About the Project
Our mission
To offer a glimpse of what a practicing physician carried when making house calls from 1890 - 1910 through a selection of photographs, catalog pages, and other media, with a special focus on implements manufactured and sold by the Wm. H. Armstrong Co, Indianapolis, IN.
The Project
As our final project for a class in Digital Libraries at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, our team created this small, online digital library focused on aspects of medical history. The project required the following:
- Must include at least 10 items
- Provide at least 2 means of navigation
- At least two different media types must be included, such as printed material, manuscript (handwritten), photographs, audio etc.
Location and Resources
All the physical items used in this collection were provided courtesy of the Indiana Medical History Museum, 3045 Vermont St, Indianapolis, IN, 46222. Special thanks to the musem staff and volunteers for selection of items, and use of their space as we created this collection.
Technology used
Photographs were taken with two different digital cameras: a Samsung S850, and a Canon PowerShot A720 IS. Catalog pages were scanned using a MICROTEK ScanMaker i800 flatbed scanner, at a resolution of 2400 x 4800 dpi. Images were edited using Adobe Photoshop Extended, and this site was developed using Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. The interview with Dr. Tinsley was recorded using an Apple iPod Classic and a TuneTalk Stereo Microphone by Belkin.
Metadata guidelines
We selected DublinCore as our metadata scheme. Our metadata guidelines (in PDF or Word) were based in part on the guidelines used by the Wabash Valley Visions and Voices digital memory project. All items were selected using our selection criteria (in PDF or Word) which focused our project to turn of the century medical implements likely used in Indiana and owned by the Indiana Medical History Museum.
The Group
Our group consisted of four library science graduate students with an interest in learning the skills needed to create and maintain digital library collections. R. Todd Vandenbark designed the website and scanned catalog pages, as well as aided in some digital photography. Jennifer S. McKeeman led the digital photography efforts amongst other tasks. David B. Opperman assisted with the digital photography of artifacts as well as aided in the transition of metadata from Excel spreadsheets to the website. Ruth A. Light scanned catalog pages as well as created the metadata guidelines and performed metadata quality control checks. All members participated in image editing, metadata creation, and digitization of materials.
