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Welcome back! This will be my last post, so I will be reflecting on the materials that I have used throughout this course and their utility for humanists. The questions that I will be addressing will be: 

1. Why have some individuals been slow to adopt DH methodologies?  

2. In what ways do disciplinary conventions mitigate against using DH?  

3. How might the long-term viability of projects, the technical demands of learning appropriate research tools, or the tendency of humanists to complete projects in isolation, affect their choices?  

4. Which tools might be best adapted to the research questions that interest me and projects I envision attempting in the future? 

Some individuals have been slow to adopt digital humanities methodologies. I believe this comes down to two factors, one being the learning curve that comes with adopting a new practice and the other being the long-term possibilities for DH. As I have experienced in this class there is a learning curve to many digital humanities applications that can be frustrating to work with. This discourages people from trying new methodologies, as learning new skills is not easy. This can be especially frustrating for those who are unsure if their work will stand the test of time. While nothing is forever, this is especially true for the internet. With many online applications becoming obsolete over time, some are discouraged from using these platforms for fear that their hard work will disappear or become unusable over time.  

There are certain disciplinary conventions that may further discourage the use of DH, this includes the unconventional ways of delivering information that DH encourages and time constraints. Allowing digital humanists the ability to use digital tools to interact with their audiences comes with challenges like straying from traditional constraints of the humanities. Within DH there is a newness to these works, making them unfamiliar and often discouraged by professionals. Professionals in the humanities are often working under time constraints making the issue of learning new software and tools especially difficult. 

As previously discussed, the long-term viability of DH is an issue that discourages some from exploring into DH for fear of losing their hard work. There is an issue with the learning curve of understanding a new DH tool that would prevent some potential digital humanists from using DH regularly, but there is also an issue with many who engage in the humanities to do so in isolation. Working in isolation can present issues with working through problems with DH tools and without having a collaborative space to work with others can make working through difficult tools even more difficult.  

Now that I have more familiarity with some digital humanities tools, in the future Omeka and Zotero have the most potential use for me. Omeka is helpful to organize images and understand the backend of information needed to organize a digital exhibit. Since working with Omeka I have noticed more websites for museums or libraries that use Omeka. This is obviously a useful tool that is user friendly, and I can see myself using it in the future. Zotero is a great resource to gather and organize sources especially while I am still in classes and needing one centralized place for sources while creating projects or writing papers.  

Hello! In this post I will be exploring QGIS even more using the programming historian’s instructions. For this project I needed my previous work from optional project 32.

First, I opened up my original project on QGIS and went to the project I would be adding on to. Then I needed to download a map called “PEI_HollandMap1798” which I added to my layers.

Then I needed to create a new shapefile. This was a long and tedious process but I eventually was able to figure out how to create one. I filled out the various areas of the file and added it as a layer.

This layer is meant to represent areas on the map and their years. To do this I clicked on the layer and edited it with the pointer tool and added the place name and it’s year.

I also did this with places on the map that no longer exist, so there was an end year.

I repeated this process to create six plots on the map that had years attached to them.

I then repeated this process with a new shapefile that was for roads. This process included the line tool and tracing the lines that were on the Holland map.

From tracing the old roads and layering it with the highway layer we can see that some roads are the same as the original while others have changed.

Lastly, I needed to repeat the same process for lots. This used the polygon tool to trace the lots on the Holland map.

One all of these steps were complete this is what my new layers look like along with the Holland map.

Overall, this tool is useful however there is a learning curve and the instructions are out of date and unclear. Due to this, mapping this project took me multiple hours and trial runs along with looking up alternate instructions to find certain features. This makes getting even basic steps much more difficult.

Hi there! In this post I will be assessing my own WordPress website and looking at the accessibility of the site and then using those ideas to modify the website to be more accommodating for users. Three areas of my website that could be more accommodating for users include increasing visibility by changing the colors and fonts used on the site, refine navigational buttons, and providing an ALT text on multimedia to increase comprehension for those using screen readers.  

First, the old theme for my website featured a light green background with dark green text. The font used is simple, however the normal text making up the main body of information is thin and could be difficult to see. To fix this I went to the theme section of my WordPress site and altered the font and colors so it would be easier to see.  

The navigational buttons on my website are pretty small and have the same thin font as the rest of the text on the site. The main navigational buttons I was considering were the ones at the bottom of each post that allow users to move from one post to the next. To make these buttons more ADA compliant I made the font bigger and bolder so that it was easier to see for users.  

Lastly, the photos on my site did not have any text on them to allow users with screen readers to understand the content better. To change this, I provided captions at the bottom of the photos that were descriptions of the images. To show this I took a screen shot of my most recent post and the image I used which did not have any captions. I then compared it to the layout I now have which includes a caption.

I do not currently have any videos uploaded to my website, however, if I did then I would make sure that there was closed captioning or an audio-description option.  I will be continually updating the settings on my website as issues with accessibility arise in the future.

Hello! In this post I will be exploring two websites that I have already viewed and used in prior projects and analyze them to assess their accessibility and cross cultural interface. The two sites that I will be using are Force of Destiny: The Rosa Ponselle Collection at the Peabody from Optional Project 15 and Richard Pryor’s Peoria from Optional Project 18.

The first site I looked at was the Rosa Ponselle website, initially looking at the text colors and font there are some issues with visibility. Some of the writing is on a red background and some of the text is red. This color can be difficult to see on the screen, some of the writing is in yellow on a white background which is very difficult to see. I would recommend that the colors get changed to a darker color and keep the light background throughout the site rather than having a red background for the heading. The font used for the body text is simple, however it is thin and small which makes it hard to read. Some of the headings have a different font that is more decorative which could make it difficult to read for those who have low vision and for those who do not read English well. 

The navigational buttons at the bottom of each page directing users to the next page are easy to use. However, the text is small and thin and is yellow on a white background making it difficult to see where the site is taking you next. To fix this I recommend doing the same thing as with the rest of the text by making the text a darker color and changing the font to be thicker.  

Images and videos on the website do have descriptions, however there is again the issue of visibility as the text is small and not easy to see. For users with a screen reader this wouldn’t be a big issue, however those who don’t use a screen reader would have a hard time reading these descriptions.  

Next, to consider cross cultural interface and universal design I looked at what the site looks like across devices. On a computer the site is readable and easy to navigate, but on a phone the site becomes difficult to work with. The size of a phone screen prevents the information from displaying clearly and leads to a lot of zooming in and out and scrolling to see all the information. This could be fixed with a universal design that could accommodate many different devices.

Cross cultural interface would need to assess how this site would be received across other countries and languages. Making sure that the site could be translated into multiple languages is important for this. As of right now the only option to change the language of the site is to allow google translate to do it. Google translate is not always accurate and may not have the language a user needs to access the site. Other aspects of the design are not cross-cultural friendly such as some of the text infers that the reader already has some background knowledge on some American pop cultural information and does not always explain further. 

Next, I looked at “Richard Pryor’s Peoria” site which is much more readable with the colors and font used. The only issue with coloring is that links on the page appear in a light tan color on a cream background making those areas of the page difficult to see. There are some pages on the website that are covered in small text this can be hard to read. I would recommend that the pages full of text be changed so that there is less text and the text could be bigger

The photos on the website all have descriptions of them, however the videos do not have any audio descriptions making the videos not accessible for all. The navigational buttons are easy to use and lead users from one area of the site to the next.

The same issue came up for this site as the Rosa Ponselle website with universal design as the website is hard to access on a phone and the best way to see the information is with a computer. Creating a universal design that adapts for all devices could really help this site.

There is no way, on the Richard Pryor site, to change the language of the text or audio on the videos. This limits the website as non English speakers would have a difficult time understanding this website. This website also infers that the viewer will be familiar with Richard Pryor, however if this site was geared more for a non-American audience then more context would have to be given about Pryor.

Welcome back! Today I will be using TROPY to manage the photographs that I have collected from my Omeka site. To start this I needed to download TROPY onto my device and open up the program. Once I had downloaded it I named my project Hist 5891 and could begin importing my photos.

I was then able to add all ten of my photos that I used on my Omeka site by using the “+” on the top of the screen. After all of my photos had been uploaded then I was able to begin filling out the metadata for the images. This is available on the right side after selecting a specific photo.

Next, I filled out all of the metadata and then added tags.

I then continued this process for all ten of my items.

Finally, I wanted to group my photographs. To do this I enlarged my photos using the sliding tool at the top of the screen to make the images easier to see and grouped some of the photos. I made three groups for the three artists that had multiple works featured on my page. These artists are Dwayne Lowder, Julian Stanczak, and Kunisada Utagawa. The four other images that weren’t grouped I left alone.

Overall, TROPY is a very useful and easy to use resource to help in managing images and media. The features on TROPY are easy to use and make organizing images simple.

Hi there! In this post I will be explaining how I made my own Omeka site and exhibit. I used the programming historian guide to help me with starting my site which can be found at: https://programminghistorian.org/en/lessons/up-and-running-with-omeka.

Week 1:

First I needed to create a site for myself so I logged into my Omeka site that I already established for the first Omeka project in week five. I named this site francescahist5891. The information that I will be adding to my Omeka site is going to be a log of artwork from the Kalamazoo Institute of Art located in Kalamazoo Michigan.

Once I got into my site I began changing the settings by adding plugins and looking at themes. I added COinS, Exhibit Builder, Library of Congress Suggest, and Simple Page as plugins. This was simple as all I needed to do was select Plugins from the top menu and click “install” on the four plugins I needed. I also went to the appearance tab at the top to look at the themes. I have the free version of Omeka so I only had two options and I decided to keep it to the default theme setting.

Next I wanted to add items to my site, to do this I selected “Items” from the side tabs and clicked “Add an Item”.

Once I did this it took me to the Dublin Core page to fill out for my first item. I went down the page and filled out the various items and then moved on to the metadata tab, the file tab, and lastly the tags tab.

I was then finished with adding my first item to my own Omeka site!

This was all familiar to me because in the first Omeka project we all added items to Dr. Hadden’s Omeka site. I repeated this step until I had ten items on my site all pulled from the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.

I also wanted to add a collection to my site, to do this I clicked the side tab labeled “collections” and then clicked “Add a Collection”. After filling out the information as to what this collection would hold I selected all ten of my items and added them to the collection titled “Kalamazoo Institute of Arts”.

Finally I added the exhibit, to do this I selected “exhibits” from the side tabs and then created a page about the American Art within the collection. I also added a title and a description of the art. I continued this for the Japanese art in the collection on a separate page and then was finished with my exhibit.

Week 2:

In the second week of creating my Omeka site my goal was to make my site compliant with ADA accessibility. Some aspects of my site that show the ADA compliance include the colors and fonts used on the site. The high contrast between the white background and dark blue text make the content on the site more readable. The font used is very simple and easy to read making that aspect of the site also ADA compliant. The font could be thicker for even more visibility however I only have the basic, free version of Omeka so this is not an option for me.

I also referenced Omeka’s own accessibility statement to help me make my site more accessible found here: https://omeka.org/classic/docs/GettingStarted/Accessibility_Statement/

Various features are included in the basic Omeka site’s plugins that assist in accessibility such as ARIA which makes tabbing through page content easier when not using a mouse or screen reader. There is also the ability to skip the navigation menu when using the keyboard or a screen reader. These features allow my own Omeka site to be more ADA accessible.

More ideas for a more advanced site would include captions, transcriptions, and audio descriptions for multimedia. This would include if there were videos that had audio descriptions to make the information more easily accessible for those who needed it.

Hi there! In this post I will be exploring and analyzing Google’s Art and Culture exhibits along with the work of CyArk. The museum that I looked at in the Google Art and Culture site is the Kimbell Art Museum and I visited many CyArk projects. 

The Kimbell Art Museum from the Google Art and Culture site has a large collection of paintings and sculptures that are accessible through the Google site. This collection allows users to see the collections that the museum offers and may interest those who use the site to want to visit the museum.

The Fort York National Historic Site featured on the CyArk site has an exhibit, 3D models, videos, and an open heritage site all accessible through CyArk. I also looked at other CyArk projects through the open heritage site such as the Angel Island Immigration Station in California, Chichen Itza in Mexico, and Masjid Wazir Khan in Pakistan. All these projects offer a 3D perspective of their history.  

Some possible implications for virtual cultural tourism are that some people may not feel the need to go to these sites in person because they have already seen a 3D rendering of the place. It could also offer cultural tourism to a wider audience as it is more accessible through the internet. It is possible that some people may see these 3D projects and think they got all the information they would learn from being there in person, but others may want to visit these places more after seeing them online. This technology is useful for accessibility as people who may not be able to afford travel or have mobility issues can still see these places and learn about them. Historical sites that are currently in war zones and have been scanned and processed for a 3D version benefit from the detailed scans as future restoration of the structures can reference the 3D scans as a guide. It also allows people to continue learning about the history of countries currently at war because traveling to those areas would be dangerous, but we can still see these historic sites online.  

The Google Art and Culture project and the many CyArk projects provide a useful online tool for telling history using technology. These scans allow people from all over the world to access various historical knowledge that would not be accessible unless one visited these sites in person. There are some issues with this technology as it may discourage some people from visiting these places in person. There is also an issue with the technology, as it removes the human aspects from places with just a scan, a user cannot learn much unless further information is provided. However, this technology is valuable and can be useful in making history more accessible and offers a detailed view of these structures.

Welcome Back! In this post I will be comparing two photogrammetry projects of churches, the first church is Duke University’s chapel and the second is the Mapping Gothic France project. While both of these projects use photogrammetry on churches they were created differently and function differently.  

First, I visited the Duke University chapel project. This project was created by using 1,430 photos taken by a collection of Duke architectural historians, archaeologists and archivists.  The intent of the project was to create a snapshot of the restoration work that was done on the chapel. This was an important project to complete close to the completion of the restoration because it can serve as a 3D reference if future repairs are needed. From these scans exact replicas of the details of the chapel can be reconstructed.  

On Duke University’s site they use Sketchfab which allows the 3D model to be fully functional. Due to this the best way to access the whole model is on the Sketchfab site. As viewers we only have acess to the finished product and don’t see any of the individual images taken of the chapel.  

The second project, Mapping Gothic France, was created through Colombia University and features many gothic churches throughout France and some surrounding countries. This project shows the progression of gothic architecture in France during the 12^th and 13^th centuries. The first map shows all of the locations of the various churches and after selecting a specific location users can see various panoramas of the inside of the churches. This project was created by university professors with the intention of creating 3D models of Gothic churches that were accessible to all. This project has already served an important purpose by acting as a 3D blueprint after the Notre Dame in France caught fire and needed to be restored. From the project we can see the architecture within and around France that has become iconic to the region, and learn about its construction and history.  

Mapping Gothic France uses coding that is made available on their website, making their methods transparent and open for future use from others. The site also provides thorough citations and explanations for the content and photos featured on the site. The site is accessible through Colombia University’s media site. 

These two projects differ the most in the ways that users can operate them. For the Duke chapel users can fully move around the interior and exterior of the chapel. For the Gothic France churches users can only select one view of the church to look around the interior of the building. It also offers users more context and photos of the churches than the Duke site by offering a lot of information. The Gothic France site also features many gothic churches rather than just feature one like the Duke Chapel.  

Hi there! In this project I will be using QGIS to create a map of Prince Edward Island using data about the island. To start I needed to download QGIS onto my mac which I was able to do by installing it, this took about ten minutes. I also needed to download the data that I would use which was accessible through Elearning. Once both were downloaded I created a new map and could get started.

First I needed to import the data into the map so I selected create new layer and was able to locate it through my recent downloads. The first file I wanted to add is called “QGIS/coastline_polygon.dbf,” by selecting this the coastline of the island appeared.

The image was filled in so I double clicked the side tab and changed to “No Brush” and the image appeared with just the black boarder.

Next I added all of the other layers that I would need in this project. This would be difficult to work with so I deselected the layers I wouldn’t need right away to make it more manageable.

Once I only had the layer selected that I would work on right away, I wanted to change the color to blue because it would best represent the waterways. To do this I double clicked the right side bar tab and changed the line color to blue.

This is what it looked like after that.

Next I selected the “lot_township_polygon” and it appeared on my map, however it was filled in. To get rid of this I went into the style section again and selected “No Brush” like I did with the first layer.

This is what the map looked like after the last step.

Next I added the region layer but needed to change it from “Single Symbol” to “Categorized.” To do this I double clicked the layer I wanted and changed the first dropdown menu to “Categorized” and then changed the second dropdown to “Landuse.” Then I changed the colors to green on the “Color ramp.”

This is what the map looked like after adding this layer.

Next I added the highways onto the map. I changed the color to yellow the same way that I have changed the colors in the other layers. Below is what the map looked like with the highways added.

Next I added the place names onto the map. To do this I wanted the dots to be red so I selected the red marker and altered the size so it would appear on my map. This created the points on the map, but I also needed place names. To do this I selected the labels tab from the side to see the place names. I kept the default font and added a buffer so the words were easier to see.

After those steps this is what my map looked like.

Lastly, I just needed to include the 1927 map onto my map. Below is my final map with all layers added.

Hello! In this post I will be looking at two mapping projects and comparing them. The first is on the slave revolt in Jamaica from 1760-61 and the second is on lynching in America created by the Equal Justice Initiative.

Slave Revolt in Jamaica:

This project intends to give more information on the slave revolts based upon geography and the ways in which various groups moved. These maps are useful because we can track the paths made by self-emancipated people and the see revolts that took place in relation to each other. By looking at a map for this information we can see any physical barriers that would have been difficult to deal with such as mountains or waterways.

This map does have certain limitations such as using British maps as the base map which allows various colonial landmarks and labels to be used. It is also noted that by using maps, users don’t see the chaos and hardships occurring during these events and instead allow the viewer to take a step back from these events. There are also possible issues with the sources used to construct this map as the data used is taken from colonial sources and the rebel forces are difficult to track making some of the points on the map possibly incorrect.

Lynching In America:

This map tracks lynchings throughout the United States. This interactive map allows users to zoom into each state and see how many reported lynching there were in each county.

There are also points on the map that show specific victims and provides detailed information about their murder, as well as a short video about their life. The information below is about Calvin McDowell, William Stewart, and Thomas Moss, the business owners of Peoples Grocer in Memphis Tennessee who were murdered in 1892.

This interactive map is useful as it shows the distribution of lynchings in the United States. The map makes it very clear the areas of the United States where lynchings were more or less common. The information used to create this map is based on reported lynchings, meaning that there are more lynchings that really happened but because there is no documentation of them, they are not included on the map. There is also an issue with the way that the victims of lynchings are presented. People are represented by numbers in the county/state rather than having a name attached to each lynching on the map. This depersonalizes the data, while this information would be difficult to come by it would be useful if added to the map.

These two projects both use maps but in different ways. The slave revolt map tracks movement rather than the lynching map which tracks the amount of lynchings in each state. While there may be an interactive version of the slave revolt map it would not work for me so I relied on the images in the article about the map. The Lynching in America map was fully operational and easy to use. Both projects are useful but they each come with their own set of problems.