Project Summary from NHPRC Grant Application

Project Summary

Purpose and Goals of Project
The Troup County Historical Society and Archives (TCHS-A) and the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) are very excited about joining together on a new project to digitize nineteenth century Troup County government records. These Troup County records were first organized in 1985-86 as part of a grant from NHPRC. A finding aid, Guide to Archival Records of Troup County, Georgia, 1825-1900” was published as part of that grant. During that grant, records formerly in boxes marked simply "old cases" and in no order were reorganized and put into chronological order by year, then by session of court and by type of case. A detailed finding aid was produced which gives folder level control over the records. This finding aid will enable the Digitization project to proceed with minimal metadata creation.

The Digitizing County Records project has several purposes.
--1) Having nineteenth county records available online will allow DLG to add an exciting new collection of records available at their website. The records will be of interest to a variety of researchers investigating a broad range of topics, from the settlement of the western frontier (West Georgia in the 1820s), the Civil War and Reconstruction and effects on the home front, immigration, slavery, economic depressions, capital punishment and much more.
--2) Digitizing these records will allow the Troup County Historical Society and Archives to take advantage of modern technology and make an important advance in our ability to serve researchers. The collection dates from 1825 to 1900 and consists primarily of court cases. The 159 boxes in this collection (53 linear feet) are organized chronologically and by type of case. The finding aid transformed an interesting but unusable assortment of old papers into a nicely organized collection of local government records. The materials have been used consistently since 1986 but seldom more than once a week. Having the records digitized and available online will significantly improve access to these records.
--3) The project will be a national model showing how local government records can be digitized and how the Internet can allow county and city governments and small local historical societies to better serve a wide variety of researchers.
--4) Researchers will gain easy online access to records dealing with many different nineteenth century historical topics, ranging from settlement to the Civil War, to the coming of Industry. These researchers include academics, History Day participants, local historians, genealogists, students, and many others.

Significance and Relationship to NHPRC Goals and Objectives
1) NHPRC plans to fund trial scanning projects involving archival records in which large amounts of records are processed and a minimal amount of metadata is created. The goal is to scan historical records and make digital versions freely available on the Internet. This project to Digitize County Records will make an excellent trial scanning project.
2) These records are national in scope because Troup County records are typical of records found in local governments across the nation. Local government records are the records "Closest To Home" (the very appropriate title of another current NHPRC project). There are over 3141 counties across the United States, plus countless other governing bodies all serving at the regional and local levels. They touch the lives of residents of the United States more directly than state or national records. The records of debt, immigration, divorce (there were nasty divorces even in the 1830s), murders, mortgages, slavery reveal much about the lives of residents of the U. S. during the nineteenth century. These records are truly national in scope and are free of copyright restrictions. They will be made available free of cost on the Internet.
3) This project will demonstrate how a medium-sized collection of 53 linear feet can be scanned in a cost effective manner. Costs will be for someone to flatten the documents, scan them, and identify file and folder names so that they will link to the existing finding aid. The “Guide to Archival Records of Troup County” finding aid will be converted into a Microsoft Word file and then into EAD. Folder level metadata will be automatically created as part of the EAD process. The creation of metadata will be minimized. The only other significant costs will be for scanner and computer equipment.
4) Having the Troup County Archives, a recognized local government repository, team up with the Digital Library of Georgia, a recognized national leader in making digitized collections available to the public, will help ensure that the digitized records are easily available to as many people as possible. DLG staff have the technical expertise to make sure this project is done right and in as streamline a way as possible. Having the records available on the heavily used DLG site will help ensure maximum exposure for this NHPRC project.

Plan of Work for Grant period
Once the Troup County Archives receives notification from NHPRC of receipt of this digitization grant, the Archives will purchase an 11 x 17 inch flatbed scanner and a new desktop computer to be used in the project. Archives staff will advertise for two part-time people who will be the scanners. The goal will be to keep the scanner working full-time. A sample job description is attached. Qualified people may be recent retirees or students at West Georgia Technical College who desire to work thirty hours or less per week.

Once the staff member is hired and the new equipment has been purchased, the scanning project will officially begin. Scanner staff may travel to Athens, Georgia, to be trained by staff at the Digital Library of Georgia. Further, several documents will be scanned and sent to DLG on a cd-rom for careful review. Needed the scanning staff will make adjustments at that early time. Periodically during the grant, DLG will continue to do checks for quality control. Scanning staff will flatten the contents of each box. They will use sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 archival copy paper as separators between documents within a folder.

The new staff members will start scanning the documents. They will scan each document as a tiff file at 300 dpi and 600 pixels across the top. (Some very small documents will not be scanned at 600 pixels across the top because too much distortion would result.) The Digital Library of Georgia's scanning specifications will be used as a guide. Scanned images will be numbered to match the folders in the finding aid, so that the documents can be automatically matched up to the finding aid.

During the early days of the grant, the inventory, now a Microsoft Word file, will be converted to EAD. A consultant with EAD experience will be hired to do this conversion. Scripts will be written and used to automate the conversion process as much as possible.

Jpeg images of 72 dpi will be created for use on the DLG website. Staff at DLG will add the images to their website. The project directors will create introductory information about the county records and DLG staff will design the actual website in an attractive and functional style. Staff at DLG and at TCHS-A will issue press releases to archival publications and local media about the availability of the documents online. DLG staff will also begin carefully evaluating usage of the website and will periodically compile detailed usage numbers. They will be able to determine whether e-mail addresses ending with edu, org, gov or others are the most frequent users, what time of year they are using the documents and how long people are using the site during each visit. For instance, they will be able to look at the amount of usage during specific times of the year to help determine whether approaching History Day contests or the end of academic semesters create increased usage. DLG will continue to maintain the site as needed for at least three years after the grant officially ends and probably much longer.

TCHS-A will keep a master copy of the tiff digital images on an external hard drive (total size is expected to be about 700 gigabytes) at their building in LaGrange. A second external hard drive will be stored at the Georgia Department of Archives and History (GDAH). GDAH will also create 16 mm microfilm copies of the images. Having multiple copies of the images will help ensure their preservation. The Troup County Archives is prepared at some point in the future to convert the tiff files to another format as file migration necessitates.

Products and Publications to Be Completed During Grant Period
-- The Guide to Troup County Records, 1825-1900, created in 1986, as part of a NHPRC grant, will be converted into an EAD file. Scripts will be used on the EAD files to automatically convert the EAD file into the needed metadata.
--Scanned tiff and jpeg images of over 20,000 documents will be created as part of the process.
--16 mm preservation microfilm will be created of the images. Master and backup copies of the tiff files will be stored at the Troup County Archives at the Georgia Archives.
--Troup County Government Records, 1825-1900 will be added to the website of the Digital Library of Georgia and will be available on Galileo, a website available throughout Georgia in schools, libraries, colleges, and universities free of charge, and in homes on personal computers. This will be available to everyone free of charge.

Key Personnel
Project Director: Kaye Lanning Minchew Co-Director: Dr. Toby Graham
Address: Troup County Archives Digital Library of Georgia
P.O. Box 1051, 136 Main Street University of Georgia
LaGrange, GA 30241 Athens, GA 30602

An advisory committee consisting of seven members will be created. Minchew and Graham will chair the committee. The Advisory Committee will meet at least six times and will advise on procedures and products.

Finally one or two people will hire to do the actual scanning. The new staff members will be sought from the local LaGrange labor market.