
b. 1858 Charnock Richard, Lancashire, UK
d. 1908 Lawrence, Massachusetts, US
Photo Given by Vera R. Harrison
I’m starting to rethink joysephine.com once again. It’s had many incarnations over the past decade: A blog of silly things that didn’t matter, an online portfolio of arts and crafts projects, a blog of arts and crafts projects with tutorials, and for the last year or so, a static “coming soon” image without any content.
For the past two years, I was in school at UNC studying library science, concentrating in archives and record management. For roughly three years before that, I was finally finishing up my undergrad at Appalachian State University (’03 college drop-out, guilty as charged). With a Bachelor of Arts in History and a long background of genealogy research, I thoroughly enjoyed learning about archives for my own personal reasons, but after taking so many courses, I’m not convinced that I would want to be an archivist for a living. I thrive on helping people, and although archivists do help others, there is much more behind-the-scenes processing and fewer patrons with which to engage. When I originally decided that I wanted to go to library school back in 2009, I had public libraries in mind and although my ideas changed a little during the entire schooling process, I have returned to my original career ideas. I’m currently a library assistant (soon to be a librarian) in the public system, and I plan on being there for a long time to come.
Throughout my studies, I learned of many archivists’ tools for online collections management, description, access, and other field buzzwords. I have explored many and tinkered with a few. I consider myself far above average when it comes to technology use and understanding; however, I am also far from the IT expert that the installation of many of these tools requires. WordPress is not the most ideal platform for a project of this sort, but I am also not running a professional archive. As a hobby project, this is more of a public history and cultural heritage endeavor, giving others access to the expansive collection of genealogical materials I have built over the past ten years. WordPress may serve this function of my site just fine. However, I will try to find easy ways to incorporate important features like correct metadata and decent description to make these materials more useable and accessible for others.
The plan: Over the next few weeks, I’ll be tinkering with the site and playing with different add-ons, trying to build a webpage that will successfully showcase my collection of historical materials. I will eventually create finding aids for the physical materials that I have, allowing other genealogy researchers to know what I possess and make requests for digitization, but first I will start digitizing materials for which I have already received requests. I will continue to periodically update, including postings of photos, letters, land documents, wills, and a wide variety of ephemera and memorabilia. Although it is a tiny infant site right now, I have a vision for growth and becoming a source of information for other genealogists.
While I am working out the kinks I have disabled the ability to create an account, thus limiting robots or spam comments while I am building. If you would like for me to create an account for you before I get that up and running, or if you have any other questions, shoot me an email at joy [@] joysephine [dot] com.
I think this will be fun. Stay tuned!
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