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The initial startup phase of the Lee Family Digital Archive is multifaceted and includes simultaneous efforts regarding project design, staffing, fundraising, advisory boards, equipment purchase, methodology and standards, and scheduling. The following outline summarizes the initial planning process. STAFF. Three full-time and four part-time positions are planned, as follows. Project Director. The LFDA Project Director is the project’s editor-in-chief and is responsible for long-range planning, for implementation of all initiatives, and for project oversight and administration. Day-to-day activities include management of the staff, editorial activities, and computer initiatives; representing the project to the public; and fundraising. Related activities include public speaking and teaching. Editorial activities will focus on initiating the search for documents and identifying and securing copies of documents; authenticating, transcribing, and verifying the texts of documents; and arranging, annotating, and presenting the documents. As part of this process, the LFDA will utilize existing genealogies of the Lee family, and create a calendar of the family’s papers and a biographical database of all persons appearing in the papers. It also will identify related secondary sources that can be integrated into the edition. The first component includes the tasks of making initial decisions about document identification and treatment; generating document headings and preliminary listings of documents or tables of contents; searching for all related papers in various repositories; preparing matters pertaining to the editorial apparatus; identifying and verifying the writers of the documents; and checking the documents against chronological, printed letter, and dealers’ catalog files. The tasks involved in authenticating and verifying the texts of the specific documents that are chosen to be included in the archive include the final checking of the document transcriptions against the available original or digital copy (including, when necessary, contacting or visiting repositories or individuals that own the documents); the entering of transcription and text corrections into the electronic files; and collating the multiple copies of documents where they exist and noting any substantial differences. The writing of good annotation for historical documents is always problematic and time-consuming in that it includes everything from giving pertinent information about the document’s provenance, location, and physical description, to providing simple cross references within the context of related documents, to identifying persons and places appearing in the documents, to writing substantial explanatory notes where necessary. The research for the annotation is drawn from a wide corpus of primary and secondary sources relating to the Colonial, Revolutionary War, early American republic, Civil War, Reconstruction, and late-nineteenth and early twentieth century eras of American history, and often involves consultation with other scholars working in these fields. Other major editorial responsibilities for the editor include the final reading of all manuscript texts and making final changes and corrections; directing research assistants in the checking of cross references and citations contained in the annotation; preparing a comprehensive computer-generated analytical subject and name index for the papers presented; having the documents and annotation copy edited and proofread to conform to style; securing copies of photographs and other illustrations; working out copyright and permissions issues; writing copy and publicity material; overall general quality control, and public dissemination of the material produced by the LFDA. Other secondary responsibilities of the Project Director include answering research queries from scholars, manuscript dealers, and the wider public about the life, writings, and times of the Lees of Virginia and related matters; representing the LFDA in professional associations through membership and service on boards and committees; and being involved in efforts to publicize the LFDA and assist in fundraising. Associate Editor. The Associate Editor will work closely with the Project Director in planning the scope of the work and laying out specific work. This includes the tasks of making initial decisions about which time periods and cast of characters to focus on; document selection, and the treatment of the selected documents; making the table of contents and document headings; the preliminary preparation of the repository symbols and short-title lists and other matters pertaining to the editorial apparatus; identifying and verifying the writers of the documents to be presented; the preliminary listing of documents for the source lines (where more than one copy has survived); and checking the documents against chronological, printed letter, and dealers’ catalog files. Digital Developer - Designer. The major responsibilities of this position are computer related, and will take place under the guidance of the Project Director in consultation with the Associate Editor: the purchase and implementation of an appropriate computer system for the project; designing and managing a database capable of handling tens of thousands of image and text files; designing and managing interfaces to the database for both the staff and the public; converting material (both existing and yet-to-be-generated computer files) to a format compatible with the computer environment; conduct research and planning to ensure that the database will remain viable in the future; keep up with the literature surrounding trends in the electronic media and coordinate with computer specialists about those trends; and, with the Project Director, training and working with part-time support staff hired to further develop the LFDA’s computer capabilities. Four Part-time / Student Worker Research Assistants. Initially, two Research Assistants will assist with on-site digitization efforts of Lee Family documentary material, one each at the W&L and the VHS libraries. The third person will be assigned to assist in the document search, which includes writing to and searching for related Lee Family documents in various public and private repositories, in printed sources, in the catalogs and sales records of relevant manuscript dealers, and on the internet (including tracking Ebay sales). The fourth Research Assistant will begin the preliminary checking of transcriptions of documents, as they are generated. All Research Assistants will be trained and supervised by the Project Director and Associate Editor, in conjunction with staff members at the W&L and VHS libraries. Research Assistants are expected to be capable to work independently, once trained, and may be called on to assist in any aspect of the documentary process. Intern and Volunteer Program. The LFDA welcomes students and community members interested in assisting us in our development of special projects. Individual interns and volunteers work on special projects chosen to reflect their interest, experience, education, and career objectives, and emphasis is placed on skill development and gaining hands-on experience in a number of areas, including research, writing, editing, archival, reference, oral history, and computer-related functions. Successful completion of internships may qualify students for course credit and a small stipend. Curriculum Vitae for Frank E. Grizzard, Jr. FUNDRAISING. Any potential source of funding should be aggressively pursued, including private sources of funding and grant opportunities. Both a Financial Advisory Board and A Friends of the LFDA should be created to assist in fundraising efforts. ADVISORY BOARDS. To assist in project development and oversight, two separate advisory boards should be named, one each related to editorial and financial matters. Editorial Advisory Board. The LFDA Editorial Advisory Board should include scholars with expertise in Colonial, Revolutionary, Civil War, and post-Civil War American history that can be called upon to provide advice and contacts when needed. Nominees for the Board should include members or representatives of Washington and Lee University, the Virginia Historical Society, Stratford Hall, and the Society of the Lees of Virginia, in addition to other representatives. Gary Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor of the History of the American Civil War at the University of Virginia, has volunteered to serve if so desired. Renewable multi-year appointments should be staggered. Financial Advisory Board. Ideally, the LFDA Financial Advisory Board would consist of LFDA supporters who are in a position to contribute financially to the project. If the Lee-Jackson Foundation becomes a major contributor to the project then one of its board members should sit on the Financial Advisory Board. The Society of the Lees of Virginia should have at least one prominent representative at all times. METHODOLOGY AND STANDARDS. From a methodological perspective, the Lee Family Digital Archive is divided into several processes, including: design, collection, digitization, preparation for web-based dissemination, and scheduling. Digital Design. Some upfront time will have to be spent designing both the LFDA database and its web interface. All data will be tagged using the Extensible Markup Language (XML), a simple yet flexible text format derived from the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), which is then converted to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) via interpretive style sheets for delivery across the internet. Decisions have to be made about which text and XML editors to use, as well as protocol regarding the conversion of existing cataloging, textual, and imaging data. Digital design includes the initial web interface, which should be professional, artistic, and user-friendly. Since the Digital Developer’s role is more database and operational oriented than artistic, it may be necessary to engage an outside web-designer to develop the artistic themes of the initial web interface. Collection. Planning for the Lee Family Digital Archive collection effort began with a definition of who was a member of the Lee Family of Virginia. For this project, it includes Richard Lee the immigrant founder who came to Virginia around 1640 and his several lines of descent through the generation of General Robert E. Lee’s children, about 1920. This material consists of diaries, daybooks, letterbooks, correspondence and other communications, deeds, bills of sales, etc., generated either by or for an identified Lee family member. Obviously, these numerous individuals need to be identified and compared with Lee Family genealogies. Initial collection efforts will begin (and in fact have already started) with a survey of the Lee Family holdings at repositories which hold major collections of Lee papers — the Virginia Historical Society, Washington and Lee University, the University of Virginia, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Virginia State Library and Archives, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, Duke University, Harvard University, Yale University, Arlington House, and the Minnesota Historical Society. While this general survey for Lee material is underway, a more specific survey will be undertaken of the holdings of Lee Family papers at the Washington and Lee University (W&L), the Virginia Historical Society (VHS), and the University of Virginia (UVA), in order to prioritize the focus of collection efforts within those repositories. Most likely, the project will initially build on material previously generated, including those of Robert E. Lee at W&L, and Richard Henry Lee II at UVA; as well as those of Revolutionary War Lee Patriots appearing in Paul Smith’s Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789, and in John C. Fitzpatrick’s Writings of Washington from the Original Manuscripts. Image Processing. For all documents, high-resolution digital images will be gathered (and transcriptions will follow). A flat-bed scanner will be used where possible to generate 600-dpi (dots per square inch) resolution images of archival quality. Barring that, the next choice is to digitize from a 35mm digital camera. Microfilm will be digitized by contract where access to the originals is not possible. Until the general survey is complete, it is impossible to predict how many Lee Family documents exist or how much time it will take to scan the images. However, high resolution scanners can produce color images up to 11.7”x17” in about 10 seconds, allowing through-put as rapidly as copies can be safely retrieved from their boxes, laid on the scanner, and then re-filed. Images will be saved as TIFF (Tagged Information Format File) format. To provide secure yet accessible storage, all files will be burned onto a DVD-R (writable DVD) disc in addition to being uploaded to a server. Once obtained, the high-resolution images will be processed to web-accessible 300-dpi (for research purposes) and 100-dpi (for general web viewing), and smaller thumbnail-size images to facilitate quick access. Reducing file size is only one part of processing, however. Using Adobe Photoshop CS, the professional standard in desktop digital imaging, the images will be cropped and, where necessary, cleaned up as well. This process is largely automated, yet nevertheless takes about twenty to thirty seconds per image. Some images are also run through a program called ScanFix, which removes small clusters of black pixels (noise) sometimes erroneously created during the scanning process. The images are cataloged and processed separately. A system of quality control by which the editors insure that the images have been properly processed, with the images in the correct order, will be developed. When cataloging and processing is complete the files are run through one last program, Stamper, which applies a small strip of text to the edge of the image identifying the project and document, repository, image file name, or other administrative information. The finished files are then also archived. Data entry. All data for the project will be tagged in XML. This includes not only text to be presented to the public via the web but administrative metadata necessary to maintain control of the archive’s documents. Numerous text and XML editors are available, ranging from simple programs like Notepad to word processors like Microsoft Word to powerful XML editors like NoteTab, EditPlus, and X-Metal. The decision of which program(s) to be used will be jointly made by the project’s digital developer and its editors. Markup will take a middle course by focusing on routine document structure (headings, datelines, salutations, paragraphing, closing, postscripts, etc.) and regularizing proper names of all people and places appearing in a document, in addition to the administrative information (names, dates, institution, subject headings, image links, etc.). Such tagging allows for multiple presentation of user-generated search queries. All document texts will be transcribed according to LFDA transcription policy; optical character recognition (OCR) and off-site contracting will be employed where appropriate. Dissemination. Preparation for web-based dissemination includes the final quality control checks of administrative, text, and image data; the writing of source notes, front material, or other annotation; and the conversion style-sheets so that the XML-tagged data can be viewed on the fly as HTML files on the web. Frequent dissemination of new material is planned, provided the information made public is accurate. Notices will be sent to appropriate history, education, and genealogical listservs, to the media, and to LFDA supporters. Scheduling. The Lee Family Digital Archive is an ongoing project. The initial startup phase is necessarily complex since issues of funding, staffing, project policies, equipment, work standards, and work flow have to be worked out. Until the LFDA is on a solid financial ground, it must be assumed that an inordinate amount of the Project Director’s time will be spent on fundraising. Nevertheless, the staff will be expected “to hit the ground running” during its first year and not look back. The Project Director will work on many fronts, foremost among them fundraising, recruitment of staff, and purchasing equipment. At the same time, the Project Director must network (or continue networking) with potential financial contributors, Lee Family members, and relevant archival repositories and begin general surveys of the relevant historical literature and the Lee Family documents. As staff comes on board their duties will be assigned accordingly, as defined previously. Ideally, the Digital Developer would be hired in time to assist in the purchasing of computer equipment. Part-time Research Assistants can be hired and begin work as soon as equipment is procured. Major tasks scheduled for the first six months include: During the second six months — assuming funding is secured, the staff recruited, equipment purchased, and the database designed — the literature and document survey will continue but more emphasis will shift to data entry. After one year assessment of standards and productivity will be made and suitable adjustments made. OPERATIONAL EQUIPMENT. The LFDA will need equipment for operating, tentatively identified as follows (minimum specifications): Five Laptop or Notebook Computers.
Software.
Three Flatbed Scanners.
Digital Camera.
Three DSL lines.
Three cell phones.
Media backup (DVD).
Business Cards.
Miscellaneous Office Supplies.
Internet Domain Names. It is necessary to reserve domain names for the LFDA if for no other reason than to protect the integrity of the project. They may be useful also as access points to the archive.
Brochures.
CDR Business Cards. The image of the LPDA can be improved with cutting edge pocket-sized CD business cards. These clever electronic cards can contain presentations from the project’s website, Power-Point presentations, photos and other images, textual materials, and sound, as well contact information. |
