After arriving in Hawaiʻi in 2008, one of five roommates [ University of Hawaiʻi (UH) grad student ] introduced me to a professor, Prof. John Charlot (d.2022), who needed someone to scan a 400 page book [ of his late father Jean Charlot (1898-1979) ], having already obtained copyright permission.
After scanning additional documents and persistently offering my abilities with websites, I had gained confidence of the professor for giving me a chance to help with the website where the documents were being posted. It was only a hour or so of making changes to the initial document returned by the webserver (index.html). I will always remember what the professor said at the end: "I should have had you do this sooner".
For whatever reason, I was immediately depended upon for solely maintaining the website, right after that meeting. Perhaps I had more time than the prior person for immediately posting new documents and making typographical changes? At the time, I no longer had a place to live (and had gained no connection with any of my prior roomates), though I never told the professor. I still had a portable computer (always a strong personal interest) and persisted with keeping our connection with our emails.
The professor eventually introduced me to another person in 2011, Dr. Janine Richardson (d.2015), who had been helping the professor with other matters of the Jean Charlot Foundation (JCF) over the years. Richardson was writing a book for the Catholic Women's Guild, and needed some archive documents scanned before the materials would be taken away to the Hawaiʻi and Pacific Collections, in Hamilton Library of UH at Mānoa.
With that introduction, I met the historian of the Catholic Women's Guild, Catherine Hughes, who had the archive materials at home. I eventually helped out the CWG with updating and printing (in booklet format) the "Bylaws and Articles of Amendments", renaming the organization to "Catholic Women's Guild Hawaiʻi" (CWGH). My familiarity with the archive materials helped with making the CWGH newsletter more informative for the CWGH members.
I had lived with Catherine Hughes (1928-2019) for about five and half years, and it is only now (2024) that I have been able to reflect and realize I had felt as if I had lost half of myself on 2019 January 27 at 9:00AM. Two months after diagnosis was too quick; but what more time would have been enough? Catherine was unconscious during the final five days. A couple of days prior to the final day, someone revealed to me Catherine had thought of me as a son; though Catherine never told me, nothing in words. Like me, she had no family of her own, though for her it was more a matter of outliving everyone.
Three years later when I had to leave the house [ Left on 2022 January 9, just before 9:00 AM. The house had to be sold finally (probably for charitable purposes). ], nobody depended on me any more. I had turned over the reins of the JCF website half a year prior to that moment of leaving the house, because about three months prior to that I had been informed I would need to leave soon. As such, I no longer had overlapping interests with anyone, no opportunity for participating in projects other than my own. I also no longer had a stable location for my personal interests, as I had gotten into crafting hardware for connecting to the Raspberry Pi by means of its GPIO pins (General Purpose Input/Output) and needed a place indoors for that pursuit.
I did try for a while by using a storage unit [ Belonging to someone else who paid for it and had no use for it. Immediately lost contact with that person, as there was never any response to any of my emails or phone calls. Helpful, but no interest in being connected with me. *shrug* ] as a personal laboratory; but after 16 months the management had associated my presence with the concept of a "condominium" and said I had to leave. No interest in arguing or being defensive, I immediately grabbed my go-bag [ From day one, I always presumed I might need to leave immediately, as permission of being there at the storage unit was paid for, rather than by a trusting relationship. ], left the door open and the key to the lock [ which for whatever reason upset the management; was I being too submissive? ], and calmly walked away and left everything behind.
I had already let go of it all mentally and emotionally from the first day (2022 January 09), as I had no real relationship with the management, and had no other place to put any of it. In a way, I had already given up, as it was the only sensible mindset to have with no income, nobody who needed my help anymore, and no relations that could offer me a place to exist.
What of the professor? I had stopped receiving replies to my emails and my phone calls after mid-2021, after the transfer of the management of the JCF website. After a year or so, I queried a JCF board member with my concern about the professor, because the (emeritus) professor was retired on another island and I was unable to drop by personally. Got absolutely no reply from that person either. I checked for an obituary, maybe 2022 or 2023, but nothing other than someone from Texas with the same name. Finally, 2024 January 30, the search results provided it: 2022 October 18, in a care home. That explained the lack of replies from the professor, as there was likely no means of receiving my messages, likely nobody checking.
Only lately have I reflected upon that decade and a half or so, and have come to realize I had helped three people with projects important to each one, during the final years of each one. Some projects continue, some have stopped. None will be remembered, nothing I did either, nothing will be discovered archeologically. Nonetheless, I am glad I was able to help out with my participation, as I developed my interests in the computer medium differently than I would have otherwise.
While I do look forward to participating again, I have no desperation in doing so. I have no aversion to helping another person during what might turn out to be the final days of that person; obviously, that is nothing exceptional, so no point trying to avoid what is commonplace. However, I also have no desperation in making myself "useful", as that concept has made no sense for me to consider of myself or of anyone else. Again, for me it is a matter of progressing through experiences together, rather than completion or final results.
At this point, I have come to realize I am just waiting for my own final moment, and that I have always been waiting, as each person does [ Terminal diagnosis: birth. ]. Like everyone else, with whatever busywork each person does, I am just passing the time until then how ever I might yet participate with others, until that final moment for myself (Perspective).
The end of "Overview".
Most recently, I had helped the Jean Charlot Foundation for a dozen years (2008–2021). Scanned thousands of pages of documents and books, and scanned lots of artworks [ But I continue to know nothing about art. (Ha ha.) ]. Most of the materials were located at the Jean Charlot Collection (JCC), on the 5th floor of the Hamilton Library, at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Initially, Emeritus Professor John Charlot requested scanning of documents in 2008, and soon after maintenance of the document server (t.i. the website) "jeancharlot.org". In 2021, I suggested they get another maintainer, for my own lack of resources to continue [ On 2022 Jan 09, I had to finally leave the former house of Catherine Hughes (1928–2019), former historian of the Catholic Women's Guild Hawaiʻi (1859–2019), as that house was finally being sold for charitable purposes, per Catherine's will. ].
[ Note: Everything seems to have been moved to vault.jeancharlot.org by the new maintainer for the JCF document server "jeancharlot.org", presumably for the sake of establishing a new presence while maintaining the links to the prior content (over 3800 HTM documents, thousands of images, and hundreds of PDFs). ]
I had focused (though it was uncompleted) on crafting the documents along the following guideline.
Simplicity was requested. That translated into no special effects, f.e. no JavaScript antics or CSS transitions. Novelty wears off fast, and gets in the way of quick repeated perusal, such as by researchers and writers.
As the subject is art, the documents presenting the artwork should have no artistic expression of their own. Otherwise, the appearance and interface of a document would distract from (or even compete with) the artworks it presents.
Ease of maintenance by minimizing the required technical skill. That means no special software such as proprietary databases, no templates, and no need for server-side scripting.
No need for dissecting documents and forcing their pieces into a tabulated format, and rendering their contents meaningless without an additional computer program for reassembling them, f.e. PHP-based computer programs. Instead, keep documents whole, then the documents actually exist.
The obvious reality is that the file system that comes with an operating system is a database, and is automatically cross-platform compatible with file systems of other operating systems simply by means of transferring files over a network.
A template for a document layout is a recording of a pattern. Much like a table in a database, a template restricts what information can be included: no location in the pattern, then no location to type the information. That means lost opportunity to record additional information for an artwork item that might be unique to it.
Instead of templates, a guideline for adding information to a document was maintained (vault.jeancharlot.org: Website guideline, 2020-11-11), along with additional guidelines as new topics emerged, f.e. one for murals, one for letters, and so forth. That is much like the variety of guidelines for bibliographical information that exist for publications, f.e. Chicago style.
Relying on server-side computer programs complicates the availability of the documents.
[myself, at vault.jeancharlot.org/guideline.html#hyperlink ]Browsing a set of documents without a webserver is possible when hyperlink paths amongst them are relative.
[...]
All links to other documents on this website have relative paths. They never begin with a forward slash "/...", nor with the protocol and domain name "https://jeancharlot.org/...". Use "../" for backtracking. This enables the links to work even when the documents are saved elsewhere, as long as the directory paths are recreated.—"Hyperlink paths". In "Website guideline, 2020-11-11" (written by me), from "vault.jeancharlot.org".
vault.jeancharlot.org/guideline.html#hyperlink
Easily accessing a copy of all the documents offline as a directory of normal documents aids researchers by eliminating the need of a document server (t.i. "webserver" software) on their personal computers.
Instead, people explore a copy of the documents on their computers just like any other set of documents, and optionally by means of the HTM links within the documents. No need for an Internet connection for the links to work, because they refer locally (t.i. relatively) to the other documents.
Every image is always presented with a description, t.i. as much info as available for easily identifying it and crediting it. That means an address mark <a> never leads directly to an image file, f.e. never to a JPG file. Always linked to the document (t.i. an ".html" file) with the description of the image and a reference to the image, t.i. marked with <img>.
This helps with the image searches offered by other companies on the Internet. While such info can be embedded within an image file itself, computer programs are rarely ever made to access such embedded info, hence remains hidden and never presented to people.
Instead, the images that are presented in their search results (when accessed from those Internet search companies) typically lead to the document that contains that image. In this case with this document server "vault.jeancharlot.org", that document always has the description and credit info with that image.
Accessibility rather than mere availability. A computer program is essentially a blind, deaf, and bodyless entity, therefore a complicated layout of information interferes with the capabilities of computer programs similarly as it does with humans.
Less marking with HTM makes the document easier to read by a computer program for a human being, f.e. speaking the contents of a document.
A straightforward layout (t.i. no obstacle course for the eyes) enables automated listing of sections and their traversal by computer programs for a human being, thereby becomes requestable by the human being, f.e. using voice-commands from a personal digital assistant (f.e. a PDA or "smartphone").
In essence, I favored an approach of future proofing digitally and ease of transitioning to maintenance by anyone of any skill, based on my decades of experiencing the contrary from the products of the computer industry.
For example, I documented the styles in the stylesheet I continuously designed for it (vault.jeancharlot.org: Website stylesheet 2020-04-23). Note that the stylesheet itself is simultaneously a CSS and HTML document; no separation of the description from what is described, both are together in one document.
I also provided a website help document [ vault.jeancharlot.org/help.html ] with accessibility tips for the document server linked at the bottom of the introduction [ vault.jeancharlot.org/index.html ]. [ But that link to it from "vault.jeancharlot.org/index.html" appears to have been commented out, along with some other edits to that "index.html" likely by the new maintainer. ] The help document is meant for the set of documents originally at the document server "jeancharlot.org" (prior mid-2021) that was re-addressed to the aforementioned "vault.jeancharlot.org" (post mid-2021).
The end of section 1, "Jean Charlot Foundation (2008-2021)".
Formatted "Writings by Jean Charlot: a bibliography" [vault.jeancharlot.org] (2014) by Dr. Janine M. Richardson (published by the Jean Charlot Foundation), initially as a hyperlinked PDF (TOC, index, and external). Also arranged its publication as a 200+ page paperback book (2014 Dec 19), including an official UPC barcode for it [ See the ISBN on the copyright page. ].
Additionally, I reformatted a copy of that book "Writings by Jean Charlot: a bibliography" as an HTML document [vault.jeancharlot.org] for the Jean Charlot Foundation document server, as a more accessible version.
Platform agnostic and future compatible digitally as plain text for people researching.
Easier for computer programs such as screen readers.
Customizable with CSS by anyone for personal comfort.
I was credited by its author (pages viii-ix in the PDF format; or in the HTML format "Preface" [vault.jeancharlot.org]) for helping with its formatting, posting, and printing.
I hyperlinked the bibliographical entries in both the PDF and the HTML versions of that book to the hundreds of documents available at the JCF document server at "jeancharlot.org" (later relocated to "vault.jeancharlot.org"), for easy access to the documents directly from the bibliography book.
[ Note: All of those linked documents were moved to vault.jeancharlot.org by the new maintainer for the JCF document server "jeancharlot.org" while ensuring the functioning of those links to the prior content. (Moved presumably for the sake of establishing a new presence for the Jean Charlot Foundation non-profit organization.) ]
The end of section 2, "Jean Charlot Foundation (2014 January to 2015 June)".
Aided Dr. Janine M. Richardson (researcher and writer) by scanning hundreds of pages of archive materials belonging to the Catholic Women's Guild Hawaiʻi, in preparation for writing a book about the CWGH [ The author suspended continuation of the book upon being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in 2012 December. ].
The archive materials had been accepted by the Hawaiian and Pacific Collections [hawaii.edu] (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa), and the scanning was for ease access to the desired materials for the book Dr. Richardson would have written. A complimentary copy of all scans on optical disks was later delivered to the Hawaiian and Pacific Collections, too.
The end of section 3, "Catholic Women's Guild Hawaiʻi (2011 March to 2012 May)".
In 2013, I re-typed the bylaws of the CWGH into a computer in order to amend it with the new changes approved by the Board of Directors. I reformatted it for printing as a larger booklet with larger text for easier reading, and submitted it for printing at FedEx Kinkos.
Thereafter, edited, formatted, and arranged printing of a few newsletters (11x17, folded) [ This includes using information from a copy of the scanned archive materials I had done for them a couple years before, hence relied upon my familiarness with the materials. ] and such for mailing to members, the yearly renewal notices, and the reports for the Board Members.
The CWGH became defunct after 160 years (1859-2019) soon after a few its Board Members died without replacement [ particulary Catherine Hughes (1928–2019) ].
The end of section 4, "Catholic Women's Guild Hawaiʻi (2013-2019)".