(no subject)

[See this entry for explanation of horrid typing.]

2nd day. Used big scanner. They use an AC/DC converter because AC gives too much fluctuation and leaves brown vertical streaks.

Backups. Back up to main computer every day, then back up to an extrenal hard drive weekly.

Anyway, big scanner has remote control that moves scanniong uniot up and down. They have preset heights for standard sizes oif paper. The scanner looks like a copoystand. Edwin said that companies who made copystands went into these sort of scanners.

I scanned some slides - 1500 pixels wide. They keep track on printpout of which slides are scanned and what filename they're given. Don't scan duplicates or slides that nobody would want to look at. They want information - full slides.

Also scanned some 18th and 19th century apprenticeship indentures. Poked through the box and looked at other parish records of relief to widows, the ill and infirm. Also saw affadavits of unmarried mopthers swearing as to the fathers of their chiklren.

Still hotter than hell, although overcast poart of the day. Slightly cooler than Dallas, which is 104 or so from what I hear.

don't want to type any more.

second day...

Just finished the second day of work, and signed up for an hour of Internet time at the library opposite the hotel, so I don't have to go back into the room for a while. It's hot enough here that the roads are melting. Literally. The M6 is reported to have melted in spots. Not as hot as Texas gets, though, and the shade is quite cool.

I did some actual work today, as opposed to yesterday. I scanned several slides of exciting topics like cropdusting and hedge laying. And then I got to use the big scanner, and scanned some apprentice indenture documents from the 18th century. And I got to go through them and pick out the ones I wanted to scan. I ended up spending time leafing through the rest of the documents in the box - parish records that included parish relief funds and the reasons they were given, money paid to the families of soldiers killed in service, and some affadavits by unmarried mothers swearing as to who the fathers of their children were. All from about 1700-1850ish.

My museum background was driving me crazy, because everything I know tells me to wear gloves when looking through stuff like this, so as not to leave dirt or finger oils on the documents, but like most archives I've been in, nobody bothers here. So I just made sure my hands were washed and handled them by their edges only unless the paper was too fragile to do so.

I'd gotten the first indenture scanned and was about to ask the woman I was working with what I was supposed to put into the file info and where to save it to when she rushed out of the room, leaving me there. And then the guy who's in charge of the scanning stuff came in, and I asked him, but he didn't know what she wanted us to do, either, so I got to just sit there until she showed back up. Ah the joys of being new and not knowing what the hell you're doing.

On Thursday, I go to Ellesmere with several people and a camera, to take photos of the meres and the various plants and animals and stuff of the area. It seems to mostly be an excuse for everyone to get out of the office for a day, than a trip that really needs to happen.

I am not complaining.