Hello!
My name is Alec and I'm in my fourth and final year in the MUSE program. I am interested in collections care, preservation, cultural heritage imaging, and digitization.
I would like to focus on the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection for my thesis. I discovered this collection while doing research for Dr. Edwards' Disability History as Public History class and feel very connected to it as a Rochester native with deep family ties to this area. I also believe that the collection contains a wealth of information that is currently underutilized, including documentation of the suffrage movement, Great Migration, and other topics related to Rochester's rich social history. I am still deciding exactly how I want to approach my thesis. I am thinking of either developing an exhibit around the collection, or developing some sort of strategic framework to improve online access to the collection. Currently, it lives on the MCLS card catalog, which can be difficult to search and is not built for the purpose of hosting digital assets. The images themselves are also low-res and hotlinked from an external website, which is far from ideal.
Once I solidify my topic, I think my biggest challenge will be time management. In the past I have struggled with making steady progress on large, open-ended projects like this, and I anticipate being quite busy this semester with schoolwork and other responsibilities. I'm always nervous about what the future holds but I'm excited to see the direction my research takes me (and to see everyone else's work take shape as well!)
That's all for now, and thanks for reading!
Alec Rouleau
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