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.
