Reflections

I chose to do my project on the South Carolina Gazette because it seemed like it might be a good place to find a variety of things even possibly literature. As it turns out, the gazette did actually have a lot. Finding something interesting to use for the project ended up being rather easy. The hard part was obtaining a useable copy of the gazette. Although the library society has copies of the gazette, they are not available for use due to the fragile state of the texts. After thinking that I could get scans and finding out that the person who promised these to me stopped working there somewhere between the time I requested the images and went to check on the progress. Anyway, everything worked out because I was able to use the CofC microfilms and a picture from a book. I found that the people who helped us at the SCHS were more helpful than those at the Library society, even excluding the man that left the company. The Library society itself uses a card catalog system, which for me is something I have vague memories of from second or third grade. Also, whenever I asked a question I was sent from person to person to person before I came to someone who could actually help me when I was at the Library society. I was more productive with the help I got at the SCHS.

I initially had some trouble with really knowing what the project would look like, but I think everyone felt that way to some extent. Looking back on the assignment I can see that certain parts of the class really prepared us for this project. I think that doing the mock anthology selection from Cabeza de Vaca was useful, and I thought that reading the headnotes class also helped. I would suggest another day devoted to looking at headnotes and selections. Overall, I really like the project. I think that it is a creative final project that still includes research without being a plain research paper. Personally, I never really considered what all goes into making an anthology, but now that I have I really appreciate them more. More than that though, the project gave me some new skill- I can now load and operate a microfilm machine, I learned how to use the CofC special collections, I can read an old print document with “f” for “s” without stumbling, I can write a headnote, and I can read a document or many documents with an eye for how section choice can impact my understanding of that document. While this project had a bunch of different parts to it, no singular part was particularly difficult to complete. Though the project was as time consuming as any other final project, I felt like it was easier to get through mentally since there were various parts that provided a change of pace.