Progress Report

Good morning,

I figured that it was time to give our loyal readers a progress report on the Poplar Grove Collection. Christian and I have been hard at work completing the scanning portion of this project, and we are within days of finishing. Series 10; the series from which our recent finds have been coming is already completed.

At the moment we are scanning the last two boxes from Series 11, which was found to be only partially complete. This is the series that deals with records relating to farm and plantation administration, and is dominated by documents dealing with horses. Once Series 11 is completed in the next day or two, scanning for the Poplar Grove Collection should be all but complete. Our next step in this project will be to render all of the Poplar Grove documents accessible online through the E-Books format. E-Books, for those that may not know, are electronic books where vast amounts of information can be assembled and made conveniently searchable through links. Our exact timetable for this project is not yet fully known, but we should be starting it in the near future.

Besides finishing up scanning, Christian and I have been also working on the organizational aspect of this collection. We have been doing this by editing the online series descriptions, and in some cases providing descriptions for the specific contents of each folder. This is all found in the Poplar Grove Collection entry at the Maryland State Archives Special Collections website. Also we have made sure our scan counts match up with what we have documented for each box and folder. With any collection, organization is key, and we especially want to make sure this collection is in top organizational shape before it is available online in its entirety.

Lastly, we are in the early stages of brainstorming ideas for a handbook about how to organize and deliver a collection, using the Poplar Grove Collection as a model. We are both very excited to work on E-Books for this project, as well as create a helpful handbook for future projects.

We hope everyone is as excited by the progress being made with this collection as we are; questions, comments and discussions are encouraged. Also don’t forget to return later this afternoon to see Christian’s weekly post.

~Nathan