Hello again

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been very busy! I'm over 700 pamphlets in and Chelsea and I are nearing the end of the inventory. I've started meeting with Cathrine, our digitization guru, to learn how this all will come together. My next steps will really be digitizing pamphlets.

Selection seems like it will be the hardest part. We digitize first for preservation and second for access. We can only digitize things that are able to handle it. There are two kinds of scanners I can use-flat bed and book edge. It's nice we have the book edge scanner because that will be easier on some of the more tightly bound pamphlets. The other option is photography, but I am not yet as familiar with the process. Even though I have spent the last two months looking for copies of the pamphlets we have that are already digitized, I may still have to make our own digital copy. Sometimes version online are poor quality, or missing pages. When I search for digital versions I'm always making sure that the edition is correct, so even if the second edition of something is available online, if we have the third edition then I'll still have to digitize it. I may end up picking something arbitrary to determine if I'll digitize something now by choosing only pamphlets that are 20 pages or less or something like that.

I won't be able to digitize all eligible pamphlets since there's so many, but I'm excited to start!

The Charter

As a Gettysburg alumna, I've always known that the school has a charter, but I never thought about it and I certainly never read it. As I've started my job search I've been looking at lots of mission statements, and vision statements, and values statements. So when I came across the charter of Pennsylvania College I was intrigued. This is like the original mission statement. The first missions they express about the college are to be "for the education of youth in the learned languages, the arts, sciences and useful literature". The charter includes the classes off so you can plainly tell what was considered appropriate education. Apparently there was a large emphasis on German along with Greek, Latin, and English.

One of the resolutions I find funny near the end is that "no student during his connection with the college be permitted to attend any political celebration". I don't think that's any issue now! Many students would jump at a chance to interact with politicians in any setting!

Anyways, it's an interesting document to look at and think about as we continue to educate the youth.

http://gettysburg.cdmhost.com/cdm/singleitem/collection/p126301coll0/id/7