The Ashes of Waco

Browser Issues

Lately I've been looking at the CONTENTdm digital collection on different browsers (at least the major ones: Firefox, IE, Safari) because I've heard there are some display issues with IE and because I ran into problems last weekend when I presented on a project to a visiting group.

It looks like there are two major issues right now: the banner at the top does not display in Internet Explorer; and the way files open is inconsistent between browsers and computers. The way I want it to work is, audio and video files will stream in the window with the metadata (or, it opens a new tab or window to stream so a person can have both the file and the metadata open at once), and documents like PDF and visual images like JPEG open in the same window as their metadata, as well.

Regarding the first issue, I have our computer services information librarian looking into it (he's the one who noticed it in the first place). It's strange because there is no error message where the banner should be. Regarding the second issue, it seems to be so random: some files will open/stream and some won't, browser by browser. I don't see a setting to fix it, either. And when I used Safari on a different machine last weekend, it acted differently than the Safari on my computer. 

I think it's time to ask for help from the CONTENTdm listserv and/or customer support. I apologize for the inconvenience, and if anyone knows the setting that will fix the open/stream problem, please let me know. In related news, next week I'm meeting with an assistant professor of communication design here on campus. He might be able and willing to spruce up the website...and possibly give me advice on the CONTENTdm/browser issues.

Another New Acquisition

Funny what can happen in a couple weeks. In late September I was corresponding with Matthew Wittmer, an artist and librarian living in Los Angeles, whom I've gotten to know well over the past year because of this project, and mentioned in passing that he should donate his model of Mt. Carmel to us. Turns out, it currently didn't have a home (beyond his closet), and he was willing to consider it. He had thought about Baylor's The Texas Collection in the past, but they have a policy against acquiring artwork. He said he hadn't even thought about donating it to us before, since we're a writers' collection.

But, as various acquisition efforts, including the Lee Hancock Collection, have shown, Waco has taken on a life of its own around here. I ran the idea by our curators and got the green light. Then, this past Monday morning I received an e-mail from Matthew, saying his parents were visiting him in L.A. and could drive across I-10 on their way to Houston and deliver the model (in three specially-made crates) free of charge. Next thing I knew, they were at my doorstep with the crates!

Here is a photo of and an excerpt about the model, from Matthew's webpage, "Memorializing Mount Carmel Center in Waco, Texas":

"Through developing observational drawings from video footage and photos of the complex, I constructed a model of the building to better understand the layout and function it provided the community, which is the model pictured in the photos on this web page.  I also designed it to serve as a memorial to those who lost their lives during the events of 1993.  The model was eventually installed on the Mt. Carmel property where a Visitor’s Center Museum was created and in operation between 1998 and 2006. The Visitor's Center Museum was managed by the survivors and a local supporter up until March of 2006. During that time it exhibited artifacts from the building, surviving photos of the life at the center prior to the siege, donated photos from family and friends of residents who belonged to the community, and defense exhibit photographs of the property and events/agents present throughout the siege.  Tens of thousands of people traveling through the area have visited the property since 1993 and continue to visit to this day. My model served the survivors as a historical aid on the property from December of 2000 to September of 2006, much to the thanks of Clive and Edna Doyle who lived on the property at the time (Edna passed away in the summer of 2001) and expressed their desire for a model in their center. A mutual friend, Rollin, graciously helped in coordinating the installation process."

We're very excited Matthew has trusted us with his artistic and accurate rendering of Mt. Carmel, especially since the model has that connection to the visitor's center there. Also, in the Reavis Papers there is a postcard that Matthew made with a picture of the model on it, as well as a copy of line etchings of the model. You can view both of those in the digital collection. And Matt said he has old correspondence from Reavis, who initially gave Matt Clive's contact information. See, it all ties together!

Negotiation Transcripts

Arguably the biggest informational treasures in the Dick J. Reavis Papers is the collection of negotiation transcripts. From the first 911 call made by Branch Davidian Wayne Martin during the height of the Feb. 28 shootout, to FBI negotiator Byron Sage's loudspeaker instructions during the fiery chaos of April 19, the drama is captured in these transcribed conversations between the adversaries.

I believe we have the full set of transcripts, which were procured by Reavis during his investigation from defense attorneys. Technically one can get them from the FBI with a Freedom of Information Act request, but from what I hear, one will have to wait a while.

Most, but not all, of these transcripts are in digital format, and many of those are already included in the digital collection. You can see what's there so far with this link: http://tinyurl.com/yeh2kmk, or by searching "negotiation transcript" in the search bar of the digital collection.

I have been working on adding these lately and will continue to do so until they are all up there. They are one of the most researcher-requested items in the collection, and I can see why. Now, they will be fully keyword searchable, making this aspect of research much quicker and more productive.

The other type of item most requested are the actual negotiation recordings. Those will all eventually be in the digital collection too, and when they are, researchers will be able to find recorded content using the transcripts, all at their own desks at home.

Lee Hancock Collection

At the April 19 commemoration in Waco this year, I met Catherine Wessinger, Professor of Religious Studies at Loyola University in New Orleans. She is co-editor of Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions," the author of two books on Millenialism, and editor of two books by Branch Davidians (Mt. Carmel survivor Sheila Martin and David Koresh's mother, Bonnie Haldemann).

Catherine informed me of the Lee Hancock Collection at Loyola--a collection rich with internal government memos, interview reports and expert reports, as well as news articles and FLIR videos, among other items related to the raid, siege, assault and trial of the Branch Davidians. Lee gathered these materials during her numerous years researching the topic as a reporter for the Dallas Morning News, and she had access to some government documents that other reporters typically did not have.

Lee, Catherine and the archivists at Loyola were all interested in moving the collection, and after discussions over the ensuing months, we were able to secure acquisition of the collection here at the Southwestern Writers Collection. Although we are a literary manuscripts repository, our collecting scope does include papers from area journalists. We also feel this collection, centered on the government's side, will compliment Reavis' nicely, which focuses more on the Branch Davidian side.

Also, according to Catherine, the Lee Hancock Collection contains photocopies of documents (or detailed notes on classified documents) that have not been or are no longer accessible to the public. Catherine recently wrote an article about the contents of the collection and an article about the startling conclusions she came to as a result of researching the collection. You can read both articles and all the others online in the latest issue of Nova Religio, The entire issue is devoted to the Branch Davidian incident, and will be published in print in October. It also contains an article by Matthew Wittmer, "Traces of the Mount Carmel Community: Documentation and Access," that contains information about the Reavis papers and The Ashes of Waco digital collection.

We're very happy that our work this past year digitizing and providing online access to The Ashes of Waco research materials was instrumental in the future acquisition of the Lee Hancock Collection! We should acquire it around January 2010, and we can definitely see creating a similar digital collection of out of it someday.

we're live

Okay, the website went up today: http://ashesofwaco.library.txstate.edu/. Aniket and I will be tweaking it (as well as the digital collection) over the coming weeks and I'll be adding content to the digital collection for the foreseeable future. Although Aniket's official time with us is done, he graciously offered to keep working on the project remotely as needed--namely, making changes that are too complex for me to handle.

As I get the site and collection to where I want it, we at the Wittliff Collections will start planning for our marketing efforts, and I'll keep the blogosphere updated on those developments. In the meantime (or any time, really) please send me comments, questions, suggestions--either via this blog or the website. I'd love to hear what you think.

more screenshots & news on the site

I just realized I promised more screenshots by the end of the month. Here it is Aug. 31...and the world continues to wait! Well, wait no longer, gentle readers.

Here is the final homepage. We took out the Guestbook page, because users can use this blog to leave comments or e-mail me directly. This way we don't have to keep up a database and worry about monitoring the comments. Eventually we'll have a comments feature implemented within CONTENTdm too, so users can leave them directly connected to an item.

As you may have noticed, we changed the subtitle to "A Digitized Archive" rather than "An Online Exhibit," as we feel that is a better descriptor. Here is About the Project. The links will lead you to the appropriate places on the same page, and "back to top" links will bring you back here.

Author Interview is very similar in look and function. I divided up the interview into subjects and we turned those into links that visitors can use to jump straight there.

Resources is the last page in the portal site. Most of the links are for sites related to the subject, and those are basically the same as I provided in this blog.

When a visitor clicks on Digital Collection, they will go directly to CONTENTdm in a new window. Different users can modify how they want their screen to look, but right now this or something similar is what you'll see when you get there:

We (Aniket and I) are going to be tweaking it over the coming weeks. We're going to try to make it not so black--similar in look to the About the Project or Author Interview page on the portal site--with a lighter background in the middle so everything isn't white-on-black. Also, we're working on getting all the files to embed properly (i.e., the audio/video files to stream). I think we're close, but now Aniket is working pro bono so I hope it doesn't take too much more work.

We're waiting on the University website guys to get us connected to the proper server to we can make the portal site live, and in turn lead people to the CONTENTdm site. They are tied down right now with a project for the University president, but we should be able to get the site up in the next week or two. In the meantime, I keep plugging away on uploading records and entering metadata.

Sorry about the screenshots getting cut off, but if I make them images smaller they're impossible to read.

More soon.

latest on the website

Below is a screen shot of the home page of the upcoming website. The website is close to being in its final stage. The center image will rotate to different images, fading in and out between them. As you can see by the main navigation links, we changed things up a bit since the last post here in mid-July.

About the Project contains brief descriptions of the author (e.g. a bio), the book, the archival papers, the grant that made the project possible, the digital collection, and the Southwestern Writers Collection.  

Author Interview is an edited transcript of my interview with Reavis last December. I divided the transcript into sections by subjects, that the reader can jump directly to. 

Digital Collection and Blog will go directly to their respective places, in a separate window.

Resources is a list of links to provide a person with more resources regarding the grant, the project and the subject.

Guestbook is a place for anyone to leave a comment on what they think about the site and the digital collection, as well as the incident itself, of course.

Aniket has turned most of his attention now to customizing the look of our CONTENTdm pages, and I continue to work on the metadata and digital records. I'll post more screenshots before the end of the month.

The Upcoming Website

Just thought I would check in and update our scores of readers on what's been happening with the project lately. Aniket and I have been working together designing a template for the site. It will consist of: an opening page with a banner, navigation links, and rotating sample images and/or video clips; an "About the Project" page that gives background information on the project; an "About the Incident" page that describes the incident through the lens of Reavis' collection and book; a page to contact us to request copies; and a "Guestbook" where visitors can leave and read comments. In addition, there will be links to this blog and to the digital collection itself.

The pages that Aniket and I create will link to the CONTENTdm pages that contain the actual records, where users will be able to search the metadata and bookmark records of particular interest to them. Because of space concerns (and time and copyright concerns, somewhat) we are not able to provide digital surrogates of all the items at this time. I'm hoping to continue to add more digitized items periodically after the grant period ends. Of course, I will keep the world posted via this blog whenever newly digitized items are added.

Many other CONTENTdm sites that contain audio and/or video files embed them into the site, so no downloading or pre-installed media players are necessary. We plan on doing this for our site. As far as design goes, we're keeping it simple, like the upcoming Wittliff Collections website will look, and stark, like the background and text colors of this blog. 

I'm going to place the Reavis 12/30/08 interview transcript either on the site or in the collection itself, or both. Some students here worked hard to transcribe the interview, and our admin assistant, myself and Reavis all made passes editing it. I think it is a good resource as to how the book and the project came about, as well as why investigating and remembering what happened at Waco in 1993 matters.

4/19 Memorial Service

On Sunday, April 19, Kurt and I drove to Waco to attend the annual memorial service led by Mt. Carmel survivor Clive Doyle. Starting in 1995, until 2005, I think, a service has been held on 4/19 at the Mt. Carmel site (a 1994 service was held in June). After Clive was pushed off the property by Charles Pace in early 2006, Clive has kept the 4/19 services for survivors and their friends and acquaintances going off-site in Waco. He has organized and led almost every one of these gatherings, I believe. He also has kept people up-to-date through the years with the Mt. Carmel Survivors Newsletter.

This year, the 16th Annual Mt. Carmel Survivors' Memorial was held in the small conference room of the Country Inn & Suites along IH-35 in Waco. From the look of the photos, I'd say around twenty-two people were in attendance. Kurt and I brought an audio recorder and took a few photos as well. We may be including the recording of the whole service in the online exhibit, but I wanted to share a portion of it here in the meantime.

Clive spoke for the first twenty minutes or so and that's what I want to highlight here, because he gives a thorough (and sometimes emotional) account of what all has happened in the past year especially, and in the years since April 19, 1993 generally. He discusses, most notably, the passing of David Koresh's father last June, Jaime Castillo last December, and Koresh's mother Bonnie in January.

Download Clive doyle memorial talk

Later in the service individuals got up to share their thoughts with the group, and at noon, as he does every year (since that was about the time the 4/19 fire started), Clive movingly read the names of those who died on February 28 and April 19, 1993. Here is one of the photos I took, featuring Matthew Wittmer speaking and Clive Doyle looking on. Matthew is a good friend of and advocate for the Mt. Carmel survivors, and he's been incredibly helpful to me with this project. You might recognize him from a previous photo in this blog.

Goodbye, Kurt & Hello, Aniket

Kurt's last day here was May 1, but he stopped in today to say goodbye to the Wittliff Collections crew. He's off to Ohio, then to West Virginia for the summer and plans to be back in the area in September. We're going to miss him around here but hope to see him again soon. Thanks for all your hard work on the Ashes of Waco Project, Kurt! 

By the way, per the very slight chance anyone reading this blog needs to hire--or know someone who needs to hire--an a/v preservation specialist, Kurt is your man! 

Today was also Aniket Kulkarni's first day as our Web Design Intern. He's going to work 20 hours a week for the remainder of the grant period. This is the last leg, the home stretch--time to turn the records that Kurt created in CONTENTdm into a vibrant and interactive website. Stay tuned!