Author Archives: dcwpadmin

New Deafblind History Collections on Digital Commonwealth

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By Molly Stothert-Maurer

Examples of the Tadoma Method of deafblind communication from the Helen Keller and Carmela Otero Collections, Perkins School for the Blind, both ca. 1930. Tadoma is a system of tactile lip-reading where the fingers interpret the movement of the lips, jaw, and vibrations from the vocal chords.
Examples of the Tadoma Method of deafblind communication from the Helen Keller and Carmela Otero Collections, Perkins School for the Blind, both ca. 1930. Tadoma is a system of tactile lip-reading where the fingers interpret the movement of the lips, jaw, and vibrations from the vocal chords.

The Perkins School for the Blind Archives recently added four new collections to the Digital Commonwealth Repository. These collections are important primary resources including photographs of Helen Keller, from childhood through adulthood, correspondence from Anne Sullivan (including her first letter describing her arrival in Tuscumbia, AL when she first met Helen Keller), and a look at deafblind education from the perspective of another Perkins student, Carmela Otero, whose life remained out of the public eye as Keller’s was.

Some notable items include:

A letter from Perkins Director Michael Anagnos to Arthur Keller, Helen Keller’s father, recommending Anne Sullivan as teacher for Helen

One of the earliest photographs of Helen Keller

A photograph of Anne Sullivan holding a dog while riding a horse in Hollywood

For more information please visit the Perkins School for the Blind Archives homepage: www.perkinsarchives.org

Guest Post: Lucius Beebe Memorial Library

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Guest post by Jeff Klapes, Head of Reference Services, Lucius Beebe Memorial Library, Wakefield, Massachusetts

Beebe Library in Wakefield is a busy, medium-sized library serving a population of 25,000. We have a variety of historical collections, including photographs, postcards, maps, local government documents, and more. Boston Public Library has been invaluable in helping us digitize these materials for better access and preservation, scanning our maps, annual town reports, school yearbooks, and local history monographs for the Internet Archive. However, we’ve also worked on a number of other projects that we could manage ourselves. Two of these collections in particular are worth noting.
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Digital Commonwealth Portal Presented at Home and Abroad

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Recently, Digital Repository Developer Steven Anderson and Web Services Developer Eben English presented at the Open Repositories 2014 conference in Helsinki and at the Northeast Fedora Users Group (NEFUG) meeting in Boston.

Open Repositories is an annual international conference that brings together people and institutions responsible for the development, implementation, and management of digital repositories to share information and strategies for long-term preservation and access. Steven’s presentation was entitled “When Metadata Collides: Lessons on Combining Records from Multiple Repository Systems.” It summarizes the practical challenges involved in combining diverse descriptions, authorities, and technologies into the shared Digital Commonwealth repository and highlights the imaginative ways Steven and Eben have addressed them with the help of the Digital Projects department. Watch the seven-minute presentation online. Move the slider to the 52 minute mark to start with Steven’s talk. (Editor’s note: the previous link has had intermittent connection issues. Please continue to try the link until it resolves correctly.)

During the NEFUG meeting, Eben and Steven gave a presentation titled “digital_commonwealth_presentation” during the Hydra session. Steven presented on slides, that can be viewed here, and Eben gave a 10 minute demonstrations of teh actual portal. Steven also gave a lightening talk (aka “Dork Short”) about metadata combination challenges.