I was fortunate to have interned at Cal State LA's Special Collections & Archives, and even more fortunate to have had Azalea Camacho and Jamie Zeffery as my supervisors. Their knowledge, guidance and expertise provided an ideal environment that resulted in my getting the best possible digitization learning experience.
The workflow of digitizing the College Times/University Times newspapers, from handling the original newspapers, to operating a Zeutschel OS 12002 scanner to digitize the newspapers, to creating the metadata for the newspapers, and finally, uploading the PDF derivatives and TIFF images onto DSpace for publication, was a seamless and thorough process that solidified my understanding of digitization. Everything that had been covered in the classes I took toward my certificate, was pretty much put into practice during my internship.
But the internship also served as a lesson in sociology. In digitizing the newspapers--I worked mostly on issues from the 1960's and 70's--I learned a great deal about the history of Cal State LA, and was pleasantly surprised by just how progressive this campus has been all along. Long before the issue of women's rights, and more recently, diversity inclusion, became mainstream topics, the campus newspaper constantly spotlighted people such as Cesar Chavez and issues like the migrant workers' movement. As a person of color, it made me proud to be a part of this institution--even if it was just for a summer--with such a rich and moral history.
On the nostalgic front, I got to see issues with ads for films such as Jaws and Westworld, and I got to read an amazing Jaws film review. I also got to see a photo of the band Rush when they played on campus in 1973, almost a year before their first album was released.
I can't say enough good things about my experience here during the last few months. Again, I want to thank Jamie and Azalea for making me feel welcome, and for providing me with a tremendous opportunity.
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