Daily Blog #20: Digitization of the Puffenberger Religious Artifacts Collection

Today we were lucky enough to spend a large amount of time with Dr. Puffenberger, the donor of the collection. We recorded him talking about 13 of the artifacts. Each artifact he revealed something new and added insight that we would have never been able to get through research. He also told us the stories about how he obtained each artifact and its significance to its related religion. One of Dr. Puffenberger’s favorite artifacts was the Wooden Confucius statue. He told us that he paid a pretty penny for that piece and admires the piece because there are not a lot of Confucius statues. He explained that because one of the main points of Confucianism is to condemn all material goods, there are very few statues of Confucius himself. Dr. Puffenberger also brought a large basket with him today, which was filled to the top with books, silks, and memorabilia from his travels. He plans on donating them to the college, but we need to decide what exactly we plan on doing with these new objects.

After lunch, Amal focused on editing the interviewing footage that we have from yesterday and today. I took pictures of the six new artifacts that Dr. Puffenberger mentioned in his interviews today. I also took 360-degree videos for each new artifact. With pictures and 360-degree videos of almost 40 artifacts, our Omeka site just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Having Dr. Puffenberger be able to come in today was a real pleasure and allowed us to show him our progress and tell him of the future endeavors of the project.

• Hannah Ciocco

-Pictured are some of the new objects that Dr. Puffenberger plans to donate in the future