To be absolutely honest, every single one of the optional assignments seems interesting to me. When I had chosen to do the Graphs and the Story Map projects, those were just the two I could see having the widest range of applications for.
Comparatively, I found the ArcGIS far easier to navigate and understand than the Google Graphs pages. Unfortunately though it seems ArcGIS is not entirely a free account, but as long as it is used for noncommercial use then it is. I hope to explore all they have to offer at a later date.
My final project and it can be found here and also in the side navigation. I hope to continue on this project and further expand the collection of advertisements and then be able to draw some conclusions about the change in their performances and travel patterns. It would be nice to be able to compare the amount of shows in one area and see how that corresponds to the death toll during war time. And while that may be easily found in books, and very easy to understand emotionally, I would like to be able to point to population charts and graphs as proof.
And that I believe concludes all the postings for HIS 218 Digital History at NVCC.
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Unit 14: User Participation & Crowd-sourcing
When the term crowd-sourcing is mentioned, my initial thought is always to Kickstarter and other crowd-funding options. Then that got me thinking, does Kickstarter have a lot of history based projects looking for backing? And it really doesn't.
Searching through with the keyword 'History' I found a lot of historical fiction games, or retro-futuristic postings. But a few notables are:
One Fam : it's kind of like Facebook + Ancestry, chart out your family tree then share/post important memories and moments.
Forty Blocks: The East Garfield Park Oral History Project by Chicago History Museum : This project is to train students of the community to record oral histories of the residents. The students will work with film crews and museum staff to record the history of the predominantly black community which has undergone radical changes since WW2. Its a great way to not only get the residents' stories told, but to involve the younger community as well. It has completed funding earlier this year and I cannot wait to see how it pans out.
The Irish History Channel : A History Student from NUI is looking for funding to help establish a Youtube channel where he will document Ireland's history.
Hidden Histories of Million Wartime Women by Royal Voluntary Service : The Royal Voluntary Service is seeking to raise funds to research and document the wartime efforts of the Woman's Voluntary Services during WW2. About 1/10 of the entire female population of Great Britain (possibly the UK) serviced, yet there is very little published about them. With this funding they seek to tell the stories of the women via the thousands of artifact collected and make them available online for free. It seems the project has been making leaps and bounds after being funded. Their blog documenting more of their work can be found here.
Lorica Leggings : This kickstarter was to raise money to jumpstart a business which makes leggings with designs based off of historical pieces of armor. I have backed this one and I cannot wait for them to expand and offer more styles. Not quite history, but a way to bring pieces of history into our everyday lives.
As you see there is a range in nature, quality and funding requirements.
On the subject of transcribing projects, one recently showed up in my Facebook feed which seems to be very interesting. It is called Transcribing Faith and it focuses on books from the early modern period which document the of the 1470-1700 and is part of the Religious Change project which documents the changing nature of religion in that time period. It definitely looks interesting and I may try to contribute once this class is over.
And the main project has no change as the moment, as I am marathoning through all these blog posts. Though the first step when I return to it will be changing the search parameters to only newspapers in Virginia then further exploring story mapping and the timeline apps.
Searching through with the keyword 'History' I found a lot of historical fiction games, or retro-futuristic postings. But a few notables are:
One Fam : it's kind of like Facebook + Ancestry, chart out your family tree then share/post important memories and moments.
Forty Blocks: The East Garfield Park Oral History Project by Chicago History Museum : This project is to train students of the community to record oral histories of the residents. The students will work with film crews and museum staff to record the history of the predominantly black community which has undergone radical changes since WW2. Its a great way to not only get the residents' stories told, but to involve the younger community as well. It has completed funding earlier this year and I cannot wait to see how it pans out.
The Irish History Channel : A History Student from NUI is looking for funding to help establish a Youtube channel where he will document Ireland's history.
Hidden Histories of Million Wartime Women by Royal Voluntary Service : The Royal Voluntary Service is seeking to raise funds to research and document the wartime efforts of the Woman's Voluntary Services during WW2. About 1/10 of the entire female population of Great Britain (possibly the UK) serviced, yet there is very little published about them. With this funding they seek to tell the stories of the women via the thousands of artifact collected and make them available online for free. It seems the project has been making leaps and bounds after being funded. Their blog documenting more of their work can be found here.
Lorica Leggings : This kickstarter was to raise money to jumpstart a business which makes leggings with designs based off of historical pieces of armor. I have backed this one and I cannot wait for them to expand and offer more styles. Not quite history, but a way to bring pieces of history into our everyday lives.
As you see there is a range in nature, quality and funding requirements.
On the subject of transcribing projects, one recently showed up in my Facebook feed which seems to be very interesting. It is called Transcribing Faith and it focuses on books from the early modern period which document the of the 1470-1700 and is part of the Religious Change project which documents the changing nature of religion in that time period. It definitely looks interesting and I may try to contribute once this class is over.
And the main project has no change as the moment, as I am marathoning through all these blog posts. Though the first step when I return to it will be changing the search parameters to only newspapers in Virginia then further exploring story mapping and the timeline apps.
Unit 13: Data Visualization
Data visualization is a very useful tool in explaining complex or abstract ideas in simpler terms. But while working on the Data Visualization project, I found building a graph with the Google Graph Gallery far more challenging than it needed to be. First I had to collect the data, I picked something simple: the amount of new notable sanitariums built by year in the US. The main purpose of the project was to display the data and understand how it works, so I saw no need to go in depth and truly research.
After all, if all the desired research was to be done, I would have been building at a bare minimum of 5 different graphs:
1. the population of the US as along with the number diagnosed with tuberculosis as a line graph
2. the same data applied geographically
3. the number of sanitariums built by year (which was done for the project)
4. the same information then applied geographically
5. an overlapping time line of years in operation for each of the sanitariums
Sadly that undertaking was not feasible at the time, but as a compromise I could revisit the sanitariums in the story map project, which I believe should be fitting in communicating the information as well.
Building a simple graph using coding was difficult enough. I had built a table in Numbers (Mac's version of Excel) and was using that to collect years name and location from the lovely source of Wikipedia to then turn into a graph. I was probably better off just rendering the graph in the program then exporting it as an image, but I was determined to make the coding work. And for a basic graph, it did.
But if I were to use data visualization for any project beyond that one, I would not work directly wit the code again.
On the subject of data visualization, I don't believe I will be using much, if any, in the final project. Using a timeline or story map to show the advertisements will be far more effective. Not much progress on the project, still playing blog catch up.
In regards to applicable data sets, the standard census data is always important to an area. For Northern Virginia, all information regarding the Civil War is usually pertinent as well, whether it be the amount of troops stationed here for either side, or the numbers of who remained here after. Unfortunately I do not know if all that data has been collected into a presentable fashion. But the Library of Virginia has a collection of Civil War Records here.
Also as a side note, it seems blogger has changed how posts are edited and links posted since this project began. Like there is less design control, and has become more clunky. Possibly it is not playing well with the latest Firefox update.
Oh, the joys of technology.
After all, if all the desired research was to be done, I would have been building at a bare minimum of 5 different graphs:
1. the population of the US as along with the number diagnosed with tuberculosis as a line graph
2. the same data applied geographically
3. the number of sanitariums built by year (which was done for the project)
4. the same information then applied geographically
5. an overlapping time line of years in operation for each of the sanitariums
Sadly that undertaking was not feasible at the time, but as a compromise I could revisit the sanitariums in the story map project, which I believe should be fitting in communicating the information as well.
Building a simple graph using coding was difficult enough. I had built a table in Numbers (Mac's version of Excel) and was using that to collect years name and location from the lovely source of Wikipedia to then turn into a graph. I was probably better off just rendering the graph in the program then exporting it as an image, but I was determined to make the coding work. And for a basic graph, it did.
But if I were to use data visualization for any project beyond that one, I would not work directly wit the code again.
On the subject of data visualization, I don't believe I will be using much, if any, in the final project. Using a timeline or story map to show the advertisements will be far more effective. Not much progress on the project, still playing blog catch up.
In regards to applicable data sets, the standard census data is always important to an area. For Northern Virginia, all information regarding the Civil War is usually pertinent as well, whether it be the amount of troops stationed here for either side, or the numbers of who remained here after. Unfortunately I do not know if all that data has been collected into a presentable fashion. But the Library of Virginia has a collection of Civil War Records here.
Also as a side note, it seems blogger has changed how posts are edited and links posted since this project began. Like there is less design control, and has become more clunky. Possibly it is not playing well with the latest Firefox update.
Oh, the joys of technology.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Unit 12: Digital Online Archives
For the most part the Northern Virginia Digital History [link] is very easy to navigate and interesting to explore. I like the many different ways to explore the galleries especially the option to browse via the map. It is really easy to find were to contribute items.
But uploading photos to Northern Virginia Digital History Archive was a bit more difficult than I had expected. All the photos I had taken with my phone were over the file limit and had to be edited and downsized with photoshop. I think the file limit was 2 MB, not the standard 10 MB which is more common today.
I found the subtitles to be a bit confusing. Like I understand 'Image Description' but 'An account of the resource' makes me second guess what exactly is being looked for. And for the 'Date' I ended up putting in the date the photo was taken, which may not be correct for 'A point or period of time associated with an event in the the life cycle of the resource' as the point or period of time can vary. Like the photos I uploaded were of historic structures and it could be argued that the dates of importance are completely different than the date they were taken.
The digital archive I checked out is the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music [link]. While the website's navigation it pretty easy to use, but to get access to the photographs you have to sign up for an account. At least the account is free and the content can be searched before signing up. The collection spans many countries though it is primarily in the UK. Each entry contains a lot of valuable information whether or not there is actual images of the music.
The main project is still sitting on the back burner while I catch up with everything else.
But uploading photos to Northern Virginia Digital History Archive was a bit more difficult than I had expected. All the photos I had taken with my phone were over the file limit and had to be edited and downsized with photoshop. I think the file limit was 2 MB, not the standard 10 MB which is more common today.
I found the subtitles to be a bit confusing. Like I understand 'Image Description' but 'An account of the resource' makes me second guess what exactly is being looked for. And for the 'Date' I ended up putting in the date the photo was taken, which may not be correct for 'A point or period of time associated with an event in the the life cycle of the resource' as the point or period of time can vary. Like the photos I uploaded were of historic structures and it could be argued that the dates of importance are completely different than the date they were taken.
The digital archive I checked out is the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music [link]. While the website's navigation it pretty easy to use, but to get access to the photographs you have to sign up for an account. At least the account is free and the content can be searched before signing up. The collection spans many countries though it is primarily in the UK. Each entry contains a lot of valuable information whether or not there is actual images of the music.
The main project is still sitting on the back burner while I catch up with everything else.
Unit 8: Becoming Digital
Digital materials are so easily redistributed that they almost lose credibility if not acquired from the initial upload. Even when acquired from commercial sites, then you'd want to further check the objects' authenticity and the place you are purchasing it from and their credibility. Its the basic issue of online shopping where the dress that arrives does not match the listing.
An interesting issue I have found when trying to locate high resolution scans of J.C. Leyendecker's work is that the best scans come from people's personal tumblr and blogs, not any art galleries or museums. Nothing is more frustrating than finding documents just scanned in at 72 DPI/PPI and labelled as high resolution. While 72 DPI/PPI may be fine for just web viewing, 300 DPI/PPI is the basic resolution for all printed material and should be made available whenever possible. In regards to are resolution of artwork, I'd hope that places would make a 600 DPI/PPI version available. While I can understand them not wanting to risk people making their own prints of artwork, it should be something they are willing to risk to educate people or at least make available upon request.
As an illustrator, all traditional artwork gets scanned in, photoshoped, and then saved down to the appropriate sizing for either print or web. When doing research on the Poultney Mill in Leesburg, I had used the microfiche to view probate and deeds to track all mention of John Poultney and his mill. To print the documents, the program uses the simple image capture function, then exported it as a TIFF. Then the file's color had to be inverted, which the only reason I could attribute to is the older computers not playing nice or packaging files differently than current computers do. I believe those computers were running either Windows 98 or XP.
An interesting issue I have found when trying to locate high resolution scans of J.C. Leyendecker's work is that the best scans come from people's personal tumblr and blogs, not any art galleries or museums. Nothing is more frustrating than finding documents just scanned in at 72 DPI/PPI and labelled as high resolution. While 72 DPI/PPI may be fine for just web viewing, 300 DPI/PPI is the basic resolution for all printed material and should be made available whenever possible. In regards to are resolution of artwork, I'd hope that places would make a 600 DPI/PPI version available. While I can understand them not wanting to risk people making their own prints of artwork, it should be something they are willing to risk to educate people or at least make available upon request.
As an illustrator, all traditional artwork gets scanned in, photoshoped, and then saved down to the appropriate sizing for either print or web. When doing research on the Poultney Mill in Leesburg, I had used the microfiche to view probate and deeds to track all mention of John Poultney and his mill. To print the documents, the program uses the simple image capture function, then exported it as a TIFF. Then the file's color had to be inverted, which the only reason I could attribute to is the older computers not playing nice or packaging files differently than current computers do. I believe those computers were running either Windows 98 or XP.
Saturday, July 8, 2017
Project Update
Just a quick update on the status of the final project.
I've begun combing through the Library of Congress's digital database of newspapers published between 1789 and 1924 in all states in an attempt to ensure that I will be able find continual advertisements for the same person, which would be ideal to track the variations in advertisements and possibly their travels.
The first keyword search I tried was Spiritualism which while returning many results, most were articles. But that at least lead to the terminology which would help narrow down results. Seance, Psychic, and Occult were the next keywords to try. As with spiritualism, seance and psychic brought up relevant articles but no advertisements within the first 10 pages (20 results per page).
Occult so far has yielded the best results. I've found over 10 advertisements from 1899 from Montana from the same palm reader which shows a gradual change in advertising graphics.
The nest step for this project will be to specify and look into Virginian newspapers with the same keywords. Once they are collected, then a webpage will be built and galleries made to be sorted by year, occultist, and possibly different trades within the field.
But the project will be put on hold until the other assignments with more pressing deadlines are completed.
I've begun combing through the Library of Congress's digital database of newspapers published between 1789 and 1924 in all states in an attempt to ensure that I will be able find continual advertisements for the same person, which would be ideal to track the variations in advertisements and possibly their travels.
The first keyword search I tried was Spiritualism which while returning many results, most were articles. But that at least lead to the terminology which would help narrow down results. Seance, Psychic, and Occult were the next keywords to try. As with spiritualism, seance and psychic brought up relevant articles but no advertisements within the first 10 pages (20 results per page).
Occult so far has yielded the best results. I've found over 10 advertisements from 1899 from Montana from the same palm reader which shows a gradual change in advertising graphics.
The nest step for this project will be to specify and look into Virginian newspapers with the same keywords. Once they are collected, then a webpage will be built and galleries made to be sorted by year, occultist, and possibly different trades within the field.
But the project will be put on hold until the other assignments with more pressing deadlines are completed.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Unit 10: Real & Not Real in the Digital World
When it comes to the blending of digital and physical in the realm of history, I prefer to focus on not what are we doing today, like the digitization of documents or the running of a website, but on where we will be moving forward towards. Then coupling that with the best way to involve the public and you really find yourself more into the sphere of experience design (not UX design) and telling the story of a location or exhibit. I guess I operate on the notion that every single historic document should be scanned, available online, and searchable is basic fact and therefore not something we need to discuss.
The developments of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will really be the next steps of bringing history to life. Embracing the technological advances will allow museums to fully immerse visitors in an experience, to thoroughly encapsulate them in a moment in time.
A historic house museum could have VR tours of the house in different decades without having to physically change their furnishing plan. Then using a 3D printer, they could even replicate some items for guests to interact with. Or even an AR filter in their app which lets you see different interpretations, whether it be different decades or something as simple as seasons, on your phone screen while retaining their basic house interpretation in reality.
This of course means investing in tech far more difficult to use that the basic blog and website, which may prove to be costly in the short term. Never mind the fact that far too many museums and historic sites have difficulty maintaining a website. There may even be backlash from the notion of museums becoming more of an educational for of entertainment.
The notes for this week discuss the differences between handling an actual old piece of parchment versus reading it scanned vs reading it transcribed and the emotional differences, but what if that original piece of parchment was recreated? There would be no worry about the loss of an artifact and then museum visitors could get the full experience. This of course would be more meaning full with an object like a Viking shield or Roman helmet.
Mostly the use of VR and AR has been segregated to the realm of just entertainment and gaming. But the idea of a game does not have to be something devoid of learning, nor is entertainment bad.
The VR Titanic kickstarter is a example of the real-nonreal. It proposes to allow people the experience to explore the ship while it sails as well as the experience of the ships demise.
A common theme currently is diving or deep sea VR adventures as there are at least two I am aware of: UnderCurrent and World of Diving. I've actually played World of Diving and is is absolutely fascinating, as I am sure the others are as well. It was my first VR experience at the VALA Eastside art gallery in Seattle, and what really had me interested is the fact that they had mapped specific oceans, down to some of the artifacts that could be found around plane wrecks. Just think of the archeological possibilities! How students can be trained for underwater salvages, how to explore wrecks after they have been recovered, or if combined with more science, recreate the decay process of the artifacts.
The Real NonReal can easily be seen in the viewing of any kind of painting. You can see Titian's online all day, but nothing compares to standing in front of one of his giant paintings. Like seeing a Monet, Manet, or any of the Impressionists really. The sheer size and the vibrance of colors cannot be understood from a computer screen. And while these may not be considered local references, the basic idea can be applied to any and every item.
There are just so many possibilities if the real and non-real are allowed to exist together for they both have their place and uses.
The developments of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will really be the next steps of bringing history to life. Embracing the technological advances will allow museums to fully immerse visitors in an experience, to thoroughly encapsulate them in a moment in time.
A historic house museum could have VR tours of the house in different decades without having to physically change their furnishing plan. Then using a 3D printer, they could even replicate some items for guests to interact with. Or even an AR filter in their app which lets you see different interpretations, whether it be different decades or something as simple as seasons, on your phone screen while retaining their basic house interpretation in reality.
This of course means investing in tech far more difficult to use that the basic blog and website, which may prove to be costly in the short term. Never mind the fact that far too many museums and historic sites have difficulty maintaining a website. There may even be backlash from the notion of museums becoming more of an educational for of entertainment.
The notes for this week discuss the differences between handling an actual old piece of parchment versus reading it scanned vs reading it transcribed and the emotional differences, but what if that original piece of parchment was recreated? There would be no worry about the loss of an artifact and then museum visitors could get the full experience. This of course would be more meaning full with an object like a Viking shield or Roman helmet.
Mostly the use of VR and AR has been segregated to the realm of just entertainment and gaming. But the idea of a game does not have to be something devoid of learning, nor is entertainment bad.
The VR Titanic kickstarter is a example of the real-nonreal. It proposes to allow people the experience to explore the ship while it sails as well as the experience of the ships demise.
A common theme currently is diving or deep sea VR adventures as there are at least two I am aware of: UnderCurrent and World of Diving. I've actually played World of Diving and is is absolutely fascinating, as I am sure the others are as well. It was my first VR experience at the VALA Eastside art gallery in Seattle, and what really had me interested is the fact that they had mapped specific oceans, down to some of the artifacts that could be found around plane wrecks. Just think of the archeological possibilities! How students can be trained for underwater salvages, how to explore wrecks after they have been recovered, or if combined with more science, recreate the decay process of the artifacts.
The Real NonReal can easily be seen in the viewing of any kind of painting. You can see Titian's online all day, but nothing compares to standing in front of one of his giant paintings. Like seeing a Monet, Manet, or any of the Impressionists really. The sheer size and the vibrance of colors cannot be understood from a computer screen. And while these may not be considered local references, the basic idea can be applied to any and every item.
There are just so many possibilities if the real and non-real are allowed to exist together for they both have their place and uses.
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