This week, we focused on exciting topics ranging from metadata to our first project example. We discussed metadata, and an easy decision we talked about was how it is information about another piece of information. Think of it as the info that helps us find what we’re looking for; an example in class was Project Gutenberg, where each text had data about the author when it was published, and more. This semester, my science courses are filled with topics on data and metadata, alongside my geospatial class that focuses on studying data related to specific places. Combining these areas seems fascinating, like picturing where an author like Willa Cather wrote her letters and to whom she sent them. It’s like drawing a map between information and locations. It was fascinating looking into the letters and the different search aspects. Amazingly, we can go back and look at these pieces of history and find information about what it was like during the 20th century, especially women’s suffrage. Using the different search methods, we talked about how we can find specific letters with the letter ID and dates, and you could even find specific words. We also discussed how adding different details to our work, called metadata, can help keep things organized. This makes it easier for others to grasp and explore our work, and it’s handy for citing sources correctly and finding connections across different subjects. An easy way to organize is by tagging our research with something like #1234Research. I am excited to start getting into the class and jumping into our project. Exploring special collections and starting our research has me very excited and intrigued. Sorting through journal pieces and organizing them into Omeka for our first assignment sounds like a hands-on and engaging way to dive into digital humanities, and I’m super excited!
