Week 5

 This week has been one of frustrations, emails and scheduling issues. This is by no means one individuals fault, having to work around 3-4 peoples schedules and CHDR's operating hours has just shown how many issues a project like this can have.  Between not having access to CHDR's lab at any time with the (understandable) requirement that there be a staff member of CHDR present in case there are any issues, trying to learn how to use the capture one software the scanner uses only for something to not work, and just trying to navigate scheduling issues between three people reminds us that projects like this are not as smooth as we'd like them to be.  

    This just comes with the fact that we're working within a university's constraints. UCF is not a archive, it does not have a large team available 24/7 for people to work with archival material or enough people to train you on how to use the equipment. I'm not blaming UCF for anything, that's just how it is. This presents us with a lot of people to go through to get information, to get meetings set up, to determine scheduling where things can be stored and all sorts of other issues. The things that need to be done bounce between people depending on whose schedule works with what needs to be done, email chains just trying to figure out when to meet, if not this day then maybe this day? A software update for the scanner software means the other graduate student who was going to show me how to operate things doesn't know where some things were moved to or changed for instance. This has led to another series of meetings next week to get training on the scanner and by week 5, I feel that this should have been started already. Again this is no ones fault, things happen, internal issues present challenges and these can only be addressed so fast as they arise. 

    Overall I am thankful for the CHDR staff in being responsive and willing to work with us to resolve this as soon as next Monday - Wednesday, however I still am of the opinion that we should be further along than we are; maybe I could have done something different, I'm not sure. The easiest thing of this project will be the scanning, it shouldn't take that long but doing the metadata and transcribing everything will be the real challenge once these other issues regarding access and training are resolved.

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