1824 1876 Capstone P roject The Docket Project Origin and User Group Collection Contents Collection Analysis Planning Development Origin of the Collection The project was funded by two 20000 TexTreasures grants awarded ID: 247190
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Slide1
Texas Constitutions 1824 - 1876
Capstone
P
rojectSlide2
The Docket
Project
Origin and User Group
Collection
Contents
Collection Analysis
Planning
DevelopmentSlide3
Origin of the Collection
The project was funded by two $20,000 “TexTreasures” grants awarded
by the Texas State Library and Archives commission
1
st
grant: Awarded in 1999 for the purpose of digitizing 13 early Texas constitutions and declarations, creating a website to house them, and publishing them online. 2nd grant: Application submitted in 2002. The purpose of this grant was to fund the digitization of convention materials for 8 of the constitutions, creating reliable indices and making links in the collection.Slide4
User GroupTarget user group is unspecified…
Goal 1: “To make important Texas historical and legal material readily accessible to
members of the public
.”
Goal 2: “To make unique Special Collections materials available to
users at institutions throughout the state.”Goal 4: “To make information… available to
library users across the state
.”
Goal 5: “To enhance the education of a wide range of library users.” Objective 3: “Enable users with disabilities to access the versions of the Texas Constitution and convention materials without difficulty.Objectives of project closely match the interests of Texas State Library Commission, the project’s sponsor.Slide5
Contents
The collection is made up of 13 core documents.
Eight of these documents have material relating to the conventions in which they were drafted. Convention materials are stored as PDFs and are fully cross- referenced with their primary documents.
Documents exist both as plain text coded into HTML pages and JPEG images. Pages displaying the images are linked from pages containing plain text.Slide6
The DocumentsSlide7
Mexican ConstitutionsThe first three documents of the collection are the Mexican Constitutions by which Texas was governed before its independence:
1. Federal Constitution of the United States of Mexico (1824)
2. The
Constitution
of the State of Coahuila and Texas (1827)
3. Constitution or Form of Government of the State of Texas (1833)The collection contains images of the original Spanish documents. The plain text HTML rendering has been translated into English. By whom is not known, citation is not given.Slide8
IndependenceThe three 1836 documents pertain to Texan revolt and sovereignty. These are the documents of the wartime government, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the new
Republic
:
4. Declaration, with Plan and Powers of the Provisional Government of Texas (1836)
Ordinances and Decrees of the Consultation
5. Declaration of Independence (1836)6. The Constitution of the Republic of Texas (1836)Journals of the Convention, 1836
The Declaration of Independence is a single page with just one image. The Declaration with Plan and Powers has multiple articles spread across just 3 pages. Slide9
Admission to US and Secession
First constitutions as part of the United States.
7. The Constitution of Texas (1845)
Joining the U.S
Journal of the Convention, 1845
Debates of the Convention, 18458. The Constitution of Texas (1861) Seceding from the U.S
Journals of the Convention, 1861
9
. The Constitution of Texas (1866) Rejoining the U.S.Journals of the Convention, 1866Slide10
ReconstructionReadmission to the Union and reconstruction of Government. Also included is a proposed constitution for a State of West Texas.
10. The Constitution of the State of West Texas (1868)
Ordinances passed by the Constitutional Convention, 1868
11. The Constitution of Texas (1869)
Reconstruction
ConstitutionJournals of the Reconstruction Convention, 1868
12
.
The Constitution of Texas (1876)Journals of the Convention, 1875Debates of the Convention, 1875Slide11
Index and Keyword Search
A subject index exists that cross-
references all constitutions. It con-
t
ains dozens of subject headings and is organized alphabetically.
Users can search the collection by
k
eyword. An off-site application
crawls both html pages and PDF
m
aterials.
Convention materials tend to be ranked above constitutions, suggesting that search does not normalize document length effectively. Slide12
Navigational Bar with External Materials
Navigation of the collection is displayed
on the left side of the browser window.
Many of these links lead to information
that is redundant or external to the
collection
.Slide13
Phase 1: Analysis
To best analyze the contents of the Texas Constitutions collection I created diagrams illustrating the organization of each document
.
Every document is organized somewhat
differently. The diagrams help visualize
each organization scheme and march
image pages with text pages.
The task of mapping allowed me
to identify irregularities in the collection’s organizational system.Slide14
ObservationsOrganizational Structure of existing collection is sound.
~
Fragmenting documents by sections and articles is preferable
to viewing
whole document.
~ Functionality of indices is dependant upon current organizational structure.Images should be displayed alongside text. ~ Bandwidth no longer the constraint that it had been.Improvement of navigation a top priority.
~ Existing navigation not useful for viewing collection
~ Collection navigation accessed through special pages (table
of contents, index) rather than appearing on all pages.Slide15
Phase 2: Planning
Mock ups
–
I wanted to emphasize navigation with the new design. I introduced a sustained border across the top and left-hand side of the window that contains the user’s navigational options.
I also included the
Tarlton banner and the UT tower banner to provide a sense for the amount of screen space given
to administrative functions.Slide16
Navigation and Display
Links to the index pages are arrayed
alphabetically across the header
.
The user can navigate
between documents usingthe links displayed on
the left-side nav bar.
A table of contents could
be produced dynamically with Javascript.Display JPEG images
alongside plain text.Slide17
Constructing a Database
One of the original goals of this project was to migrate the Texas Constitutions collection into a database and make its content dynamic. Several advantages can be gained from doing this:
More Flexibility: It’s easier to update and change certain parts of the collection without affecting the whole.
Automatic cross-referencing: A relational database allows the system to make connections between entities.
Ability to customize server-side applications that are right for the collection: We could create a better search application.
While a database offers more capabilities, the cost of implementing them is high.
.Slide18
Entity Relationship Diagram
This diagram illustrates how
I would connect tables in
the collection’s database.
All elements in the collection
depend on concatenatedkeys: document and page.I separated these into dif-ferent tables to meet 2
nd
normal form. Since remain-
ing relations were many-to-many, I sequestered all other elements to special tables and connected them with thePages foreign key.Slide19
Phase 3: DevelopmentDisplay
Create Title page
Code new page style
Build Javascript menus for
Tables of Contents
Embed JPEG images into pages
Create magnifying function (optional)
Migrate Information
.Organization
Build string parser to collect data
from index
Migrate page and image names
into database manually
Create a PHP application that
queries database and generates
HTML
Create PHP program that
collects user’s search queries,
queries database to find term
occurrence and ranks returns.
Slide20
The Database Question…Is a database right for this collection or are the benefits it offers redundant?
Is it worth the time and resources to make one?
Display
Is it helpful to have images displayed alongside text?
Is too much screen space devoted to administrative tools?
Do the visuals need more pop? Too bland? Slide21
Suggestions?