This week in Digital Humanities was a particularly interesting one. We spent our time in the library on the sixth floor at special collections where we learned how to photograph different items and upload them to a google drive. After this we were instructed to upload them to Omeka as metadata. This is a semi complicated process that took a while to get the hang of but was very interesting upon mastery. Labeling, titles, and processing the items to become metadata was a trial and error process as well. Having to figure out how far back some of the items originated from, as well as determining what the purpose of some of the items were was a long process that I was eager to reflect on this week. It was very interesting to see just how far back some of these items come from. My earliest item so far had been from the early 1900s, which was pretty cool to see something that originated so far back that the college had a completely different name. To reflect on how truly stunning of a find this was, I would also say that it’s truly astonishing to see something written on paper preserved this long, considering how many ways something like this could get lost. So much of our data and records are kept via computer or the internet now, so seeing and getting to interact with some of these items was a blast from the past and reminded me of when I was in elementary school only working with paper and pencil. Getting to see the history of my university and my community through documents that are perhaps 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 plus years old is something that I am lucky to be able to experience via this digital humanities class. Furthermore, being a part of the documentation process of this items for future students and scholars to discover makes me feel as though I am taking real strides to preserve the history of my university.
