Running head: Cuban revolutionaries Project 1

Cuban Revolutionaries Project: A Digital Library Mockup

Marcella M. Falquez

University of South Florida

Author Note

This project was made possible through the donation of the items by the Manteiga family.

If there are questions about the paper, I can be reached at mfalquez1@mail.usf.edu.

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Abstract

The people of Cuba conducted three revolutions between 1868 and 1898. The Manteiga family,

who are prominent in the Tampa Cuban@ community, donated a collection of newspaper images

concerning revolutionary figures to the University of South Florida Special Collections. This

paper discusses the process of creating a digital library based on these items.

Keywords: Cuba, Tampa, University of South Florida Special Collections, Digital

Library

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Cuban Revolutionaries Project: A Digital Library Mockup

For my digital library mockup, I used the digital library for the OMEKA exhibit on

Cuban revolutionaries that I had been working on since July 2016. The OMEKA exhibit, as of

the time of writing, is not yet live.

Creation Process

The creation of this digital library took place from early July 2016, with an anticipated

finish date of November 24th, 2016. I was not responsible for scanning the images as .jpeg

images and sorting them by categories. This had been done by an earlier volunteer, who

graduated in Spring semester 2016.

What I was responsible for was researching the image subjects, writing 175 to 100-word

biographies for them, and collecting dates for a timeline of the events between October 10th,

1868, and the end of the 1898 War for Independence. I then met with Xiying Mi and Richard

Bernardy of the University of South Florida Library to discuss metadata creation needed for

batch-upload to Sobek and the creation of an OMEKA site, respectively.

Research

The project focused on the lives and activities of numerous Cuban revolutionaries and celebrities

between 1868-1898 and needed extensive research. My research focused on the following items:

personal biographies, political and social events of each revolution, and the creation of a timeline

for these events.

Personal Biographies. My project entailed creating a 175 to 500-word biography or

description for each revolutionary. In some cases, such as the revolutionary general Juan Monzon

y Lopez, finding any information was difficult. For the more celebrated revolutionaries, such as

Jose Marti, the difficulty was remaining under 500 words per entry.

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The biography process began through examining the Special Collections’ stacks, which

held a great deal on the Spanish American War. Andy Huse provided me with works by the

Cuban historian, Ramon Guerra y Sanchez. His works on the History of Cuba provided me with

a greater understanding of Major General Antonio Maceo, for example, as well as Maximo

Gomez. Matt Knight also provided me with needed information on the Canadian pilot J.A.D.

McCurdy. I had access to the work of a previous volunteer. I only used her research for one

individual, Ma. Esperanza Bonfil y Ferrer, who I could not find many sources on.

I additionally used the University of South Florida Library, as well as HathiTrust and

JSTOR, to find information on my portrait subjects. Although I tried to focus on academic

historical works, such as the work of Ada Ferrer on Cuban race relations during the period, I was

compelled to search far afield. For example, the Cuban chess player Raul Capablanca had only

been written about in a medical journal, due to the extraordinary aspects of his deadly stroke in

1942. When I had found enough information, I began writing biographical entries. I decided

early on that I would begin with details of the subject’s early life, if available, and then progress

into the conflicts that they were involved in.

Political and Social Events Research. The Cuban War for Independence was linked to

the two prior conflicts in the last twenty years. Although I had studied Latin American history, I

had not gone into detail into these conflicts, or how they had impacted all the future events in

Cuba. I additionally was not aware of the social conflicts happening in Cuba during these years,

such as the death of the 8 medical students or the popularity of operetta in post-independence

Cuba. For the most part, my research into these topics was integrated with the research on image

subjects.

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Timeline Creation. I began creating the timeline by making a running list of dates,

separating them into conflicts and then by biographies. After meeting with Richard Bernardy, I

edited my list of dates so that they were compliant; the least amount of detail allowed was

MM/YYYY. After creating the list, I then began importing the dates into OMEKA, tied to a

placeholder image if they were not associated with a biography. For example, Jose Marti’s exile

would be associated with Jose Marti’s image; the Grito de Yara would have a placeholder image

since Cespedes was not pictured in the collection.

Creating the OMEKA Exhibit

I first met with Richard Bernardy to discuss the steps needed to create an OMEKA

exhibit with an incorporated timeline. I also provided Richard with the scanned images so that he

could create identifiers. While this process was going on, I met with Xiying Mi. Xiying and I

worked to create appropriate metadata for the images. A key element was determining series title

and subtitle. This was difficult, as each poster had at least four lines of text, and some lines (such

as <Supplemento A La Caricatura> or <Fumen Cigarros Cabañas>) could have been used in

either place. When possible, I included the image creator, the year, and other identifying data.

I also looked up each subject’s Library of Congress authority records, if it was possible to

find them. For some individuals, I was only able to use the placeholder “Havana—Cuba.” When

I had obtained the subject headings and the item identifiers for each item, I submitted the data to

Xiying. The metadata and images were batch-loaded into SOBEK, along with a placeholder item

for dates and events which were orphaned.

After the batch-loading was complete, I began creating items for the exhibit. I began by

entering the portrait subjects, and then alternated entering portrait subjects with timeline dates.

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After entering portrait subjects, I then created pages for each portrait. This included the portrait

and the subject’s biography.

Lessons Learned

During the creation of this project, I learned that I should not have been so confident that

I would have a finished OMEKA exhibit by Thanksgiving. The timeline creation process was

painstaking, and its progress was slowed due to my decision to include every battle in each

conflict. I additionally found OMEKA’s timeline function to be hard to navigate, and would have

liked more extensive training.

However, I also learned about the metadata creation process, which I enjoyed a great

deal. I would have liked to go further into detail on some subjects—for example, the Cuban

theologian Father Felix Varela Morales could have benefited from additional subject headings

concerning his work as a bishop in New York City. I also learned to think more critically about

how I assigned categories to certain items—for example, the image for Tomas Estrada Palma had

a paragraph that I had initially classified as a caption was more properly identified as a summary.

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Example Item (Omeka)

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Example Item (Digital Collection)

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References

Falquez, M. M. (2016, November 30). Esperanza Iris. Retrieved from Unpublished OMEKA

Exhibit: http://exhibits.lib.usf.edu/exhibits/show/cuban-revolutionaries/cuban--and-

international--nota/esperanza-iris--maria-esperanz

Falquez, M. M. (2016, November 30). Item #2182: "Esperanza Iris". Retrieved from

Unpublished OMEKA Exhibit: http://exhibits.lib.usf.edu/admin/items/show/2812

Falquez, M. M., Bernardy, R., & Mi, X. (2016, November 3). Cuban Revolutionaries. Retrieved

November 15, 2016, from Digital Collections:

http://digital.lib.usf.edu/cubanrevolutionaries/all

Falquez, M. M., Bernardy, R., & Mi, X. (2016, November 15). Doctor Diego Tamayo. Retrieved

from Digital Collections: http://digital.lib.usf.edu/SFS0060820/00001/marc