I got in touch with Aaron Speight (Truman’s digital collections librarian) and Amanda Langendoerfer (Truman’s Head of Special Collections and Archives) and will be meeting with them tomorrow afternoon. I also contacted Adam Boyles (the current PMA historian) about getting together to show me any documents that may be helpful (I mentioned possibly doing an interview as well, but stressed that I’m more focused on the archival research right now).
I have revised my project contract, but I’m still not sure about one thing: obviously, I plan to post photos (and maybe videos and music) on my site, but didn’t know if it would be best to have one paged dedicated to a photo gallery (or multimedia in general) or to have smaller photo galleries on the pages where I discuss specific events of the festival (e.g., the Judge’s Jam, the clinics, the main performance, etc.). I was also thinking about using photos in or alongside the text, so to speak, to literally illustrate what I’m talking about (e.g., “The Judge’s Jam is held at the Dukum Inn (see Figure 1)…” where Fig. 1 is a photo of Dukum), but didn’t know if this rendered the photo gallery(ies) superfluous.
Finally, I have started a very rough draft of my introduction and parts of my analysis. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me so I’m trying my best to stay on top of things… here goes!
Cathy Kroll
Great to read about your meetings with the archivists and historians! As for the various options in creating your web pages, I would say that you do not have to choose between having a photo gallery and interspersing photographs within your text. I applaud both ideas, just as long as the photo gallery consists of different images. I think it’s optimal to take full advantage of WP’s affordances, and that includes the ability to lavishly illustrate one’s text.
Miranda
Drew,
Your dedication to this project is incredible. What I mean is, I feel like I’m lagging behind. I am meeting with my festival coordinators for the first time in a couple days, yet you have so much research already completed!
This lack of progress has bothered me so much that I woke up this morning from an anxiety dream about it. I’m only hoping I can accomplish what I had promised.
Great job so far, and best of luck!
~Miranda
Drew
Ah, you’re too kind. Thank you! If it makes you feel any better, my productivity was born out of my uncontrollable neuroticism… but, yeah, I’m okay calling it “dedication.” Keep in mind too that JazzFest took place pretty early in the semester so I had to front load this project a little. Anyway, don’t worry too much (easier said than done, am I right?!), your project looks great so far and I’m sure you’re gonna knock it out of the park.
Drew