Author: anniehaas02

This week, we learned a lot more about mapping the items on Omeka. It’s really cool to see how all of the scrapbook items can be categorized and filtered when utilizing the map with certain location points. We spent the last class trying to find items that have similarities and what would be good to locate on the map. For example, I used the neatline feature to name the category of findings, which is “Western United States Tourist Locations.” The item was a map of the Utah/Nevada border with different places in each state. Some of these places included restaurants and scenic areas. When doing this though it was really time consuming and a bit difficult to directly find the exact locations on a broad map. One point on the item was the Salt Flats Speedway. I used Google Maps to help me find an approximate location and found that it is located in Wendover, Utah, right near the Nevada line. In finding that, I was able to find the location on Omeka, but I really had to search for it and used some landmarks around it to help me. Doing this helped narrow the search and gave me a smaller area to map out. I think what made it really difficult at first was how detailed and intricate the map on Omeka is. I had to zoom in and out of this portion of the map to find the exact location because it isn’t a large city or well-known place, not to mention that the state line is huge for Nevada and Utah. I think it’ll be easier to map more of the places next week in class because I now have an idea of where to look on the map and have learned how to use landmarks to find those specific locations.

This week, I learned how to map the items I uploaded on Omeka from Joyce Murrow’s scrapbook. Mapping some of the items was really time consuming because you can’t always tell just from looking at the items where it was from. For example, I had to do some research for a napkin from the “Harrisbuger Restaurants.” I had to search for a restaurant that isn’t currently still around. After doing more research, I found out that the restaurant was located in a hotel in Harrisburg and was able to find the address. Another item I mapped was a coaster from the Fuhrmann and Schmidt Brewing Company. It already stated on the coaster that it was located in Shamokin, PA. That narrowed the search to that location and I figured out the place had moved around multiple times since opening in 1906. This made it difficult to determine what year the coaster was from. I then found a list of the company’s locations and found the address for the time period of the 1940s. There were a couple items that I absolutely couldn’t find a location for such as a handwritten receipt made out to Joyce Murrow. The receipt was a notecard with 5 payments each of $10, but could give no hints as to where it came from. I also had an item that was a notecard with a devil on it with the name of Bob Newlin. That information wasn’t enough for me to figure out a location as well.

This week we learned a lot in the library about how to properly organize the information found from Joyce Morrow. It was interesting to see how specific each field of data had to be on Omeka and how to categorize all of the information properly. Doing this can be very time consuming and this is to ensure that an artifact or collection item can be found when and if needed. I also think this is really cool because we get to see items from decades ago and that’s really crazy to think about. Seeing what kind of activities she was involved in and belongings she collected can really tell us a lot about not only who she was as a person, but it can also give us an insight into what society was like during that period of time. This really gives a whole perspective of that time period and it made me appreciate the little things that I feel like we now take for granted. That was also a time period where women began having more recognition in society. What I took away this week was that we now take a lot of things for granted and I think that the media and technological advances play a huge role. Back then, the little things meant a lot to people, enough so to be documented and saved in a scrapbook. In today’s digital age, many people just use their phones and other forms of media to document moments in their lives and I think there is something special about keeping a physical item of some sort. Even something as simple as a physical movie ticket or a newspaper clip of some sort can be digital and it’s really crazy to see the transition when documenting these items because they have literally almost disappeared out of our society.

I learned a lot this week about metadata and how it is used in everyday life. After watching the videos and doing some of my own research, I came to the conclusion that it is being used in multiple different ways daily. What we are learning in class right now can totally be connected outside of the classroom through any sort of media organization. This is really cool because I learned that it categorizes digital media files like photos and music without us even realizing it. I would always search through my photos for something specific or search for different songs/albums and just thought my phone knew what I needed to find. It was cool to learn this week that that was actually metadata organizing all of the information behind certain files. I also learned a lot about user-generated content in one of my other classes and how posts on social media follow certain algorithms. This sounds like it goes hand in hand with metadata because the algorithms create personalized content suggestions while the metadata provides some information to go along with that. I also thought that looking through some of Willa Cather’s letters was really interesting as well because we can learn so much about her just through those letters. It’s cool to see when her letters were written and connect them to certain points in history. Another thing that I think is really interesting is that these letters were hand written as a form of communication. In today’s day in age, most people text or call as a form of communication and don’t have physical letters to document points in time like Willa Cather did. I also learned a lot about instantaneous communication in today’s digital age and the process of writing letters probably required a lot of time and effort.