This week we began talking about ways that we can use our metadata on maps. We talked about what it would look like if we used our images and texts from Omeka and placed them on a map how that would go and what we would do. An important factor that was mentioned was doing it in a timeline so that it is easier to locate information. If our information is in chronological order, it makes it a lot easier to follow because it is more organized. When we are organizing our Omeka to a timeline it is important to be in timeline because it organizes artifacts in a single dimension when you start with the earliest and finish with the latest. We started talking about where the specific items were located for when we put them on a map. When doing this I realized that many of my Omeka items were located at Wayne field. I then realized that Wayne field is no longer a thing at west Chester university so in order to figure out where this was, I am going to have to look at a map of west Chester university from 1950s to figure out where this specific item would be located on a map now-a-day. We also learned how to figure out locations of Omeka items that don’t have a specific location. It is definitely a little challenging to figure out where some things are to be located on the map because west Chester university has changed so much since these times. Another thing that we discussed in class this week was the advantages that digital mapping brings for example associability, rapid iteration, interactivity; scale, selection, and change over time.
Weekly Blog 5: Coming Together
In this week’s class, we’re diving into project that’s got me pretty intrigued. We’ve been working together to gather metadata, basically sorting through information about our items. Now, we’re taking all that data and turning it into something bigger—a map. This map will show where the items are from, giving us a visual representation of our collective work. What’s neat about this is how it’s blending with my computer science major. At first, we were just entering data, which felt pretty routine. But now, seeing how that data can be used to create something tangible is really interesting. It’s like watching a puzzle come together, except instead of pieces, we’re using data points. I’m finding myself more engaged in the class because of this hands-on approach as if we’re actual digital humanists. It’s not just about learning theories, it’s about actually applying them. Plus, seeing how our efforts are going to come together to form a map is pretty satisfying. It’s making me appreciate the connection between computer science and digital humanities even more. Overall, I’m looking forward to seeing the end result and learning more about how these two fields intersect.
blog post week 5
This week during Digital Humanities we had finished with our scrapbooking in the special collections room at the library. We met back in class on Monday and learned about maps and how we can use them. I believe we are trying to get more practice with techniques and tools that we collected from doing metadata on our Omeka collection. Basically, we are trying to find out what would it look like if we used our images and texts from Omeka and placed them directly on a map and how is would be done? Over the week, I learned there are many different ways we could use our metadata on maps. For instance, creating a map by timeline could be very efficient. If everything is in chronological order, it will be easier to find information because it is so organized. We also learned that a timeline organizes a single dimension, so starting with the earliest occasion or date and ending with the last is the easiest option. One thing to notice is when the person you are researching encountered all of these artifacts. Another tool you could use is transportation artifacts. For example, bus and train tickets, other forms of transportation that students engage with. We could combine the idea of chronological order and transportation routes/patterns to see if they line up with any new information or centers around anything specific. On Wednesday, we were given a google checklist to fill out. We were instructed to input our information from Omeka that we did on scrapbooking and see if we were able to pinpoint a location for the images or texts we chose. This was a cool activity to do to get us to become familiar with mapping and how it can correlate with metadata. Professor Famiglietti also gave us links to powerpoints that give a more in depth look at how beneficial mapping can be and how we can use maps for our metadata on Omeka. I am excited to see what we can learn moving forward in class and see how we can really use our metadata and place it on a map.
Blog Post #5
This week we talked about mapping things and on Friday we started mapping things. Honestly I thought it was going to be a lot hard than it actually was. I just had to do some research on Google Maps and look some things up on google and I found the answers. Overall I actually enjoyed this. There were a few places I couldn’t map because they didn’t have any identifiers of where they were and only a date or in some cases they didn’t even have a date. I think there were one or two that said West Chester State Teacher’s College but did not say where on the campus they were located. I had one store that wasn’t there anymore but when I looked it up it said the current store that is there now. I just put the point there because the original store seemed to be there. This was in the town of West Chester. There was an old stadium in Philadelphia that belonged to Temple but it wasn’t there anymore but when I looked it up on Google Maps it showed where it was and what is there now.
Blog Post week 5
I feel good about my items in Omeka. I finally got them all done and posted on the website. I had a very busy week, so I was worried I was not going to be able to finish my items in time. Last night I made changes to the existing one’s and added the ones I did not post yet. The subjects for my items are not great, that was one of the things I changed but I think they could be better. I am not sure if I completely understand the mapping. I have a token for the Delaware River Bridge Line, and I do not know where to map that, if I should. I did not map it because I could not find a specific Delaware River Bridge. Another one I am unsure about is the Yellowstone Park Company. I have not done much research for this, but I am not sure if it would be mapped at Yellowstone national park. I am not even sure what it exactly is. One that I did have to do research on was an advertisement for Forest Lawn Memorial Park. I was unsure if it was still a park. After looking it up on google, I found that it is a park in California. There seemed to be more than one location, but I mapped it at what seemed to be the main location in Glendale. One that I am sure I cannot map is a ticket for an impounded vehicle. There is no address on the ticket. It does say “Bureau of Police Philadelphia”, but I thought that that was too general, and I needed more information to be able to map it. Another one I am sure I cannot map is a nametag for Joyce Murrow. All that is written on it is her name and where she is from.
Week 5: blog
This week we worked on mapping our items in Omeka that we observed in special collections from the Joyce Murrow and Beryl Foster scrapbooks. Mapping was a little interesting because not all the items had specific addresses that it would have written down on them. There was some investigating that had to be done to find the locations of these items. Most of mine were very similar as they were musical programs and all could be traced back to Philips Memorial Auditorium. Most of my items had this location and a couple of those items were like extensions of each other. One was a grocery store that no longer exists on Linden St. which was interesting to see how the location has changed since then as there is no longer a grocery store. One of the items was tricky as it was a paper cut out from a birthday party. This one was extremely hard to come up with a location for it. After we were finished mapping our items we were able to pull a map up of all the marked locations of all the items everyone did. Most of the items were marked on West Chester campus but there were some outliers. There was a couple marked in New York City which I thought was interesting. The most interesting location marked was 2 marked in Tennessee. This was interesting as there wasn’t any items marked that far from West Chester, but these ones were clear outliers.
Week 5 blog Sean Powell
This week of Digital Humanities learning has been a eventful one. Overall learning and applying the process of mapping metadata has been proven a mostly simplistic process for my entrees that contain either a location or address. Going back into my two folders that I catalogue I simply just read off either the location or address present on the item and plug it into a mapping software of my choice (being the maps app on my iPhone) With this extra step of metadata catalogue I can deepen my understanding of a given object’s history either it be located on campus or as faraway as San Francisco, California. Also from this learning experience I found that most of my id inputs for Joyce Morrows have accidently been labeled as Murrows with a u after the M so thanks to this lesson I can update my entries accordingly. Whoops.
Week 5: Mapping
When we first started discussing mapping this week, I never realized how much research goes into finding the correct location of the artifact. I was under the impression the item either had an obvious location or no location of importance at all. While figuring out the locations of my items during class though, I realized that one needs to research to make sure it is accurate as possible. The one item in particular that required more research was a ticket to a football game a Temple University Stadium. When you search that on Google now, Lincoln Financial Field shows up, however I knew it might have been wrong to put that address because the street names on the ticket did not match up with the address for Lincoln Financial Field. In order to find the correct address, I searched “Temple University Stadium 1949”, which led to a Wikipedia page about the 1949 Temple Owls football team, which then had a link to the Temple Stadium embedded in the page and took me to the wiki page that had address I needed, which is not the same as where the current Temple University Stadium is located according to Google. Just this one example shows how important it is to fact check your addresses because locations are always changing. There were some items that I was unsure what location to put because I know it has one, but I’m unsure if the items provides enough information for me to figure out the location. These items consist of Joyce Murrow’s room inspection card, as I’m unsure which dormitory she was living in, and a Lafayette vs Gettysburg basketball game program, because it doesn’t state where the games were held. Some items also may hold no location at all, like a tissue paper bow in Joyce Murrow’s scrapbook. From what I’ve gathered, it’s something she or a friend made, and has no location tied to it all from what I can gather. By looking at the map of collective metadata, I noticed most of it was centralized in one place for both Joyce and Beryl, which is what to be expected. I did notice that Joyce had a few items on the West coast, which could allude to her having traveled there or a friend brought them back for her. Beryl on the other hand stayed basically just in the North East. I also noticed there were no physical objects mapped, which could either mean a lot of the objects could be artwork the two created or it’s hard to ascertain location from objects because they don’t provide as much information as text without more knowledge.
Week 5 – Pat McBride
In week 5 of DHM, we left the library and special collections and headed back into our classroom in Mitchell Hall. In class this week we discussed how maps connect to the digital humanities and what they can reveal to us when we analyze their data. Since the digital humanities involve the use of digital tools and methods to analyze, interpret, and present humanistic data and context, maps are an extremely powerful medium for visualizing and understanding various aspects of human culture, history, and literature. Maps connect to the digital humanities through the use of spatial analysis. This helps us understand the geographical context of a story, tracking where people have been, and exploring the influence of locations. I find this particularly interesting because it gives us lots of context about historical events based off of locations and time periods.
Blog post week 4 Brandon Baquero
When the words digital mapping are used, it is easy to instantly think of GPS mapping and Google Earth and what not, but digital mapping has been used for years. People have been trying to discover more space and map it out since the beginning of human history. It is a fundamental part of the human brain and how we are wired to be curios for more. Because of this, digital mapping has been constantly developing and getting better and more advanced. Now, you can go anywhere on the Earth and walk around through a website on your phone. I can relate to digital mapping a lot because over the most recent summer I would door dash on the side to get a little extra money, and the way that it can instantly calculate how much money you should make, what your tip should be, how much you should be spending on gas based on the miles you have driven, and exactly how long it should take shows how far we have come in this specific category of human advancement.
