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.
blog post week 5- Riley Whitenite
In week five of digital humanities class we started to closely take a look at the items that were posted on omeka and gain a better understanding on the most formal way of submitting an item. We also jumped into finding a better location for a lot of the posts. For a lot of my own posts I put something that was written on the item without even thinking it may not still exist or would be clumped up into a broader location, making it not completely accurate. We were even shown after the google survey how many of the omeka items got clumped into the same spot on campus, when half of them were inaccurate. When you further research the location or the document, you can gain a better understanding where it took place and what it really was. After I looked back at a submission of my own, I figured out it was not even an event taken place in West Chester, it was actually in Norristown at a theater, so I had to go back in and edit my item to fix the location. Each class we are getting a better understanding on digital scrapbooking and how to go about it in a much more clear way.
Week 5: Mapping with Omeka
This week, we focused on digital mapping and how we can make our items. I started this process by finishing uploading my Omeka items. This was a little difficult at first because some of my items had little context for the item itself. For this process, I started by finding all the locations for my items and writing them down, focusing on Joyce Murrow’s scrapbook. The items with little context were challenging to map and find information about. The process revealed some exciting locations that shed light on her life. I carefully placed pins on the map for significant spots like 206 Marine Avenue in Balboa Islands, California, and 123-131 Pennsylvania Avenue in Atlantic City, Atlantic County, NJ. These locations were either explicitly provided on each item or discovered through the Library of Congress website. It was essential to remember the question, “What does this item reveal about Joyce Murrow’s experiences?” Keeping this question in mind helped me choose what location to pick. However, not all items were easy to pinpoint. Some items, like those referencing West Chester State Teacher College, proved too broad geographically. Others lacked adequate information or were simply notes without location details. In total, I mapped around five items out of sixteen. Exploring the Omeka mapping tool was very cool. The ability to search by various criteria, from ID #s to geographic addresses, added depth to my research. Joyce Murrow’s scrapbook took me from Philadelphia to far-out destinations like New York, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Each item clicked on the map unveiled a picture and a description. This reminded me of what we discussed during the first lectures. The mapping has been my favorite part of this process, allowing me to visualize Joyce Murrow’s journeys. Overall, this week highlighted the power of Omeka in showing historical narratives!
Week Five: Mapping!
This week we explored the concept of mapping, and how it helps scholars understand more about the nature/story of the items.
On Monday, when we discussed the concept of mapping and what it does for digital humanities, we explored how the Crustacean Period can explain why certain counties vote in favor of a political party. I remember being shocked by this discovery. It is fascinating that something so simple as a map of political parties per county can be explained by a period millions of years ago. It makes me question what other factors can explain the way counties sway their political views to one party.
On Friday we began mapping our items, and I will admit, it’s been conflicting. Most of the items I mapped were complex with their locations. For example, I would have an item that was labeled with a destination such as “West Chester, PA” which obviously, doesn’t give me much. The “Appointment card for Theresa’s Beauty Salon” is a perfect example of this problem. The card’s location was “West Chester, PA”, so I began searching for locations in West Chester that may be linked to a beauty salon. I found one location that stood out to me the most: “Theresa Paoletti Beauty Salon”. However, the salon has only been running for 36 years, so it wouldn’t fit under that destination. Therefore, I chose to identify the location as “West Chester, PA” since I had very little details on where else to put it. I’d rather be vague and inconclusive than specific and wrong.
Unfortunately, some of my objects were not able to be mapped. These objects mainly consisted of artwork and photography. One item that gave me the most difficulty throughout entering metadata and mapping is the “Decorated paper of a snowman in a winter scene”. The item has no context attached to it whatsoever. It is a flimsy piece of paper, most likely cut out of something and pasted into Joyce’s scrapbook. I have no idea where it came from, and honestly, I have no idea what it is. However, it’s quite pretty, and despite not knowing anything about it, I love how beautiful it is.
An item I also had trouble mapping was the “Program for the musical production ‘Ala Carte’ of 1947 in the form of a menu.” The item has an endless amount of location possibilities. I’m assuming the production took place in a theatre, but the question is what theatre? I can’t assume it was a theatre in West Chester, and I don’t exactly know where to put it. I even looked through the 1947 yearbook for any information. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything location wise, but I did find a picture of Joyce in the 1950 yearbook!
Overall, I’ve learned that mapping can be a bit difficult, especially with items with little context or details. However, with a lot of research and a few historical and modern maps, I believe I could map a few items with harder to find locations.
Blog Post 5: James Letts
This week in class we warmed up with the idea of hopefully adding a location to our items installed into Omeka. The first two classes of the week we really played around with just the possibility of seeing if we could put our items on a map. It was really to just get our ideas flowing and thinking about looking at our items breaking them down then critically thinking about the appropriate spots to place the items. Today in class, we broke down and started to map our inserted items. Today I looked at and started to place three of my items on a map. A football schedule, a soccer schedule, and a little poem titled “The Skater.” My items were challenging to put on a map. The football schedule was the easiest one to place. It was the home location of Westchester state colleges football stadium, then there were many other locations. I had the idea of just placing it on a map at the location of our football stadium. The home games were held there, and it was Westchester’s stadium so by default I figured it would be an appropriate location to mark it as. The soccer schedule had no games at home and just a bunch of away locations, so I did not know where to place it. It got me thinking about all the locations for the soccer and football schedule that had away locations. Yes, I could ballpark it and place these in the area, but which set location do I pick? Should I go back and research which games were the biggest, and set the location there? What do these locations say about Beryl foster? Did she attend these games? Visit these towns? Or was it something she might have just wanted to have the option to attend? The most logical explanation is that these are some events to look forward to if she had wanted to attend if she had nothing else going on. “The Skater” I believe is not mappable. It’s a picture of an ice skater and a mini poem with a name underneath it. I looked up the name of the writer I’m assuming and got nothing and then I looked up the lines of the poem and still did not get anything. I think it is one of those things that aren’t mappable, but I will ask for confirmation for sure before I just write it off.
Week 5 – Annie Haas
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.
Week 5
This week we where learning about the importance of mapping. We went through our artifacts and look more into the location of the past. The process of look up my locations was easy for me. I was lucky enough my artifacts had the address. When i looked up the location i found it so cool that it was so local to me. I found most of my address i found where right in West Chester. The process of finding the the location was looking at your artifacts address if there was one and look it up on google. Not a hard process at all. I would take that and map in on Omeka. Lets say if i did have a artifact that did not have an address i would look for clues or content to help me. We learned in class this week that not finding an address is ok and that not all artifacts are findable. I was nervous hearing that but there not that much we change of the past. This past week in class has been one of my favorite things to do throughout the whole Omeka project. It is interesting to me and makes me feel like i am finding out about someone life.
