A Day of Scanning

Well today was probably the most monotonous day I think I have had so far. I spent most of my day copying 89 pages from that ledger dating from 1915 to 1986. I still have about one more day before I finish this one, but the end is in sight!

I'm still checking in on the VoiceThread feed and doing some consistency checks. If you know of anything that needs changed, feel free to drop off a comment and we will get to it!

Here is another photo for today:

Now this is a photo that I have not edited at all. I posted this to show the quality of the photos before I do a bit of work on them. I also just really like this photo because the shadow makes it look like this sheep is jumping straight up into the air.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

-Ben

Starting work with Documents

After quite a bit of audio work, all of the Breckenridge oral histories have been formatted in their full and complete form and are ready to be uploaded to our archives. This coming week is my last week and I'm going to be doing consistency checks. If you have any comments or concerns about the work on the project, this is the time to make them!

I've started working on some of the documents stored in our vault here in the Regional History Department. The documents that I am working on date back to 1915 and are really cool to work with. People had big flowing handwriting back in the day and these old documents are practically pieces of artwork. I'm formatting these documents into one PDF file that can also be uploaded to our records when the time comes.

Here is another great photo from back in the day:

Thanks again and see you all tomorrow and next week!

-Ben

A Varied Day on the Project

I've been continuing to compile all of the audio files into concise files organized under individual names. Basically, when we translated all of our cassettes that the oral histories were recorded on to CDs, we had to split up the content into a couple of tracks per disk over a couple of disks. Now that we are trying to compile all of the information onto the library's server, I have to go through and put all of the pieces back together into a single audio file. It's tedious work, but will have excellent gains in the long run.

These last two weeks for me I will be doing a series of tasks for the department; I'm just helping out wherever I can. For example, today I found a great video on Photoshop that helped out Kathleen with a project she was working on. If anyone is interested in checking it out here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfkjHnsAsvg

Here is another photo to keep your interest in history peaked:

Thanks again! See you all tomorrow!

-Ben

VoiceThread is currently finalized

Our work on VoiceThread is finished for the time being. We have uploaded 19 sections each composed of 2-18 audio-dubbed slides. So much content should satisfy the general public's need for information for some time. If you absolutely can't wait to see what else we have on the early history of our valley, you can come visit the Regional History Department and browse our massive archive of original and duplicate documents. It's a great place to do some history research!

I will continue to update this blog with my projects I am currently working on. Although you can't see some of the new happenings, you can still get an idea of what happens in this department. If you feel like contributing to the cause, we are always looking for volunteers and resources.

Here is another photo for today. I think that this is a section to which I will continue to post photos, even if I run out of edited photos, so that there is some sort of graphical representation of the work done here:

Thanks!

-Ben

Half Day

I was only in for a half day today but I did add some more content to Julian Newman's selection. Check it out on VoiceThread.com. Much more to do tomorrow!

Thanks!

The Julian Newman Epic

The oral history for Julian Newman is huge! It spans four disks and is at least 4 hours long! I'm just finishing the first disk today, so I should be able to finish his section up sometime next week. He selection on VoiceThread.com is definitely going to be the largest section we will upload until we figure out how we are going to upload the entire oral history to our archives.

I am really happy with the audio quality and the crisp voices that narrate this oral history. I think this section is going to be the best one thus far! Here is another photo for today that shows another section of Sun Valley Road in 1910:

Thanks for checking in! See you all Tuesday at 5-6 PM PST.

Media Management

Today was a big day for managing the data this project has accumulated thus far. I started today off by copying some disks as part of a side project for the department. Then I decided it was about time to go through all of the uploads on VoiceThread to check for any errors or problems with any of the media files uploaded so far. Comment if you see an issue that I should address. After that I started working on Julian Newman's oral histories. There are four disks so it may take quite a while to get through everything. Keep checking back and I should have something for you next week.

Our Regional History Librarian is home sick today and will hopefully be back either tomorrow or sometime next week. She just started a few new prescriptions to help her recover from her surgery.

Here is your weekly photo to enjoy:

See you all tomorrow!

A New Section Featuring Clyde Bacon

There is a new section up on VoiceThread.com featuring Clyde Bacon! What is available currently is the around a third of his entire oral history (still a section of decent size). The rest of his oral history with Miriam Breckenridge was transferred poorly and the quality is not high enough to justify uploading on VoiceThread. It will get re-transferred and edited in the future to be uploaded in its entirety with the rest of our processed oral history archive.

This issue with the poor transfer was my troubleshooting difficulty of the day. When I opened up the audio file the audio levels were at a very low decibel, so I boosted the audio to match the other disks we have in our selection. When I went back through to check that there were no distortions in the boost, I noticed that the audio levels were bouncing, fading, and picking up a lot of noise disruptions. I messed with the file for an hour or so and determined that the files were not going to reach the quality of the other sound files.

Here is another daily picture for your enjoyment:

I am really happy of how this picture turned out! When I first looked at this picture it had big tears and holes in the middle of the picture and bordering the frame. After an hour or so of editing colors and masking damaged areas, I was able to produce this nicely restored picture.

See you all tomorrow!

Robert Elliott and Wool Production

I uploaded a new section to VoiceThread.com today featuring Robert Elliott. Robert Elliott got involved with wool production in the 1950s after serving in the war. He learned how to get pretty good at his work and it is great to hear him talk about his trade. He has some great stories so check him out asap if you want some cheap entertainment! Hey, you might even learn something about your history and/or heritage.

Today was pretty quiet in the Regional History Department. However, I do work in the corner with headphones on... Here's another photo for today:

See you all tomorrow!

Rink Williams' Oral History

Today was a very productive first day of the week for me. I got Rink Williams' section online on VoiceThread.com today. Rink was in the sheep business starting in the 1950s and when he was interviewed by Miriam Breckenridge in the late 1970s he had a very good handle of the business. He has an interesting perspective on the business and politics of the early Wood River Valley.

Starting today and continuing tomorrow I will be working on Robert and Carol Elliott's oral history with Miriam. I'll keep everyone posted through Twitter, Facebook, and here on the blog. Here is another photo for today. Sorry I wasn't able to post one yesterday due to time constraints.

I run into all sorts of audio problems everyday when I am working with these oral histories. I had a problem today with the Elliott's stereo recording where the stereo would fade in and out. Stereo has two audio tracks, one for the left speaker and one for the right speaker. The issue had the right and left speaker fading out interchangeably. This is a very difficult issue to fix because just combining the two tracks into one and splitting that track into two duplicated tracks just makes both the speakers fade out half as much. I'm going to have to research this issue further.

The other audio problem I have been having off and on is a problem with audio that has the ghost of an audio track over the top of it. I'm not sure if this was a technical issue with the recording equipment or an issue when the recording was moved to the CDs that we have in our collection. In any case, this issue needs to be carefully edited around and sometimes there is just nothing that I can do to save the intended audio track and sections just have to be avoided.

Thanks for stopping in today. Have a great week and keep checking in daily.

VoiceThread is back up

Rink Williams' oral history is a difficult one to progress through but you should be able to enjoy it sometime next week. VoiceThread is back online although we aren't totally sure what happened to make it go down. It still shouldn't be an issue. I worked a short day today and will have much more to post next week. Have a good weekend and see you all on Tuesday!

Victor Otazua an early resident (VoiceThread is down)

Victor Otazua is up on voice thread after some refinement this morning. Victor was a Basque who worked for the Breckenridge family after immigrating to the United States in the 1950s. He took many trips home to visit his family and originally planned on returning to his homeland with enough money to get started again. Because of his unique background, Victor is a very interesting character to learn about and he is fun to listen to because of his unusual accent.

The next oral history is of Rink Williams and, because of its length and his slower speech mannerisms, editing his interview may take a bit longer than other histories I have done thus far. In the first section of his story I was able to grab a sound-bite of Miriam Breckenridge talking about why she composed these histories. If you are interested, check it out.

Thanks for checking in again to see how the project is going. Here is another retouched photo...., however, I'm going to need to edit some more photos before I run out!! It may be a while before you hear much from Rink Williams.

In other news, VoiceThread.com is down temporarily today. It should be back up sometime soon. They have a log on the site updating users on current events. Keep posted and we'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Back from a leave of work

Hello everyone!

I'm back from my week of working for Allen & Company. It was a very rewarding experience and I made some new friends and industry connections for future positions. I was able to impress most of the people I worked with and I should be able to get a letter of recommendation or two in the future. I worked 89 hours in 7 days and needed a day or two before I was ready to come back to work at the library. Hopefully there will be no more interruptions in my work schedule until August when I finish up the 300 hours of my contract with the library.

Today the Breckenridge sisters (Carolyn Gregg and Mims Breckenridge) came in to look at my progress on the project. I showed both of them what I have done so far on the project, Aaron talked to them about future possibilities of expanding our local archive to interact with more people, and Sandra gave the reasons for why we made the decisions that we did on the project and gave some great supporting statements. Altogether it was a very successful meeting and I think everyone came away with something positive. I am very grateful that they gave me this amazing opportunity to work on the project and if you are reading this, Thank You!

I worked a lot on Victor Otazua today but I still need to refine a couple sections before I can make the collection of sound-clips and pictures public. Everyone can check it out tomorrow.

Great to be back and working. Here's another retouched image from the Breckenridge collection:

See you all tomorrow!

The Welcome Addition of Dennis Burks

Working in the Regional History Department at the Community Library is always rewarding because, as a researcher, I come across new ideas every day. Today, for instance, I was going through an oral history by Miriam Breckenridge, featuring Dennis Burks, really cleared up a lot of questions that I had about shipping sheep in Idaho's early days. He also shines light on several other sheep related topics I hadn't thought much about at all. It's really interesting to see his perspective because he was in the sheep business for so long and knows so much about its history.

I really suggest that anyone who is even slightly curious about the sheep industry's history check out Dennis Burks's new section on VoiceThread.com! He is great at telling some cool anecdotes from the times! I might be calibrating a very expensive printer tomorrow so I might be unable to upload a new section on VoiceThread tomorrow. In any case, here is the retouched picture for today:

See you all tomorrow!

Elizabeth Peavey

I have completed the Myrle Robertson Bradshaw oral histories and now I have uploaded several sound-bites from Miriam Breckenridge's oral history featuring Elizabeth Peavey. Although Elizabeth Peavey was a Twin Falls resident, she still visited the Wood River Valley during its early years. Her perspective of the valley is a unique and interesting one that I enjoyed re-living through her stories and descriptions.

I'm not going to be blogging tomorrow because it's the 4th of July. However, I'll be back on my mission Thursday or Friday depending on family plans this week (my uncle is back from Russia for the month). Feel free to comment while I'm gone and I'll be back to answer any questions late this week.

Here's the newly retouched photo of the day and have a Happy 4th everyone!

The Fun of History

History is a lot of fun if you keep with it and don't approach everything with the opinion that these people were dry, dusty and boring just because they are from the past. If you look a bit deeper you can see that their lives were scandalous, exciting, and you might just find that you relate to what they went through. Myrle Robertson Bradshaw is able to give just a glimpse into how these historical figures from our past must have lived. It's truly very cool and, best of all, you can hear it all on VoiceThread.com!

I do have some more editing to do, and the rest of Myrle's story is going to be uploaded on Tuesday by 5:00 PM PST. Stay tuned. Unfortunately there isn't going to be a retouched photo up on the blog today, but keep checking in for several more next week.

My biggest challenge today was creating a write-up for new resources that the Regional History Department desperately needs. I spanned everything from new high end computers that can facilitate photo editing tasks, to new electrical and internet connections for volunteers, patrons, and researchers to use. If you have any ideas (or money :) ) feel free to stop by or comment on this blog, Facebook, or Twitter.

Not One, But TWO!

I can confidently say that I've worked incredibly hard today as there are two brand new sections up on our VoiceThread.com feed! You can now listen to both Pete Lane and Mary Newman Ostrander on VoiceThread! Feel free to comment on these two new selections and tell me what you think! Not much else to report as the process of posting to VoiceThread has become very smooth and error free! Now here's another photo from our collection to end the day:

The Complete Story of Bud Purdy

A brand new section has been completely uploaded to VoiceThread.com! It's a section featuring the oral history of Bud Purdy. The collection of oral histories I am uploading were donated to the Community Library by Miriam Breckenridge and this new section marks the half way point through all of the oral histories. Bud talks about everything from management of public lands to the Kilpatrick Brothers' Empire to shootouts in the early days of Shoshone. It's very exciting and interesting stuff, so check it out!!

I'm going to try to push through two sections in one day tomorrow so keep an eye open on our VoiceThread selection under "community library RHD." I got Bud's section up fairly early today, so I spent the rest of the day compiling resources and editing photos to go in the next two sections. I'm going to finish off this update by showing another recently edited photo from our collection:

The Complete Story of John Breckenridge

Today was a huge day for our VoiceThread on VoiceThread.com. I added 10 new slides to John Breckenridge's thread from his interview with Miriam Breckenridge. There are now 21 slides on John Breckenridge!

There were some technical difficulties today when I went over the oral histories. Apparently the company that transposed the histories into a CD format did a shoddy job. The CD I was transposing to VoiceThread had an audio track that played over the interview in a few parts that made my job much more difficult. I had to cut these pieces out of the interview and piece parts together around these mess ups. Eventually we will have to re-convert these original recordings so that they can be uploaded completely.

I backed up four more oral histories today. I will be editing these interviews down into sound-bites over the next couple weeks and pairing each byte with a photo from our collection.

To end the day, here is another photo from the archives:

Expanding on John Breckenridge's Story

Today was another productive day in the Regional History Department. Sandy still isn't back but she should be in for at least part of the day tomorrow. I've been busy uploading new content on VoiceThread.com and there should be twice as much content under "John Breckenridge" as there was yesterday.

I also edited a couple photos this morning and here is another example of my restoration work:

Because the John Breckenridge is an extremely influential character and we have long oral histories relating to his life in the Breckenridge collection, his section is going to expand far past other sections. Expect to see more of his story on VoiceThread.

-Ben

John Breckenridge and the Early Wood River Valley

It's quiet in the Regional History Department today because our department librarian, Sandra Hofferber, is having a minor operation in the hospital today. Stop by next week to ask her how everything went!

In other news, there are a few new updates on VoiceThread under John Breckenridge that are very interesting! Did you know that John's father sold his sheep ranching outfit only to have John come back home from college to tell him that he wanted to be in the sheep business? His father had sold it because there wasn't going to be anyone to take over the business. There are many great stories like this one on VoiceThread.com under "community library RHD."

Today was another long day of retouching and editing photos with some audio editing in there as well. Here is another example of a great photo we have in our collection:

Come check them out in the regional history for a bit of the background of the Wood River Valley! There's always more for me to do tomorrow. Check in around 5:30 PM tomorrow for another update!

Ben

Daily Update

Today was a day full of new things. I'll be announcing new changes just as soon as we decide what we are doing. It will be a couple weeks, but these are going to be some pretty amazing changes! I've updated a few of John Breckenridge's oral histories today onto VoiceThread.com so go check them out! If you are new to this blog, or have forgotten how to find us on VoiceThread, here is a quick tutorial:

1) Go to VoiceThread.com

2) Click on the Browse tab at the top of the page

3) Now just type "community library RHD" into the search box

More of John's oral histories will be uploaded before 5PM tomorrow so you might decide to check in around then. As promised, here is another restored photo from the Breckenridge collection:

See you tomorrow!

Ben

The Discussions of Gordon Gray

A new section has been added to our VoiceThread.com feed in the form of an interview with Gordon Grey compiled by Miriam Breckenridge. In this interview Gordon Grey talks about what it was like to grow up in the early Wood River Valley and presents several amusing anecdotes. Check it out!

I've also been brushing up on my Adobe Photoshop skills on Lynda.com. The website hosts classes on multimedia topics of varied length and intensity. In my process of retouching all of the Breckenridge photos at the Regional History department, some of these new techniques should come in handy.

Also, as of today, I will be uploading small versions of recently retouched photos from the Breckenridge collection. It's an amazing collection!

Attention iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch owners: You can download VoiceThread as a free application on your device and find all of our content on the go so you can show our library to your friends! Just go to the Apple App Store and search for VoiceThread. It's a free download and only requires an internet connection!

Feel free to comment on our blog, Facebook, or Twitter accounts for more information and check out our previous posts!

A Day of Maintainance

Today was a major maintenance day for the blog and VoiceThread site content.

First, advertising for the blog has been updated to be more prevalent. Previously, the advertising was extremely sub par as it had almost nothing to do with the content featured in the blog. Hopefully this will promote a less disconcerting experience.

Next, all VoiceThread website updates have been completely removed and re-posted due to a thread authorship issue. Now all threads should say that they are by Miriam Breckenridge and copyright information should display as a comment before the oral histories. This took some time and I apologize if someone's experience was adversely effected.

Third, I spent some time today reading through the oral history of Mary Newman Ostrander. Her history will not be posted for a while as I need to compile sound clips and information before I can post. Tomorrow I will be posting a new oral history so check in tomorrow after 5 pm MST.

Finally, I have been going through more of Miriam Breckenridge's photos and retouching them. There is so much information to uncover in these old photos! Maybe I can post some of them in the future...

I'll be keeping everyone updated as the week moves on.

Breckenridge Photo Collection

A lot of digital archiving got done today. I uploaded 130 detailed photos to our servers that back up some of the Breckenridge Collection Miriam Breckenridge donated to our library.

There is also a new section up on VoiceThread.com that features Joe Burgy. He is a very interesting character from Sun Valley's beginning who worked at the sports desk after the resort reopened following World War 2. He met celebrities from all walks of life including president Harry S. Truman. To check it out, follow these simple steps:

1) Go to VoiceThread.com

2) Click on the Browse tab at the top of the page

3) Now just type "community library RHD" into the search box

You should be able to see everything currently available in our library but keep coming back for more because we upload more content semi-daily! Don't be shy, Leave A Comment!

Updates and Photo Editing

I started off the day today by putting new content up on VoiceThread.com. We now have Lesley Benoit, Dorothy and David Brandt all featured on our network. Remember, all you have to do to find our content, edited in the Regional History Department of the Community Library, is type "community library RHD" in the VoiceThread search-bar. Also, note that  James 'Sandy' Laidlaw's profile picture has been updated. If you didn't notice it before, you can see it by looking under the microphone bubble that appears beside the slide you are viewing.

As I mentioned before in a blog post, we have an awesome collection of photos. A large portion of those photos were donated to the library by Miriam Breckenridge. Because of the nature of this project, I have begun to go through those photos, editing blemishes and retouching them to breathe new life into forgotten memories. It is very important for me to be meticulous in this process so it definitely takes a while. I got through 6 photos today to give you an idea of how long it could take to get through the hundreds of photos that she has donated. This will be a regional history project for years to come.

As a side note, watch out for shoddy label adhesive when inserting disks into disk drives that do not have a insertion tray. We had a Mac today that would not eject the disk from the computer because the label kept catching on the edge of the disk drive. Luckily, our local tech-therapist helped us out of the sketchy situation in a very timely manner. Thanks a lot Paul!

Keep an eye out on VoiceThread.com tomorrow afternoon because I will be submitting some humorous anecdotes by Joe Burgy!

Progress With Oral History Audio Editing

All of the social networks seem to be working effectively and all of the tech related items seem to be in order. The links should be in the last post to find us online and follow this effort. Feel free to comment if you like something or if we made a mistake. We are only humans believe it or not.

Today I worked on Miriam Breckenridge's Oral History that she recorded with Alta Horton Ellis. Alta is a very unique historical figure because her father was the first Forest Ranger in the Sawtooth Valley and he was stationed at the Pole Creek Ranger Station. She depicts what life was like for him and others that served the Forest Service in the early days of settlement in Idaho.

Clipping these audio records into very short sound-bites is difficult because there is so much interesting and prevalent information in every one of these oral histories. Choosing the photos to accompany them is even harder because of our vast collection of photos from 1881 to the 1960s and beyond here at the Regional History Department at the Community Library.

Today I also started getting the oral histories in their entirety saved in system memory so that they can be used later without requiring disks. Also there are also some rumors running around the Regional History Department that we are going to be posting on LunaCommons.org! We will keep you posted!

A major challenge that I overcame today dealt with converting audio streams in audacity. On one of the oral histories the right stereo track on the recording went out completely and the audio was only playing out one speaker. Since there was no equalizer that could get sound from the right speaker in the audio editing program I was using I had to work with the problem in a much more improvised manner. I had to convert the track to a mono (single speaker) track, then duplicate the mono track, target each track at a different speaker, and mix the audio back together.

(Because many of our materials are copyrighted you may see this photo a lot)

Social Networks Integrated

Alongside my work on the Breckenridge Project I have integrated social networks that keep users informed and updates them whenever I upload new content.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/BreckenridgeGuy

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003976720594
            or: http://www.facebook.com/thecommunitylibrary

I will be updating with a quick post almost every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday around 5:30. Keep an eye out and feel free to comment!

First Steps

  Starting my first day this week and getting working on Miriam Breckenridge’s Oral Histories was a smooth transition. I started this week getting comfortable with the histories and technology tools I will be using on the job. I read thoroughly through 9 of the 18 Oral Histories taking notes of anything I felt would make an excellent sound-bite. This process also gave me an extensive background of the Wood River Valley, the people who lived there, and the politics of the time that these people lived in.
   
  These oral histories gave me an amazing look into the past and gave me a feel for the type of people who lived in the valley at this time. Miriam Breckenridge focused many of her histories around the sheep industry, an industry that has almost no place in the modern public eye. I found these histories insightful and I feel that their content should be given more light.

  In order to get an even better feel for the history discussed and in order to gather resources for putting these oral histories on VoiceThread and later Luna, I began sifting through the photo archives. We really have an excellent collection of photos and documentation that made it easy for me to search for items that would be of great use to me.
  
  This Saturday I worked on putting pictures to some sound bytes. I used my notes on the oral histories to find sections that I enjoyed and then I started the lengthy process of editing the lengthy audio recordings down into minute or so long recordings that could associate an online PowerPoint. I used an online program called Audacity. I then searched through my notes to find a quality photo I selected to associate with the sound-bite. I had to reformat the audio recordings to be in the correct format to edit. Finally I uploaded the content to VoiceThread and annotated the selections.
  
  I still need to expand the tags that make these selections easier to find. However, if you go to VoiceThread's main site at VoiceThread.com and click on the browse tab at the top of the page you can search for these media files I have created. If you type in "community library RHD", you should be able to find most all of these files and libraries. I still have a lot more work to do, but I am enjoying it and I am looking forward to next week!