510: Digital Humanities

The processing for my team, the Maine Mill curation team, has been going well. I am specifically on the print team, so I have been sourcing articles from CNN. Our team decided that it would be easier if we all selected one news source per person. I have uploaded around 6 articles so far, with more to come. So far, the print team has found a significant increase in articles lately, as it is the anniversary of the tragedy. One of the challenges our team has faced has been combing through which articles are more relevant to what is being asked of us, as opposed to articles that are detailing rehashes and recaps of what has occurred. While there are more articles than video footage, it can be difficult to discern whether or not we can actually use certain articles for the digital curation.  While compiling my portion of the articles, I figured I would have a much more difficult time finding CNN-specifc articles, but there have been more than expected, which  is helpful, but may be...

     While engaging in the Maine MILL project, I have taken the responsibility of being on the video team. We were instructed to search for videos surrounding the Lewiston Maine shooting, more specifically press conferences and late night show clips. We are all aiming to accumulate as much video footage that we could surrounding those specifics as well as additional news clips that stood out as important to include. This year is the first year that the team is requesting for video clips as a part of the curation so we have found it to be important to communicate and collaborate our ideas, questions, concerns as much as possible.       Comparing the amount of content between articles and images, there is much less video footage available which is one of the challenges that we have faced, especially trying to pull videos that pertain to their specific inquiries. The main thing that has changed for our group is that once we get all of our videos, we will ...

  This week, our team made a lot of progress on creating an expansive timeline of events at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). My individual contributions were based on researching and processing events such as former president, Barack Obama's visit to campus, the history of our wildcat mascot, the influenza epidemic, and the impact of September 11, 2001, on the university community. We planned to evenly divide the workload and collaborate and communicate to make sure our findings and our presentation was consistent and not all over the place. This plan ended up working out as we communicated and went through the university's library archives, however our timeline is not a complete history of the school, we focused on specific events and deep-dived our assigned events. One unexpected change was the amount of archival material available for some events compared to others. For example, the amount of information on 9/11's effect allowed for a better account of the event, w...

Alex Forbes For this project, we digitized Japanese prints and cataloged them in JSTOR, under the University of New Hampshire. We collaborated with the Art & Art History department to access the prints, take photos, and photoshop them to make them accurate in color and size for uploading. We posted and cataloged the prints in JSTOR, making sure to give credit to the photographer, artist, the time period it was created, what the art depicts, what type of art it is, and what culture/country it comes from. To create these prints, the artists used a unique process of carving a negative image into a block of wood and then painting it. Each part of the design is carved onto a separate block, and then those blocks are stamped onto a page, thus creating a distinctive painting. Each of us chose an artist to photograph and catalog their art. I chose Utagawa Tokoyuni. Tokoyuni's work is celebrated for its intricate detail, vibrant colors, and unique compositions. He was part of the Utagaw...

 My team's project is collecting data for the Maine Mill memorial of the Lewiston Maine mass shooting that took place one year ago. For the memorial, they are compiling an array of media, both print and digital, to archive and preserve the articles, photographs, and videos that were captured that followed the shooting. Our group is contributing to their project by assisting them compile forms of media into an excel spreadsheet. Each piece of data, whether an article, image, or video, must be accompanied by metadata. As noted in the textbook, metadata data is essentially data about data. The metadata we are using is qualitative, as we are putting in the article/ video name, the source, keywords that describe the media, and a description of what the article or video includes. We have split our team up into two groups: a video team and an article team. I am part of the video team.  So far, the process has been very smooth as the meetings with our clients has provided us with less...

I think that the process for my curation team is going well. We are doing the UNH timeline using the archives from UNH’s diamond library. The past two weeks we were able to go to the library and look through various artifacts from their archives and digital collections. Each of us has been collecting and scanning the artifacts we want to showcase for our timeline events. My events consist of the 100th year celebration of UNH in Durham, the first NCAA championship at UNH, the formation of the undergraduate research opportunity program, and the formation of the first student senate. I have found various artifacts from The New Hampshire news paper, the UNH magazine, and various archive collections as a courtesy from Kai. We are all finding three artifacts for each event. I have been outlining all my artifacts with the date and place I found it. From here, I started to write a summary on each event/artifact to be able to put it in the timeline. I have been running into trouble finding arti...

       Our team project is the UNH library timeline, our task is to create a timeline using the UNH archives. We each chose four significant UNH events and had to find three pieces of evidence for the event using the UNH archives. We traveled to the UNH archives section in the Library on the bottom floor during the two class periods. Our professional Kai Uchida, who works at the archives, selected one piece of evidence for each of our events as a starting point for our research. During both class periods, we looked through the archives to find more evidence to use for the timeline. This task proved to be much more difficult than expected and time-consuming. For some, it was difficult to find a few pieces of evidence for an event and others, including myself, had trouble choosing only three pieces of evidence because of how much information the event had.      The DH concepts that we have used up to this point in our project are digitization, data model...

Our Group, the group posting works to JSTOR from the UNH Art & Art History Department, is working mostly with digitization. We are taking the art of late 19th and Early 20th century Japanese printmakers and posting their high definition photos to JSTOR with accompanying descriptions. In a nutshell these Japanese prints are first carved onto woodblocks. Each layer has to be carved onto a different block before being stamped onto a page with in k. This creates a very unique style totally original to Japan. Our group all chose and artist, I chose Yoshitoshi. (Below is a print I didn't cover for this project, but is one of his most famous) We then took out our respective prints and put them onto a photography rig specifically meant to photography paintings, prints, and other two dimensional works of art. We will snap photos of each print, and then save them. After the photos are stored, they are uploaded to photoshop and  will be color graded in order to achieve the most ...

     My team's curation project is working with Unh’s Department of Art and Art History to digitize and catalog Japanese prints in the UNH Gallery of Art’s permanent collection. During class Tuesday three students who are a main part of the project came in to discuss the process of the project, background information, and jstor information. As a team we decided that each member would get one artist and five pieces of their work. We looked at the chart of all the artists and split them up between the six of us and wrote down who got what on a google doc shared between the team. The next step is on Thursday of this week our team is heading to Paul Creative Arts Center to photograph our artwork along with editing it. Materials we are working with are our individual pieces of artwork along with the camera, the editing tool, and jstor to upload the artwork. The goal of this project is to take clear photos of our artist artwork and to edit them to make sure they are up to the c...

     My team’s project is creating a historical timeline of UNH using Knightlab with the help of Professor Kai Uchida at the UNH Archives. We have split up the work into four timeline entries that best represent the significant events in UNH’s history for each member of the group. First, we will each focus on gathering historical documents, images, and records for our timeline entries. Then, we will construct the timeline and place all the events in chronological order. Next, we will handle data modeling and metadata to keep all our entries well-organized, properly formatted, and searchable. Finally, we will communicate with our client to see if we met their needs and we will make changes to the timeline based on their feedback.       Our process involves collecting and digitizing materials, building a logical timeline, and making sure everything is accessible to the public. We are working with historical media, archival documents, and records, and our...

       For my curation protect I am working on the Lewiston Maine Shooting with the Maine MILL. We are splitting up the work into two teams, one team who finds media and videos on the Lewiston Maine Shooting, and one team who finds text on the shooting. We need to then watch or read the information found and then add them to our excel sheet for the Maine MILL to use on there Lewiston Maine Shooting memorial page. We are working with information found online, and using excel, and google drive. Our overall goal is to give the Maine MILL all the information they need to start the memorial page on the Lewiston Maine Shooting. Personally me along with the other members of my team who are finding text, our role is to find good information and save it and add it to the excel sheet for the Maine MILL.      Our curation project will use some terms in digital humanities especially the terms found in chapter 2, of The Digital Humanities Coursebook by Johanna Druc...

     The group that I am a part of is working with the Maine MILL Museum on their digital memorial to the Lewiston Shootings that occurred in October of 2023. Specifically, we are asked to focus on video and print media, with the video preference being late night shows, and the media preference being large newspapers. To split up the work, three of us are searching for video clips, and four of us are searching for print articles. I am a part of the team looking for print materials. The process for this that I have found most effective is to search "(name of large newspaper) Lewiston Shooting", and all of the relevant articles from that source pop up. Once I have found my article, I go check it against the master spreadsheet to make sure that previous students didn't choose this same article. Then, I download it as a pdf file and input the data in the spreadsheet. We are also required to include any pictures from the article onto the spreadsheet, converting those into pdfs...

 My team is working with Maine Mill Museum to collect digital media in order to memorialize the Lewiston shooting that took place in October last year. The Maine Mill Museum wants my group to focus on print media and videos. As our group consists of seven members, we decided to split up into two groups: one that focused on print works and the other on video media. Together we agreed that print media would most likely need more members to focus on it. Therefore, myself, Kayleigh, Kira and Emma will work on collecting articles we find online. Meanwhile, Robby, Josie, and Julia will be working on finding and screen recording videos of news reports and late night talk shows. Together, we will compile these findings on a google sheet that was originally started by the curation team from last year. In this sheet we will number each item, list the title, the author/creator, a link to the pdf, keywords for an easier search, a description of the contents, and what form of media it is. After...

  For my group’s project we will be working with the UNH art department to photograph and upload Japanese art prints onto JSTOR for digital archival purposes. We are splitting up the work by dividing the number of prints for each of us by the specific artist, which ends up being about five prints for each of us. The first step was meeting with the project interns from the art department and learning about the project. We then discussed who would do what artist and divided the work between us in a shared Google Doc. From the art department interns’ presentation, we learned we will be working with physical and digital materials. The prints are physical paper and ink products that we will be taking photos of using a specialized camera and tripod set up. This will be uploaded to a computer where we will use d igital t ools like photoshop, cropping, and color correction to ensure th e photograph is accurate to the print. The goal is to provide a complete set of accurately recorded...

  Our team is helping the UNH art department create digital archives of a collection of Japanese wood prints. Our team's plan is to manually take photos of the prints in the CAT lab in the Paul Creative Arts Center. The basic process looks like a card that has custom frames perfectly holding the camera. Inside the room the lighting is from a controlled source to ensure continuity between all the paintings. Our group split up the wor k as 5 prints for each group member. After taking the photos of each print, they must be color graded using a realistic pallet. Since cameras alter the colors of photos it is important to change it back when you are dealing with art that must be very realistic. Once the scans have been made of the art, they will be uploaded to the JSTOR with given descriptions. The project is quite easy because such little research is required to make the uploads. The primary goals of our client are to itemize and photograph a whole list of prints made by a particula...

Blog Post 7- Curation Team Planning As for splitting up the teamwork, our groups purpose is to equally split the work- hence, chosing an artist with 5 works each. And at PCAC, we will all be doing work individually in a group. The steps we need to take will be meeting in PCAC, and gaining insight on the work we are going to be doing in the CatLAB. From what we have gathered from the first meeting, is that we will be using a camera to photograph the woodblock prints from the permanent collection, then using a color corrector to go into photoshop to make sure all of the colors have been photographed correctly. For the process, once we finish the scanning part, we will use JSTOR to upload and publish the artwork with included captions on each piece of work.  My goals for this project is to gain more knowledge on the uploading process and hands on scanning work. I'm excited to actually experience the full process of uploading. And I see my individual role for the project as being 1 of ...

Alex Forbes ENGL 510 Melinda White October 6th Mapping and Visualization/3-D Modeling Mapping and visualization are important techniques in digital humanities as they help us to understand and present intricate information in diverse and new ways. Drucker highlights how visual tools not only support our understanding but they also help to shape how we perceive and process information. By looking at the ways in which different data points relate to each other, mapping can transform complicated data into stories that are easy to understand and navigate. Drucker notes that visualization is subjective, meaning that it reflects the choices made by the people creating it. This is why it is important to be careful when creating these visual tools. For example, when mapping historical events or cultural information, the size, color, and layout that you choose can vastly impact how people see and interpret the information. Drucker explains how, “The virtually rendered world is often created fro...

I found Drucker's statement in the initial pages of the Mapping and GIS chapter to be interesting when applied to the "Mapping Color" project at Harvard University. Drucker states, "Mapping tools are an integral part of political and social work [...] All of these have a human dimension, of course, but they tend to be far from the study of cultural artifacts and events that are central to humanities" (Drucker 130). This seems to be a definition in stark contrast to the Harvard "Mapping Project" because its purpose is to investigate the use of color in works of art throughout the last 2,000 years using a mapping data base. The map may not be the only way to search the art database within this website, but its presence alone seems to disagree with Drucker's comments about mappings lack of a human dimension. Other then that I found the Mapping and GIS chapter to be insightful, especially when talking about the visual format types. Especially the conne...

  Virtual tourism transforms how heritage sites and cultural memories are experienced. Through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and 3-D modeling, users can understand historical contexts that they would not be able to through traditional media. For example, GIS maps cultural data, showing how different cultural events and places are connected. By visualizing this information, traditional history lessons (Often just text or images) are turned into interactive experiences.  Projects such as the “One Orlando” digital memorial display the potential of these technologies in preserving and interpreting history. Digital memorials such as this, honor the memory of events and create spaces for communal healing. These projects help create a deeper emotional connection by including images and videos.  Our next unit on digital curation is on the practical application of virtual tourism and heritage. The work our class is doing with the Maine MILL Museum, the UNH ...

Both mapping and three-dimensional models work as virtual interfaces that help us navigate the world. Both have particular uses and also raise questions about what the intended use for each should be. When specifically looking at historical documents, rather any historical context. We want the accuracy to be untainted and realistic. I spoke about this in my last essay. I found the Musee d' Orsay to be ineffective as a historical archive because it lacked good quality . Experts basically say we should take the imaging with a grain of salt, because it's not realistic. That goes for both 3d virtual models and mapping. Therefore, should we even be using programming that alters the perception of the actual experience? When looking at the technical differences between them, there's two big distinctions. Mapping is when you take a 3d image and show it as a 2d image, this creates distortion. With 3d virtual spaces, they use a combination of radar and magnetic imaging to crea...

     In Digital Humanities, maps and GIS play a large role in how information can be analyzed, visualized and interpreted through interactive technology experiences. Other than directional purposes, maps can tell a lot about a spaces demographics, infrastructure or security reasons which all in some way a correlation to human dimensions. The book explains that online maps like Google Earth can be created very easily, but understanding the research of what goes into creating maps tells us how and why. Geographic Information Systems combine data into the maps to allow for more analysis and overall presentation of material. The humanities piece of mapping and GIS comes from the way that spaces are studied for their geography, cultural aspects and interpretations. An example of this from the book is Troubled Geographies: A Spatial History of Religion and Society in Ireland . "The maps show the impact of various events- famine, war, and partition- on the population of Ireland ...

 Maps are useful to include in digital humanities projects as it can be essential to the research, a visual presentation, or a figure of the research. One may include a map in a project to analyze aspects of spatial experiences- such as what natural and social aspects define a region, how far two points are from one another, and how long it would take to cross this distance. The textbook lists reasons why someone would include a map in a project. These reasons include narrate an event using a map to present the argument, interpret a map as a historical and critical form, create a map from place-based references, or to employ coordinate data or use the map as a picture. I like the understanding that maps can either be used to work as a visual component of the research or be a necessary component and evidence for the research in itself.  The textbook introduces GIS mapping: geographical informational systems. GIS integrates maps with data for either presentation or analysis purp...