Author: patrickmcbride

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.

During the third week of Intro to the Digital Humanities, we began snapshotting images of old scrapbooks and uploading those images to the Omeka database. I received page 67 of Murrow’s Scrapbook. On this page there were three items, two menus’: one from Wil Wright’s and another from Knott’s Berry Farm Steak House. The third item was a wooden toothpick, still wrapped in its paper cover. The most interesting of these three was definitely the Menu from the Knott’s Berry Farm Steak House. I think this was the most fascinating since it shows an entire layout of the farm and a map of the farm’s surrounding area. On top of this, this menu provides an extensive history on the area providing much context to the native Americans that used to live around the area. I thought it was really cool to see how a menu from the past can provide so much information on not only that town but what was going on in America at that time and its rich history.

The week’s lessons on metadata were very interesting because I believe a lot of what I learned effects and influences many things about my everyday life. Through our lessons, I gained a much deeper understanding of metadata and its widespread application to the lives of people across the world. After watching videos and conducting my own research, I realized that the concepts we’re currently studying in class extend beyond the academic setting, particularly in the realm of media organization. The revelation that metadata plays a crucial role in categorizing all of our accumulated data without our explicit awareness was intriguing. Crazy to think that I merely assumed that my phone intuitively knew my preferences when certain ads/content would randomly pop up on my screen. It was eye-opening to discover that this was actually the result of metadata organizing the information behind these files. While cool, it is kind of scary to think that all of this data about myself is constantly being collected through every click and scroll I make. Apps like Instagram and TikTok count how long you may watch a video or look at a picture to further understand your preferences. Each and every way you interact on one of these apps or websites, they track it. I am not sure if this is good or bad for our already increasingly digital society. These applications are basically manipulating people into use their services more and more. Over a year ago I found myself mindlessly scrolling on TikTok at 2 am, I needed to sleep but I just wanted to keep watching. Eventually, I deleted TikTok and have no looked back since. Metadata is cool but its applications are a little subject to my suspicion.

Week 1 of classes down, 14 more to go. To be honest, I left class on Monday confused about what this course was about and what the digital humanities even were. However, after going over countless definitions of DH, I came to realize that the digital humanities are broader than you would expect and there really is no boundary. Just like technology itself, the humanities can be expanded to no end. In turn, these two things put together create infinite possibilities. I am excited for the future of this class and the creation of my first digital humanities project.