First, click on the “Select an Activity” drop down menu

Next, choose the activity for which you wish to input data:

The options are Letter, Review, Contest, Fan Club, Meeting, Mention, Classifieds, Pen Pals, Traces. We will begin with Letter. When you are inputting data from a fan letter choose the “Letter” option. The fan letters are often published in the comic books themselves:

Once you have chosen the “Letter” option, several fields will appear. They are as follows:

Select a person

Person’s location

Source

Physical location

Letter

They look like this:

STEP 1:

Begin by inputting the "Source" field information. The "Source" field contains two boxes: "Series Title" and "Issue." The Source field is linked to the Grand Comics Database (GCD), so both boxes will show a drop down list when you begin to input information. 

NOTE: The “Issue” autocomplete options will have an issue number followed by the Volume, followed by the publication date of that issue number.

NOTE: When you choose the desired issue number and publication date from the autocomplete options the box will display a single number, and one that is NOT the issue number you chose. This is because the box replaced the chosen information with that data’s corresponding ID number in the database.)

NOTE: you MUST input a Title in the “Series Title” box in order for the “Issue” box to work. In the “Issue” box you are simply putting the issue number of the comic for which you need to input data. Thus the issue numbers are only associated with specific comics. For example if you leave the “Series Title” blank and enter the number “8” in the “Issue” box, the program does not know which comic book series you want the 8^th issue of.

In the “Series Title” box choose the title of the comic book series as it appears on the cover (or just inside the front cover at the bottom) which means you need to include any definite articles if they are part of the series title. So do not just put “X-Men” if the cover says “The X-Men.” Next put in the issue number which can be found either on the front cover:

Or just inside the front cover at the bottom of the page:

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STEP 2:

Next go to the “Physical Location” field. This field allows us to keep track of where the original item we are using resides. For example, some of the items reside in the personal collection of John Walsh. So if you just type a “j” the following should appear:

Just choose the option from the autocomplete. The “Physical Location” name will be replaced with that information’s specific ID number in the database. So the “John Walsh – Personal Collection” option will turn to a 1 in the space as this is the first physical location recorded in the database.

NOTE: You will most likely not need to create a new “Physical Location” because once we have materials that are housed in a new location administrators will most likely create the new physical location so that there is uniformity in the data being entered regarding the physical location of materials. If, for some reason, you attempt to input data in the “Physical Location” field and no autocomplete options appear or the option you need is not present, then email David (dkloster@indiana.edu) or Grace (ghthomas@umail.iu.edu) regarding this issue and we will attempt to resolve it quickly.

STEP 3:

Now go to the “Select a Person” field. Most fan letters will put the name of the letter writer at the end of each individual letter. Always try and type the name of the letter writer in the “Name” box to make sure they are not already in the database. Many letter writers have written previously to other comic book series or even to this same series and have had their letters posted in previous issues. If their name shows in the autocomplete options and the address matches, simply choose that option and move on to the next field.

 As with the other fields, when you choose an option from the autocomplete choices, the name will be replaced with that person’s ID number in the database:

However, if you put a name in the “Name” box and no autocomplete options appear or, most likely, the options available do not match the name you have, then you need to click the “Create New Person” button to add the person to the database. The “Create New Person” form should appear:

At this point you should only fill in the “Surname” and “Forename” box. If a title is given in the sign-off at the end of the letter (Such as Cpt., Mrs., Jr., III, Dr., et cetera), then include this in the “Title” box. Make sure to spell names as they are spelled in the fan letter, unless there is an obvious misspelling such as the Surname “Phiillips.” In this instance an extra “i” has obviously been added. Spell the name as “Phillips” in the “Surname” box, but after you have submitted the “Create New Person” form put a note in the “Letter” field in the “Note” box in that field stating how the fan letter spelled the name and what you changed it to.

Once you have entered the surname and forename into the appropriate boxes as well as a title (if one is given in the sign-off portion of the letter) click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the form:

Then the “Success!” box should appear. To close this simply click the “X” in the upper right hand corner.

Now make sure you input the name of the person you just created in the “Name” box of the “Select a person” field. Since you just created the person, they will not have a location attached to their name in the autocomplete dropdown box. You will be adding the location in the next step.

As with most of the other boxes in the other fields, the name will be converted to the ID number assigned to that person in the database. Now on to the next step.

STEP 4:

Now you need to input the address listed in the fan letter in the “Person’s Location” field. As with the other steps, begin by typing the address in the “Location” box and see if the address you have is listed as an option:

If the address is listed as an option, then simply select it from the autocomplete menu. However, if it is not, you will need to click the “Create New Location” button.

 Then the “Create New Location” form should appear.

Simply fill in the form with the relevant information:

 STREET: Put any information that is listed as part of the address and is not the city, state, country, or zip code. For example, if an address lists a university or the name of an apartment complex, put it in the street box along with the house/apt. number and street name. Feel free to abbreviate for things like “Avenue” or “Road” with “Ave.” or “Rd.” or any other known abbreviations for types of thoroughfares.

CITY: Simply put the city name as it appears in the fan letter. If you know the city is misspelled, put the correct spelling in and make a note in the “note” box of the “Letter” field afterward. For example, if the city is listed as “Chicaggo” you would put “Chicago” in the “City” box and note as stated above how the comic originally spelled it and that you corrected the spelling.

STATE: If the letter originates from the United States then use the two letter USPS abbreviation for the state in the address, even if the state is fully or partialy spelled out, like “Penn.” for Pennsylvania. In this case you would still put PA in the box. For a list of state abbreviations go here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_abbreviations

If the letter is from outside the United States and is from a province that has a different type of abbreviation, use the abbreviation the home country uses for their province. For example, Australia uses three letters to abbreviate some of their provinces, so you would use their three letter abbreviation.

COUNTRY: We will be using the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes, which can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2

Simply put the two letter code for the appropriate country in the box. For the United States they obviously do not state the country in the address. Please go ahead and always input the country code for addresses that are obviously in the United States.

POSTAL CODE: Input the postal code as it appears in the address shown in the fan letter. Often no postal code is given, in which case you would leave the box blank. If the letter is from outside the United States and a postal code is given, input the postal code as it appears in the fan letter.

NOTE: If any of the above information is not given in the address attached to the fan letter, simply leave the corresponding box blank. For example, if no street address or postal code is given, just a city and state, then you would only fill out the “City,” “State,” and “Country” boxes.

Example of a filled out “Create New Location” form:

Once you have filled out the form click the “Submit” button. The “Success!” box should appear. Simply click on the “X” in the upper right hand corner to close the box.

Now go back to the “Person’s Location” field and begin to type the address you just created. It should appear in the autocomplete dropdown list. Simply select the correct address.

As with everything else, the address you just selected will appear in the box as a number. This is the ID number assigned to this specific address in the database and is perfectly normal.

STEP 5:

In the “Letter” field input the name of the fan letter section of the comic book in the “Letter page title” box. This is generally found at the top of the first page containing fan letters:

So the title of the example above is “Let’s Visit the X-Men.” Simply input this title into the “Letter page title” box of the “Letter” field. If you begin to type the title and an autocomplete option appears that matches the title, simply select the title from the dropdown box.

The “Text” box is where you will type the main text of the letter. Simply enter the text as it appears in the fan letter. This is only if you have been tasked with entering the full text of the fan letters. Initially this box will be left blank and the full text of the letters will be added later.

The “Note” box is where you would put any notes such as misspellings that you corrected or anything that you think is significant about this entry, such as the potential that this is someone who is now famous.

STEP 6:

Hit the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page.

You should then be sent to the final “Success!” page, where you will have the option to either “Add another activity record” or “Log Out.” At this point, the choice is up to you!