Special Collections Internship at the University of Central Florida
Week 10 Finishing Up
Clean Up and Put Things in Order!
I am revising and editing my bio on Jose Guerra Alemán. I need to make another version without the images so it can be uploaded onto the UCF library special collection page under Jose Guerra Alemán. I am finishing the inventory page for this collection. Beforehand, I started a copy, but I did not quite like the way it came out so I redid the format of the inventory. I also am looking back at each box and recording the folders I created and some of the items that were in the boxes. I know in each box there are similar themes and have the same Folder names so eventually, those Folders would be combined with the same box. But for now, I think this is a good start. The important thing is the staff knows what each box contains because the items are mostly in Spanish. I also want to include a document of all the changes Jose Guerra Alemán made from his old draft to the final draft of his Cuba Infinita encyclopedias. I am thinking if someone wanted to do research of how a writer processes his/her work or the changes he/she made in the different stages of writing, then the researcher can have some sort of data, to begin with.
I collected all this information, from what I mentioned above, on paper because I felt more comfortable than starting to write it on the computer. However, I do need to learn to start to collect the data on the computer because it will save me time in the future because I do not need to transpose from handwriting to the software-type program. It makes me realize how much I am to my old ways. This internship has made me thinking of things I need to work on that can push me out of my comfort and limitations so I can be a better researcher and collaborator in other projects. I have also learned in other ways. This collection has given me the opportunity to discover somebody else's life and learn about his work. Jose Guerra Alemán was just a name before I came in, but now that I researched his work, I have learned he was instrumental in collecting the history of Cuba. If it was not for his son to donate us the collection, then we would not have known the impact that this one man has done in the historiography of Cuba's Independence, at least to me.
Clean Up and Put Things in Order!
I am revising and editing my bio on Jose Guerra Alemán. I need to make another version without the images so it can be uploaded onto the UCF library special collection page under Jose Guerra Alemán. I am finishing the inventory page for this collection. Beforehand, I started a copy, but I did not quite like the way it came out so I redid the format of the inventory. I also am looking back at each box and recording the folders I created and some of the items that were in the boxes. I know in each box there are similar themes and have the same Folder names so eventually, those Folders would be combined with the same box. But for now, I think this is a good start. The important thing is the staff knows what each box contains because the items are mostly in Spanish. I also want to include a document of all the changes Jose Guerra Alemán made from his old draft to the final draft of his Cuba Infinita encyclopedias. I am thinking if someone wanted to do research of how a writer processes his/her work or the changes he/she made in the different stages of writing, then the researcher can have some sort of data, to begin with.
I collected all this information, from what I mentioned above, on paper because I felt more comfortable than starting to write it on the computer. However, I do need to learn to start to collect the data on the computer because it will save me time in the future because I do not need to transpose from handwriting to the software-type program. It makes me realize how much I am to my old ways. This internship has made me thinking of things I need to work on that can push me out of my comfort and limitations so I can be a better researcher and collaborator in other projects. I have also learned in other ways. This collection has given me the opportunity to discover somebody else's life and learn about his work. Jose Guerra Alemán was just a name before I came in, but now that I researched his work, I have learned he was instrumental in collecting the history of Cuba. If it was not for his son to donate us the collection, then we would not have known the impact that this one man has done in the historiography of Cuba's Independence, at least to me.
Many thanks for choosing my father for your internship project.
ReplyDeleteHis last thoughts at age 90, were of a free Cuba and how he would miss the opportunity to view its shores again.
Carlos