January 23- January 25

On January 23, I decided that I would focus upon metadata. Also, I received an external hard drive that would allow me to backup my files easily. This was very good news and I was grateful to receive this item. Spending the whole day cataloging the metadata I began to truly get a grasp on how time consuming it was. I was entering the metadata into an excel spreadsheet based off of a template made by Mr. Cravero and I was able to copy and past many entries. However, entering in the descriptions took up a lot of my attention because in order to craft one I needed to look at the document multiple times and had to compare the document with others. Also, finding other sources that were related to the document was sometimes a challenge because some of the things the documents brought up are not well known in the present. For example, one document mentioned the Orlando Ministerial Association taking a tour of a place only identified as the "Martin Plant." It took some time for me to discover that this was a reference to the Martin Company's Electronics and Guided Missile Plant which was built in 1956. The plant was run by the Glenn L. Martin Company which as since merged with another company to become the now current Martin Marietta company. Another example of something that was hard to find a source for was the mention in one document of bombings that occurred in Jacksonville. No one was harmed in these bombings so perhaps that was why they were not more famous. After some researching I was able to find two articles on a Jewish website that were excerpts from the Orlando Sentinel 1958 issue that mentioned the bombings. Researching these things I learned that it is much harder to find information about the past than I previously thought. I have always taken it for granted the convenience of finding historical information at the library or on the internet.

On January 25 I spent more time on metadata. The reason for this being how time consuming entering metadata was and how I had scanned a lot of documents last week. I talked with Mrs. Wojtyto about my progress and I told her that I would most likely be done scanning and entering the metadata of the Orlando Ministerial Association documents by February. She assured me that there were plenty of other documents to scan and that there was an older member of the First Unitarian Church that I could interview. I welcomed this possibility because the documents provided me with an unsatisfactory view of the Orlando Ministerial Association. The documents never mention how the association ended, the last document being an invitation that was sent out in 1966. By interviewing someone that was alive during the time period the Orlando Ministerial Association existed in I could possibly learn more about it. Also, there is most likely plenty of information about the Orlando Ministerial Association that was never included on the documents I am scanning. Most of the items I have examined are minutes of meetings, many important things are only mentioned in passing. A living person could help shed light on these things.