible,
(32:22):
more usable.
There aren't boundariesin terms of having
to come into our readingroom and view stuff.
So it's really exciting thatwe're going to have this online.
And anyone interestedin learning
about these very critical yearsfor Georgia Tech's formation
will be able to access it andview it and delve in and become
maybe another Lyman Hallexpert in addition to Katie.
FRED RASCOE (32:46):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
And today we've been talkingwith Katie Gentilello, Digital
Projects Coordinator atthe Georgia Tech Library,
about the good, the bad, and theugly of digitizing everything.
Katie, thanks for joining us.
KATIE GENTILELLO (33:00):
Thank you for having me.
This was fun.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:02):
And you can file this set under BF449.5.C38.
[THE BREEDERS, "WHEN I WAS APAINTER"]
[JESUS LIZARD, "HIDE AND SEEK"]Hide and seek
Hide and seek
(33:24):
That was "Hide and Seek" byJesus Lizard from the new
record, first in 26 years.
And before that, "When I Wasa Painter" by The Breeders,
songs about reflectingon the past and planning
for the future.
[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:45):
Today's show was called "Stories
that Archives Tell--
You Can't Digitize Everything,"the Lyman Hall edition.
In the time wehave left, I wonder
if we can all be candid aboutwhether we each personally want
to digitize everything or not.
So I put it to you first, Alex.
Do you want todigitize everything?
ALEX MCGEE (34:06):
No.
Hard no.
[LAUGHTER]
There's some things that arenot meant to be digitized.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:12):
Nice.
Fred?
FRED RASCOE (34:14):
There are some parts of me
that want everything that isdigital to disappear one day.
That thought givesme a lot of comfort.
But then again, it would be niceto be best friends with someone
that lived 120 years ago.
MARLEE GIVENS: That's a good point, (34:27):
undefined
but I'm going to say no as well.
And part of it isbecause, that you now
have a new thing to take careof in addition to the old thing.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:36):
Katie.
KATIE GENTILELLO (34:37):
Well, I think you know my answer.
I'm in this businessand I love digitizing.
I love the idea of it.
Nothing can beat the feelingof an actual artifact
of a photograph, a book.
The physical materials thatyou can hold in your hand,
there's something veryspecial about that.
And that's something Iwould never want to lose.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I have to confess, (34:57):
undefined
and I feel like I'm not the onewho should be thinking this,
but I have recently wantedeverything digitized.
I've been wanting to be ableto look back, find answers
to things.
I've been looking at propertyrecords from 25 years ago.
I'm not going to tell you why.
But I've really wished that Icould just find them instead of,
(35:19):
I think, having to goto a basement somewhere.
But I know that we shouldn't.
So let's just roll the credits.
[SOUNDGARDEN, "FOPP"]
Lost in the Stacksis a collaboration
(35:41):
between WREK Atlanta andthe Georgia Tech Library,
written and produced by AlexMcGee, Charlie Bennett, Fred
Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
ALEX MCGEE (35:49):
Legal counsel and letters
about being utterlyhopeless provided
by the BurrusIntellectual Property Law
Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
MARLEE GIVENS (35:57):
Special Thanks to Katie for being on the show,
to every archivistwho has patiently
explained why somethingisn't on the web,
to all the radio listeners whoheard a version of this show
already.
And thanks, as always, toeach and every one of you
for listening.
ALEX MCGEE (36:13):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks, where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form
if you want to getin touch with us.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Next week, I don't (36:24):
undefined
know what's going to happen.
If you've been listeningto Georgia Tech News,
you know that the whole campusshut down for a little bit
and maybe it's comingback and maybe it's not.
Let's just see what goes onnext week, OK, everybody?
FRED RASCOE (36:40):
It can all disappear.
That's what I'm telling you.
It's time for ourlast song today.
I'm imagining all those pages inthe collection we talked about
today, 10,000 or so waiting,just waiting, to be handled.
All projects havesteps that you need
to take and repetitive actions.
But this one in particularfeels like everything is in line
waiting to be processed.
(37:01):
All those items waiting tobe digitized like a long line
of cars trying to break free.
So let's close with "LongLine of Cars" by Cake,
here on Lost in the Stacks.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
OK, Fred, before we start the show,
(00:02):
I need to give you some context.
We did episode 605on June 7, 2024.
No broadcast problems,but the station's encoder
was, we'll justsay, on the fritz.
FRED RASCOE (00:13):
So there was no podcast version.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:16):
So there was no podcast.
We're taking a Mulligan onthis particular episode.
FRED RASCOE (00:22):
Well, this is going to be part one of a series.
And we've already done part two.
CHARLIE BENNETT (00:28):
Just roll the cold open, man.
Let's get going.
SUBJECT 3 (00:31):
As an archivist, there is one question I dread.
Not, what is an archivist?
I love my job and I cantalk about it at length.
It is, after all,looking after the written
heritage of the world.
Not, it must be lovely workingwith all those old documents.
It is.
(00:52):
The question I dread is, aren'tyou going to digitize it all?
The answer is simple.
No.
[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
CHARLIE BENNETT (01:23):
You are listening to WREK Atlanta,
and this is Lost in theStacks, the research library
rock and roll radio show.
I'm Charlie Bennett in thevirtual studio with everyone--
Marlee Givens, FredRascoe, and Alex McGee.
Each week on Lost in theStacks, we pick a theme
and then use it to create amix of music and library talk.
(01:45):
Whichever you tune infor, we hope you dig it.
ALEX MCGEE (01:49):
Our show today is part of our new series,
the stories that archivestell, and is called "You
Can't Digitize Everything,"the Lyman Hall edition,
which I hope let's youknow, out the gate,
I'm looking to break some heartsand set some stuff straight.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:02):
Alex, one might think
you have an agendafor this episode.
ALEX MCGEE (02:06):
Yeah, I kind of do.
In archives, weoften hear from folks
that we should digitizeeverything and put it online.
And that would be the best.
But the reality is so muchmore complex than that.
MARLEE GIVENS (02:18):
And so you have brought some backup.
ALEX MCGEE (02:20):
That's right.
To talk more about thecomplexity of digitizing
everything and a recentmass digitization project
we are doing hereat Georgia Tech.
I've invited my colleagueand resident digitization
expert, Katie Gentilello.
FRED RASCOE (02:33):
And our songs today are about easy solutions,
solving plans, andtelling stories.
As Alex said, alot of people think
the solution to archivaland access problems
is to just digitizeeverything and pop it
on the world wide web.
Easy, right?
Well, that's an easyto understand idea,
but it's very wrong.
(02:55):
It's harder to explain whywe can't digitize everything.
So here's "Hard toExplain" by Coriky,
right here on Lostin the Stacks.
[CORIKY, "HARD TO EXPLAIN"]
ALEX MCGEE (03:10):
That was "Hard to Explain" by Coriky.
Our show today is "YouCan't Digitize Everything,"
the Lyman Hall edition.
And we are joined in the studioby current and future guest
Katie Gentilello, DigitalProject Coordinator
at the Georgia Tech Library.
KATIE GENTILELLO: Thanks for having me. (03:26):
undefined
ALEX MCGEE (03:28):
I guess we're going to start
with why digitizing everythingjust simply won't work.
We know that itis time-consuming.
There's a cost to it, the laborcosts, the environmental cost.
But let's talk aboutall of that, Katie.
KATIE GENTILELLO (03:44):
So I've been doing this for, I think,
28 years at last count.
So I've seen a lot of differentcollections over the years.
Lots of different materials havedifferent levels of usefulness,
I think, for researchers, forjust the community in general.
But there's a lot of it.
(04:04):
And there's a lot ofdifferent types of materials.
I just recentlyhad a conversation
with a friend ofmine who said, well,
isn't it just easy tojust digitize that book
or digitize that rare material?
And I explained tohim just how long
it took to preparethe materials,
the selection, the handling.
The digitizationis the easy part.
(04:25):
Then to make those images usefuland adding all the value added--
metadata, description,and then the systems
that they'll go into.
It's a very long process.
And when you multiplythat times thousands
upon millions ofpages of documents,
it really does eat up alot of time and resources.
(04:46):
So yeah, it's a piein the sky idea.
Wish it was a lot easier to do.
But unfortunately,it's a challenge.
CHARLIE BENNETT (04:54):
And Katie, I remember the beginnings
of digitizing everythingmany years ago,
watching you take very carefuldigital photos of maps.
So I think you might even beminimizing the digitization
requirements.
Because you're good at it.
You do it now.
But taking a picture ormaking a scan of page
(05:19):
after page or objects, eventhat's not very simple.
People seem to thinkthat it's like, run it
through some machine.
But the machine is you.
KATIE GENTILELLO: Yeah, I mean, there's (05:29):
undefined
a lot of different digitizationequipment out there.
I think most people are familiarwith just flatbed scanners,
which is take your single sheet,flop it down, take a scan,
and then you've got it.
But that doesn't workfor archival materials.
You have books, youhave bound volumes,
you have oversizeddocuments that
require special handlingand special technology
(05:51):
to be able to digitizethose in a way
where they're not goingto damage the original,
bending pages, orcracking book spines,
or even down to the lights,they can't be putting out heat.
So there is a technologyspecific to the materials
(06:12):
that you're using.
And so there's a learningcurve of learning how to use it
and then and then using itcorrectly with the materials.
Yeah, so it's yetanother challenge
to point that you pointed out.
CHARLIE BENNETT: And you then said (06:25):
undefined
you have to add stuff to it.
And that's themetadata, of course.
And I feel like this is wherewe turn it on you, Alex,
and start asking you questions.
Do you work with digitizedpapers that come to you
and then have to come up withthe metadata, the filling in all
(06:45):
the forms, all the stuff?
ALEX MCGEE (06:47):
So I don't do that part usually.
I do the ArchivesSpacedescription,
which kind of influences themetadata, or the metadata
can influence theArchivesSpace description.
I mean, same idea,thinking about how
people find these things whenthey are digitized online,
(07:07):
what's useful.
That is an additional layerof description beyond just
the digital files themselves.
So there's the scanning andthe metadata for the scans.
And then there's thedescription piece
in our repository, ourfinding aid system.
FRED RASCOE (07:25):
Do you have a sense, Katie or Alex,
how much time or money orboth that one piece of paper
in the archivecollection scanned
and then made accessible fromzero to fully accessible,
what kind of effort, money,resources are we talking about?
ALEX MCGEE (07:48):
This is a thing that everyone is trying to quantify.
There's lots of calculatorsand things online.
People have writtenpapers about this.
And it's so dependent on whatyour setup is and the level
of detail you're doing.
(08:08):
I mean, Katie, I don't knowthat we've done it here.
But I mean, we havestudent workers.
There's the cost ofliterally the storage space
that we keep for our files.
If you're talking aboutdigital preservation
on top of just the access copy,that's another layer of cost.
(08:28):
It's not cheap.
KATIE GENTILELLO (08:31):
I mean, I can address
based on the Lyman Hallletters about how much time it
takes to do 50 pages.
Scanning, I believe, we weredoing it over several hours,
so we would probably getmaybe 200, 250 pages done
in that period of time.
Then you take those raw scansand I have to quality control
(08:54):
check them.
Then I have to runthem through a filter
to make them readablebecause they faded.
The text is faded somuch that you can't just
look at the documentand be able to read it.
I have to run it through a redfilter to make it contrasty.
So there's thatpreprocessing, getting
it ready for transcriptions.
Then we're hand-transcribingthem because we cannot apply
(09:16):
OCR, which means [AUDIO OUT]which is optical character
recognition software to it.
And then to transcribe,just to actually
read and transcribe 50 pagesprobably takes about 10 hours.
And then after that,I follow back up
and fill in any gaps that weremissed and formatting issues,
save it, createderivative files,
(09:37):
and then from there thosefiles go into a queue
to be added to the repository.
So you can just seethat for 50 pages.
And we're dealing with 10,000pages with this Lyman Hall
collection.
So you can do the math.
FRED RASCOE (09:51):
No, thank you.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I can't actually. (09:52):
undefined
Yeah.
[LAUGHTER]
I sometimes want to say whensomeone does that quick kind of,
well, we justdigitize everything
and then you'll be able to getto everything on the internet
or something.
I want to ask them,when's the last time
you went through andcaptioned every one
of your digital photos?
MARLEE GIVENS (10:11):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
We'll be back to talk more aboutthe difficulties of digitizing
everything or not everythingafter a music set.
File this set under BD71.S37.
[BEST COAST, "HOW THEY WANT METO BE"]
[VOCALIZING]
(10:38):
[BE YOUR OWN PET, "BIG TROUBLE"]And when I tell you I want you
to believe
That was "Big Trouble"by Be Your Own Pet.
And before that, "How TheyWant Me to Be" by Best Coast,
songs about recognizing theflaws and easy solutions.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in the Stacks.
(10:58):
And today's show is called "YouCan't Digitize Everything,"
the Lyman Hall edition.
We have Katie Gentilello,Digital Projects Coordinator
at the Georgia Tech Libraryin the studio with us today.
We've talked about howtime-consuming, how
expensive of all the processes.
Let's talk abouthow we decide what
(11:19):
we digitize in the archives.
Katie, how do wemake our decisions
about prioritizing what getsdigitized for a large scale
project like the Lyman Hall one?
KATIE GENTILELLO (11:30):
Yeah, that's a good question.
There's a lot ofconsiderations that
go into how do we decidewhat is worthy, I guess,
is maybe not a fairassessment, but because we
have this limitation, we haveto decide on a rating scale.
We have a prioritizationmatrix that we've come up
with as a department that looksat different factors, such as,
(11:53):
is this material unique?
Is it something that'salready been digitized
and is available onlinewith another group?
How many requests do weget, research requests do we
get for this type of material?
What is its historic value?
Do we rate it pretty high inits uniqueness and the impact
that it has on our researchers?
(12:14):
Or is it low?
We also look athow diverse is it
in terms of what arewe offering online,
what story is it telling.
And then the usual ones likecopyright-- is it in copyright?
Is it not?
Available metadata.
We keep talking aboutmetadata, but when
you're handed a collectionthat has very little processing
(12:38):
done to it and you're kindof doing that in tandem
while you'redigitizing, it makes
for a very, very-- you'readding more time and more labor.
So all of those factors go intoa rating system that we apply.
With the LymanHall situation, we
chose this collection outsideof that prioritization matrix
because it was identified assomething that was at risk.
(13:00):
And that's also anotherone of our parameters.
The risk of thisparticular collection
being lost to theages was so high
that all of the other factorsbecame kind of a moot point.
And when I say at risk, theseletters are over 120 years
old and were typed on onionskinpaper that is very brittle
(13:21):
and it was falling apart.
And so you're dealing with fadedtext and you're dealing with,
literally iscrumbling into shards.
So we were able todigitize that and then
be able to augmentits quality so
that we could get the content.
So that was a bit of a uniquedigitization prioritization
(13:43):
situation.
That's a lot of words.
But it was necessary inthis particular situation.
And I'm glad.
I'm glad that wedid it because it's
been very enlightening touncover so much rich Georgia
Tech history thathas been inaccessible
for quite some time.
MARLEE GIVENS (14:02):
I was just curious
if the matrix also has anoption for farming it out,
like hiring a contract service,or if that's just something
that every individuallibrary decides if they want
to do that in house or not.
KATIE GENTILELLO (14:18):
Yeah, that's a good question.
It's not part ofthe prioritization
matrix officially.
But it is somethingthat we will certainly
look at on a collectionby collection basis.
Just as an example, we havethe living history collection
(14:38):
that is a collectionof DVDs, DV tapes, VHS.
And it was actuallyproposed as like,
is this a collection thatwe should outsource or is
this something thatwe can do in house?
And having sent collectionsfor outsourcing,
I mean, the biggest,I think, elephant
(14:59):
in the room withthat is the risk.
Your collections areleaving your custody.
So then you have tomake sure shipping
and just the act of gettingthem to some other unit
outside of yourorganization is concerning.
I've also had successfuloutsourcing projects.
So yeah, it's just acase by case basis.
CHARLIE BENNETT (15:20):
Katie, let's get the listeners up
to speed on this collectionbecause we all know Lyman Hall,
both as a building and a person.
But what is this collection ofletters and why is it important?
KATIE GENTILELLO (15:32):
OK, So just as a quick recap,
so Lyman Hall was the secondpresident of Georgia Tech.
And he was instrumental infundraising for Georgia Tech,
especially getting theFrench textile school up
off the ground.
He was also responsible forseveral dormitories being built.
He was a military man, sohe had very strong ideas
(15:53):
about discipline on campus.
His letters started in 1898.
So he was about, I think, on histhird year of his presidency.
They run untilhis death in 1905.
They're letters fromoutgoing correspondence
that he was able to documentthroughout his presidency.
And they run thegamut from just,
(16:15):
hey, here's some informationabout Georgia Tech to asking
Andrew Carnegie formoney for a library,
and asking the city ofAtlanta to pave North Avenue,
and writing letters to Mr.Peters about the land where
Peter's parkinglot is, that he was
trying to get some of that landpurchased for Georgia Tech.
(16:36):
So there's a lot ofrich history in there.
And every now and then,I'll uncover something
I get particularlynerdy and excited about
and I have to share it withthe Archives Department.
CHARLIE BENNETT (16:45):
We need an example of that.
Get nerdy with us.
KATIE GENTILELLO (16:49):
OK, you're putting me on the spot.
So he was heading into theChristmas holidays of 1899.
And he had come upwith a list of students
who were worthless and notworthless-- or hopeless,
I'm sorry, hopeless.
(17:09):
Hopeless.
CHARLIE BENNETT (17:10):
Wow.
KATIE GENTILELLO (17:11):
In his mind, I think,
based on reading allthese letters for--
I've read now like 3,500letters of his-- and hopeless,
it's I've given them anopportunity multiple times
to show me that they'rebeing responsible students
and they're not.
So in his mind, thisis my hopeless list
and this is mynot hopeless list.
(17:32):
And he sent letters to theparents during the holidays,
letting them know that theirstudent may need to consider not
coming back to GeorgiaTech, which you can imagine,
during the Christmasholidays, now,
his outgoing correspondencechanged to a lot of fielding
angry letters fromparents saying,
"you're kicking my kidout of Georgia Tech?"
(17:52):
It's funny and interesting.
FRED RASCOE (17:54):
I think it would make
national news if auniversity president called
students worthless.
KATIE GENTILELLO: I think so, too. (17:58):
undefined
Yeah.
Yeah.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Alex, these letters, (18:01):
undefined
are they an exampleof the content
is a lot more importantthan the object itself?
ALEX MCGEE (18:09):
Yeah, I would say the information in the letters
is what is valuable as opposedto the physical item itself.
Because preserving onionskin is a losing game for us.
And so that's why this is areally great example of why--
this is an idealdigitization project.
We are rushing tosave the content
because of how rich it is.
(18:31):
And now we'll havethese digital scans.
That is the primary usecopy we will have now.
And that's our preservationcopy now, too, almost.
MARLEE GIVENS (18:42):
You are listening to Lost in the Stacks.
And we'll talk more aboutarchives and digitization
on the left side of the hour.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
KIM STANLEY ROBINSON (18:54):
Hi, I'm Kim Stanley Robinson,
science fiction writer and a fanof The Ramblin' Recks of Georgia
Tech.
This is WREK.
[MUSIC PLAYING] And I know
And I know
And I know that everybody
And I know thateverybody be happy
It's happy as you and me
(19:15):
'Cause I know.
CHARLIE BENNETT (19:18):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
And our show today is called"You Can't Digitize Everything."
It's the first in anew occasional series,
"Recalling StoriesThat Archives Tell,"
which is shorthand for theunwieldy original title.
Let's consider what we'veput into archives in order
to craft the rough draft ofhistories both local and global.
And remember, that if youfind something in an archive,
(19:40):
it's because an archivist putit there, not some random event.
And also, let's stop imagininghuge single-action solutions
for the ever-changing problemsof access, preservation
and discovery in ourcultural institutions.
And I thank Alexfor joining the team
and getting ashorter title there.
I want to tell youall a quick story.
(20:01):
On May 10th, 2009, Computerworldpublished a piece by columnist
Mike Elgan titled, "Why YouShould Digitize Everything."
So I had to read that, right?
Here's how it starts.
"Two events this week,one personal and another
that is makinginternational headlines,
made me rethink what canand should be digitized--
(20:22):
everything."
From here, Mr. Elgansays that his work
as a writer and the natureof the internet at the time
meant that he no longer neededto be in the same house year
round.
So he and his family were goingto become semi-nomadic, spending
most of the year traveling.
This meant selling the house,downsizing dramatically.
(20:42):
That's his personal event.
The international eventwas raging wildfires
in CentralCalifornia, which made
it unflinchingly clear that anycollection of physical things
that his family kept wasin danger of destruction.
His proposed solution wasto get rid of everything,
and whatever was somehowimportant and irreplaceable
they would digitize.
(21:02):
He wrote, "When itcomes to deciding
whether to keep ordiscard something,
where do you draw the line?
Old holiday and birthday cards?
OK, those can be discarded.
Mother's Day cards from kids?
Hmm.
Trophies?
Yikes.
There are a millionitems that make
you feel a loss when you toss.
But if you keep them, they'llbe buried unseen for decades."
(21:23):
His solution was afive-step process.
One-- capture.
Take digital picturesof everything.
Two-- index for search, and letme quote him at length on that.
"Sign up for an accountwith Evernote," he says.
Download thedesktop application.
And I should say, members ofthe show are now laughing.
Download the desktop applicationand drop all your pictures
(21:45):
into the application.
Evernote will uploadthem all to its servers.
And here's the best part--
index all words it findsin the pictures, which
makes them searchable.
Later, you can just searchEvernote as if it were Google.
I'm going to let that one go by.
And find pictures ofjust about any item.
You can also categorize,tag, sort, or file everything
(22:06):
in any way you choose.
Then he says, "Stepthree is share.
Upload sentimental and appealingpictures to social media
accounts.
Four-- backup."
And he suggests a paid service.
"And finally, number five--
discard."
As he says, "Here'sthe best part.
Shred, recycle,burn, or discard most
of this stuff you digitized.
(22:28):
We no longer have tomanage all those boxes.
Best of all, neither fire nortime nor neglect can destroy
the photographswe took of them."
OK.
Here is a post by a man namedMark Foerster on an Evernote
forum on March 10 of this year.
(22:48):
Quote, "Evernotehas now forced me
to change from thelegacy version, i.e.
the version that actuallyworked, to Evernote 10.
Now that I have beenforced to leave Legacy,
I found that 10 iseven worse than it
was when I first tried it.
In fact, it's anabsolute nightmare.
Nothing in the right place,nothing is intuitive.
It's very ugly,difficult to use,
(23:09):
and missing some of the featureswhich I used a lot, for example,
presentation mode.
I've been with Evernotefrom its very earliest days.
I have got a vastamount of stuff in it.
Moving would be amajor effort, yet I
think I'm going to have to.
What are the latestrecommendations
for alternatives?"
(23:30):
I hope everyone can drawtheir own conclusions.
And we can file thisset under PR6037.C23.
[DAVID BYRNE AND BRIAN ENO,"STRANGE OVERTONES"]
(23:51):
That was "Strange Overtones"by David Byrne and Brian Eno,
a song about figuring outhow to achieve a goal.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
This is Lost in the Stacks.
And our show today is called"Stories Archives Tell--
You Can't Digitize Everything,"the Lyman Hall edition.
Our guest is Katie Gentilello,Digital Projects Coordinator
(24:13):
at the Georgia Tech Library.
So Katie, you saidin the last segment
that you've read a lot ofthese Lyman Hall letters.
Do you have a number in yourhead, how many you've read?
KATIE GENTILELLO: Probably about 3,500. (24:25):
undefined
CHARLIE BENNETT (24:28):
3,500.
I don't even know how to start.
What's good about them?
What's in there?
What have you learnedreading 3,500 letters from
an ex-president of Georgia Tech?
KATIE GENTILELLO (24:41):
I did a presentation to the department
about a year ago about some ofthe things that I've uncovered.
I would say, I introduced LymanHall as my friend Lyman Hall.
Because when you step back intopersonal letters like that, even
in the position that hewas in as a president,
you get a sense ofwho that person was,
(25:03):
what's important to them,what isn't important.
We know that he hadan untimely death
while he was the presidentof Georgia Tech, likely due
to the stress.
And you can get asense of that stress
that he's increasinglyunderfundraising
and dealing with an increasingnumber of matriculated students.
(25:26):
They started out at 150.
In 1900, they're up to 400.
They're asking for more dorms.
They're askingfor more resources
from the legislature thatare not being forthcoming.
He's asking his friends andbenefactors for more money.
He's asking for, with thetextile school coming online,
(25:47):
he's asking for local cottonmills to donate materials.
He's not gettingmuch of a response.
So you can see that he'sin a hopeful position,
but he's also dealingwith the large amount
of stress of just tryingto get this institution up
off the ground.
He mentions overturesto go and be
the president of otherschools and turns it down
(26:09):
because he has strong feelingsabout getting Georgia Tech up
and being the preeminentengineering school in the South.
He's very proud of that.
And you sense it.
You sense just howconvicted he is
about the success of the school.
It's a really neat kindof like pulling the wind,
(26:30):
opening the window and seeingwhat early Georgia Tech was
facing in terms of its successand just how much blood, sweat,
and tears went into getting theinstitution up off the ground.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:41):
And if anyone tried to do this project again,
these letters would startfalling apart in their hands,
right?
KATIE GENTILELLO: Oh, well, they-- (26:46):
undefined
Yeah.
They are falling aparteven as we scanned them.
Yes, unfortunately.
CHARLIE BENNETT (26:52):
How many have you lost, do you think?
KATIE GENTILELLO (26:56):
Well, the volumes themselves are intact.
The individual pages arebrittle and are falling apart.
I can think of 2of the 10 volumes
right now that arein critical shape,
to the extent that theyprobably need to just be closed
(27:16):
and restricted from now on.
ALEX MCGEE (27:17):
And I think we made that call earlier this year, is
that we will not provide accessto those physical volumes
anymore.
Because with the scans,there's just no reason for us
to do that, to jeopardize them.
And people freak out when youstart having flakes of pages
(27:39):
fall apart anyway.
So we can all just spareeveryone some stress.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Katie, what have (27:43):
undefined
you learned about digitizingdoing this project maybe
that you didn't know before?
Or did you learn a new process?
Or did you figure out howto avoid an old mistake?
KATIE GENTILELLO: Yeah, so this is (27:55):
undefined
the first project where I'vehad to manually transcribe
this many words.
It's always a decision,a very weighty decision
at the front end whenyou have to decide
is this collection usefulin its current digital form.
(28:18):
And by that, I meantjust scanning the pages,
is that enough?
And I realized that it wasn't
And I tried multiple ways of--
I tried OCRing.
I tried differenttechniques to try
to make that happenprogrammatically
and it just was not successful.
(28:39):
And so to make the decision tohave to manually transcribe them
was a very bigdecision to do it.
And before I set out asking mystudent assistants to do it,
I did a few pagesmyself just to time it,
just to see how difficultit was going to be.
And once I figured out aPhotoshop filtering strategy
(29:00):
for the derivative files--
I have the originalcolor files and then I
make them black andwhite and punch up
the contrast-- once I wasable to get those contrasted,
digital surrogatescreated, it made reading
the letters much easier.
And so that was a processI hadn't had to do before.
And then hand-transcribing isdefinitely something that--
(29:23):
nobody wants to undertake thismany letters doing it by hand.
But everyone that's hadsome involvement in it
has really enjoyed uncoveringthe information in it.
And I'd say the bonus isthat, yes, it's a lot of work.
But the knowledgethat just myself
(29:44):
is gleaning from having to readevery single page for quality
control checkingis kind of making
me an expert on Lyman Hall.
And just case inpoint, when we started
digitizing this collection,the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill
exhibit was gettingready to come online.
And the timing ofthe digitization
(30:05):
of this collection and theexhibit coincided to the point
where we were able to makeconnections from Georgia
Tech back to Oscar Ellis andFulton Bag and Cotton Mill
and what their relationshipwas that had not
been able to be known before.
So we were able to connect thedots and use some of the letters
from that collection to supportthe narrative in the exhibit.
(30:27):
So just being able to uncoverthese little breadcrumbs
like this has beenreally, really fun.
CHARLIE BENNETT (30:35):
So Alex, is Katie now your subject matter
expert for LymanHall presidency?
ALEX MCGEE (30:40):
Oh yeah.
For Lyman Hall.
Yeah.
KATIE GENTILELLO (30:42):
I wasn't kidding, he's my friend.
My friend, Lyman Hall.
FRED RASCOE (30:47):
You probably know more about Lyman Hall than
anyone else in the countryafter reading 3,500 letters.
KATIE GENTILELLO (30:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'll know more becausethere's 10,000 letters total.
FRED RASCOE (31:00):
Oh my gosh.
KATIE GENTILELLO (31:01):
Yeah.
So we're about a thirdof the way through.
CHARLIE BENNETT (31:05):
Alex, as university archivist,
can you speak a little bit towhy is this a good thing to do?
ALEX MCGEE (31:12):
Obviously, as Katie has already talked about,
there's a lot of reallycritical information
about how Georgia Tech wasdeveloping in the early years.
The first president ofGeorgia Tech, that was just
like opening the doors.
Lyman Hall really pushed bothour academics, our growth,
our campus development in a waythat we haven't seen quite yet.
(31:35):
And with his abilityto fundraise,
that was something that wasvery new for Georgia Tech.
And it really, veryrapidly changed campus.
So his presence in GeorgiaTech history is really notable.
And so to think that there was apreservation concern where we're
worried about losing thisinformation, that is then
(31:58):
another layer of thisis even more critical
that we preserve this reallyunique, significant piece
of our institute's history.
And to have itdigitized, obviously,
the access component ofit cannot be understated.
I mean, there's areason why everyone
wants to digitize things.
It's because it makes thingsimmediately more accessible,
(32:22):
more usable.
There aren't boundariesin terms of having
to come into our readingroom and view stuff.
So it's really exciting thatwe're going to have this online.
And anyone interestedin learning
about these very critical yearsfor Georgia Tech's formation
will be able to access it andview it and delve in and become
maybe another Lyman Hallexpert in addition to Katie.
FRED RASCOE (32:46):
This is Lost in the Stacks.
And today we've been talkingwith Katie Gentilello, Digital
Projects Coordinator atthe Georgia Tech Library,
about the good, the bad, and theugly of digitizing everything.
Katie, thanks for joining us.
KATIE GENTILELLO (33:00):
Thank you for having me.
This was fun.
MARLEE GIVENS (33:02):
And you can file this set under BF449.5.C38.
[THE BREEDERS, "WHEN I WAS APAINTER"]
[JESUS LIZARD, "HIDE AND SEEK"]Hide and seek
Hide and seek
(33:24):
That was "Hide and Seek" byJesus Lizard from the new
record, first in 26 years.
And before that, "When I Wasa Painter" by The Breeders,
songs about reflectingon the past and planning
for the future.
[TELEVISION, "FRICTION"]
CHARLIE BENNETT (33:45):
Today's show was called "Stories
that Archives Tell--
You Can't Digitize Everything,"the Lyman Hall edition.
In the time wehave left, I wonder
if we can all be candid aboutwhether we each personally want
to digitize everything or not.
So I put it to you first, Alex.
Do you want todigitize everything?
ALEX MCGEE (34:06):
No.
Hard no.
[LAUGHTER]
There's some things that arenot meant to be digitized.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:12):
Nice.
Fred?
FRED RASCOE (34:14):
There are some parts of me
that want everything that isdigital to disappear one day.
That thought givesme a lot of comfort.
But then again, it would be niceto be best friends with someone
that lived 120 years ago.
MARLEE GIVENS: That's a good point, (34:27):
undefined
but I'm going to say no as well.
And part of it isbecause, that you now
have a new thing to take careof in addition to the old thing.
CHARLIE BENNETT (34:36):
Katie.
KATIE GENTILELLO (34:37):
Well, I think you know my answer.
I'm in this businessand I love digitizing.
I love the idea of it.
Nothing can beat the feelingof an actual artifact
of a photograph, a book.
The physical materials thatyou can hold in your hand,
there's something veryspecial about that.
And that's something Iwould never want to lose.
CHARLIE BENNETT: I have to confess, (34:57):
undefined
and I feel like I'm not the onewho should be thinking this,
but I have recently wantedeverything digitized.
I've been wanting to be ableto look back, find answers
to things.
I've been looking at propertyrecords from 25 years ago.
I'm not going to tell you why.
But I've really wished that Icould just find them instead of,
(35:19):
I think, having to goto a basement somewhere.
But I know that we shouldn't.
So let's just roll the credits.
[SOUNDGARDEN, "FOPP"]
Lost in the Stacksis a collaboration
(35:41):
between WREK Atlanta andthe Georgia Tech Library,
written and produced by AlexMcGee, Charlie Bennett, Fred
Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.
ALEX MCGEE (35:49):
Legal counsel and letters
about being utterlyhopeless provided
by the BurrusIntellectual Property Law
Group in Atlanta, Georgia.
MARLEE GIVENS (35:57):
Special Thanks to Katie for being on the show,
to every archivistwho has patiently
explained why somethingisn't on the web,
to all the radio listeners whoheard a version of this show
already.
And thanks, as always, toeach and every one of you
for listening.
ALEX MCGEE (36:13):
Our web page is library.gatech.e
du/lostinthestacks, where you'llfind our most recent episode,
a link to our podcastfeed, and a web form
if you want to getin touch with us.
CHARLIE BENNETT: Next week, I don't (36:24):
undefined
know what's going to happen.
If you've been listeningto Georgia Tech News,
you know that the whole campusshut down for a little bit
and maybe it's comingback and maybe it's not.
Let's just see what goes onnext week, OK, everybody?
FRED RASCOE (36:40):
It can all disappear.
That's what I'm telling you.
It's time for ourlast song today.
I'm imagining all those pages inthe collection we talked about
today, 10,000 or so waiting,just waiting, to be handled.
All projects havesteps that you need
to take and repetitive actions.
But this one in particularfeels like everything is in line
waiting to be processed.
(37:01):
All those items waiting tobe digitized like a long line
of cars trying to break free.
So let's close with "LongLine of Cars" by Cake,
here on Lost in the Stacks.
Have a great weekend, everybody.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
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