Comments for THATCamp NOLA (New Orleans) 2013

Comment on Dork Shorts by Nicole Lawrence

Nicole Lawrence — Fri, 24 May 2013 13:52:30 +0000

My short featured the Interactive Historical Map Viewer from the University of Southern Mississippi Archives. The viewer contains a selection of historical maps from the historical map collection that have been georeferenced and layered over a current basemap. The transparency of the historical map can be manipulated to compare the two layers. Currently represented regions include Mississippi, Louisiana, the eastern United States, and Central and South America.

maps.usm.edu/historic/

Comment on Digital Dork Shorts, Session Notes, and Evening/Weekend Plans by Liz Cole

Liz Cole — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:48:36 +0000

Hi everyone,

THAT Camp was awesome and it was nice to meet all of you on Friday. I mentioned before the Dork Shorts that I am interested in putting together an informal affinity/hack group on Online Learning- with an emphasis on the informal. The goal would just be anyone who teaches online, supports online learning, or is just plain interested to share knowledge and get feedback across institutions. If you’re interested, please drop me a line and let me know.

Thanks,
Liz Cole
Online Course & Curriculum Developer
Loyola University
cole@loyno.edu

Comment on Digital Dork Shorts, Session Notes, and Evening/Weekend Plans by Gena Chattin

Gena Chattin — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:35:58 +0000

A few have posted info on their projects in the comments on the original Dork Shorts post: nola2013.thatcamp.org/05/16/dork-shorts/

And a few from my notes:

DevDH: devdh.org/
The Open Parks Network: openparksnetwork.org/
Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage: www.usm.edu/oral-history
University of Southern Mississippi Maps Digital Collection: digilib.usm.edu/cdm/search/collection/maps
Guests of the Third Reich: guestsofthethirdreich.org/home/
MediaNOLA: medianola.org/

I didn’t catch everyone. If you’re missing, please add yourself in the comments. Thanks!

Comment on Session Proposal: Seeking a Digital Interface for a Project about Maps, Bees, and Old Houses by Lisa Flanagan

Lisa Flanagan — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:03:35 +0000

Thank you to everyone for the great suggestions! I really appreciate the help and advice.

Comment on Digital Dork Shorts, Session Notes, and Evening/Weekend Plans by Gena Chattin

Gena Chattin — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:25:44 +0000

Digital Dork Short: The Orleans Parish School Board Minute Books

Nothing special tech-wise, just a digital collection, but an amazing research resource. We are working on digitizing meeting minute books from public schools in New Orleans and Orleans Parish beginning circa 1840 and moving up through the early 20th century.

This is a work in progress. Right now we just have a few up that were indexed by the UNO History Department. Getting the indexing work into the metadata in a useful way has been a challenge, and I think we’re still not quite there. This combined with the way CONTENTdm handles large text/monograph style collections makes the collection a little difficult to navigate. In short, we’re working on it, but it’s up for you to use, and you can always contact the library for help or questions.

OPSB Minute Books: cdm16313.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15140coll4

The Louisiana Digital Library in general: www.louisianadigitallibrary.org

Comment on Creating Two Totally Excellent HISTORY Websites: University Desegregation Anniversary (& US Largest Slave Revolt) by Laura Rosanne Adderley

Laura Rosanne Adderley — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:45:23 +0000

Thanks Michael. I actually think the most critical collaboration thing I learned here was trying to find some Tulane Library partners. We have an archivist partner from the Nadine Vorhoff Library, but it’s been more in a general advice capacity as opposed to thinking about putting archival material on the website as a joint project. That is the archivist has been like all of us, simply a member of the committee as opposed to thinking about a working partner for actually making the work happen.

Comment on Session Proposal: Seeking a Digital Interface for a Project about Maps, Bees, and Old Houses by Howard Margot

Howard Margot — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:18:19 +0000

Thanks for listing these!

Comment on Dork Shorts by Chris Vinson

Chris Vinson — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:13:56 +0000

My dork short today outlined the Open Parks Network, a project at Clemson University, funded by an IMLS National Leadership Grant, that aims to digitized at least 150,000 items such as maps, photographs, negatives, architectural drawings, and slides and 1.5 million pages of gray literature held at the libraries, museums, and archives of sites managed by the National Park Service.

The Open Parks Network beta web site is available here:
www.openparksnetwork.org

We also developed an exhibition for the Digital Public Library of America using material digitized as a part of this project:
dp.la/exhibitions/exhibits/show/this-land

Comment on Session Proposal: Seeking a Digital Interface for a Project about Maps, Bees, and Old Houses by Louis Kyriakoudes

Louis Kyriakoudes — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:10:20 +0000

In this session this morning, I mentioned some free open-source GIS tools that I have found useful for research and in the classroom. Here they are:

Quantum GIS, an easy-to-use, free, open-source mapping program that is similar to ArcView 3.2
www.qgis.org/

GeoDa, a spatial statistics program with powerful spatial econometrics tools, developed by Luc Anselin geodacenter.asu.edu/

National Historical GIS, at the Univ. of Minnesota. High quality shapefiles/boundary files for use with programs like ArcView, ArcGIS or Quantum GIS
www.nhgis.org/

Comment on Dork Shorts by Louis Kyriakoudes

Louis Kyriakoudes — Fri, 17 May 2013 19:02:54 +0000

The Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at the University of Southern Mississippi has three projects of interest to THATCampers. These are the three I mentioned in my Dork Short.

*Mississippi Moments, oral history podcasts: www.mississippimoments.org/

*Voices from the Fisheries, NOAA-supported oral history of the fisheries. Our Deepwater Horizon Oil Disaster Oral History Project cah be accessed here: www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/apex/f?p=213:6:1226525423046703::NO:RP::
The full 60+ set of interviews will be fully uploaded in about four weeks.

Oral History of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement at the Mississippi Digital Library.
digilib.usm.edu/cdm/search/collection/coh

Comment on Dork Shorts by Vicki Mayer

Vicki Mayer — Fri, 17 May 2013 12:35:32 +0000

Sounds fun!

Comment on Digitization of Film and Video: Problems and Practices by Linda VanZandt

Linda VanZandt — Fri, 17 May 2013 06:01:24 +0000

Thanks for proposing this, Michael. I would be very interested in this as our oral history center/archive moves more into the video realm.

Comment on Tech Learning Modules by Digital Work as Engaged Service Learning | THATCamp NOLA (New Orleans) 2013

Digital Work as Engaged Service Learning | THATCamp NOLA (New Orleans) 2013 — Fri, 17 May 2013 03:12:47 +0000

[…] the spirit of the very well received session proposal Tech Learning Modules Travers posted, I would like to propose this as a “session module,” one that might either […]

Comment on What’s an untrained faculty member to do? by Doreen Piano

Doreen Piano — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:20:55 +0000

I am also interested in digital publishing using many of the photographs I’ve been taking of New Orleans as central to my research interests in visual rhetoric both in terms of an archive of these photographs as part of my scholarly identity online and embedded in digital essays. I also think Omeka can be a great space for advance literature students to do similar kinds of projects, Anne, but on a smaller scale. This is something Michael has discussed with Peter but it has never taken off b/c, well, …. Perhaps we need to be the emissaries once we feel comfortable with the program.

Comment on What’s an untrained faculty member to do? by Catherine Michna

Catherine Michna — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:41:43 +0000

Hi Anne
I’m also interested in using the web to create scholarly communities around under-studied research topics. In addition to the conversation about strategies for online archiving, I’d also be interested in discussing how you and I also both use “scholarly blogs” to get conversations going (in your case, conversations about an under-canonized author, and in my case, conversations about New Orleans theatre and performance). How can we collaborate to create exciting and dynamic spaces that connect online archives to real-time scholarly or public or hybrid scholar-blog conversations about a specific research topic?

Comment on Dork Shorts by molly knapp

molly knapp — Thu, 16 May 2013 19:41:24 +0000

a tool I recently discovered is TimelineJS – open source timeline software. Haven’t used it, but it looks cool – worth 2 minutes of your lunch time. timeline.verite.co/

Comment on What’s an untrained faculty member to do? by Anne Boyd Rioux

Anne Boyd Rioux — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:33:35 +0000

Thanks, Mary.You are farther along than I, so I would love to see your site and hear about its creation. I would also love to hear from others with experience creating archival sites. I imagine there is a fair amount of overlap between literature and history archives. So we lit and history folks can learn a lot from each other (or I could learn a lot from you).

Comment on Creating Two Totally Excellent HISTORY Websites: University Desegregation Anniversary (& US Largest Slave Revolt) by Michael Mizell-Nelson

Michael Mizell-Nelson — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:22:38 +0000

Hi Rosanne, I noticed that you have conceived of these as two separate websites. Among archivists attending our THATCamp, Louis Digital and the Mississippi Digital Library are the “gold standards” for online archives in our state. They are holding to the pattern established throughout their profession.

Historians and traditional scholars tend to think in terms of monographs and individual authorship, but I think there’s an important lesson historians need to take from the work of professionals trained in digital work. Collaboration has its value. If best practices for archivists and librarians leads to such databases as Louis Digital, then we should learn as much as we can about their experiences on the front end: planning, fundraising, long-term maintenance of digital materials.
Even if funds are provided to create one or two great websites, maintenance and upgrades for 2 or more websites versus a collaborative effort for a website offering multiple partners and multiple exhibitions should be considered.

Comment on What’s an untrained faculty member to do? by Mary Niall Mitchell

Mary Niall Mitchell — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:14:06 +0000

Hi Anne,

I am very interested in finding more models to emulate for my own project, which I envision as sort of an organic, student generated/curated exhibit about the visual culture of the Civil War in the South. While I have a basic Omeka platform now (I don’t even know the right lingo!) I don’t know how to make it look more appealing or easier to navigate. Nor how to plan for future expansions of it, which I really hope to do each time I teach the course.

Molly

Comment on Creating Two Totally Excellent HISTORY Websites: University Desegregation Anniversary (& US Largest Slave Revolt) by Molly Mitchell

Molly Mitchell — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:32:53 +0000

Hi Rosanne,
I am interested in putting heads together. I have a very basic version (in Omeka) of a pop-up exhibit my students did at the Ogden this spring on the visual culture of the Civil War in the South. It will not be as elaborate as what you’re doing but I think we might add to it going forward, with documents from the LOC (simple) rather than scanning our own. But I am very interested in the idea of how to do history well, digitally. I also have the additional issue of wanting to present STUDENT work well,too. Their voice have to be there, but often heavily edited… This is something I know Michael has to grapple with all of the time in the Public History program.

Comment on Session Proposal: CONTENTdm Love/Hate Fest by Michael Mizell-Nelson

Michael Mizell-Nelson — Thu, 16 May 2013 04:56:16 +0000

As a CONTENTdm voyeur, I’d be interested in learning about the problems and advances users are experiencing with the new version.

Comment on Session Proposal: Seeking a Digital Interface for a Project about Maps, Bees, and Old Houses by Lisa Flanagan

Lisa Flanagan — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:53:33 +0000

Thanks! I gave it a name. Hoping for some good ideas and discussions of other projects attempting the same kind of interaction and interface online.

Comment on Session Proposal: Seeking a Digital Interface for a Project about Maps, Bees, and Old Houses by Gena Chattin

Gena Chattin — Tue, 14 May 2013 14:20:58 +0000

Sounds like a great working session idea! Can you edit the post to add the category “Session Proposal” and give it a title so people will recognize it during selection on Friday? Without a title, I’m afraid people will miss it. Thanks!

Comment on The Feds are Coming! Discussion Proposal by Michael Mizell-Nelson

Michael Mizell-Nelson — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:59:41 +0000

I’m very interested in this session. When I check to see if some famous set of government documents has been digitized, and they don’t turn up, I often wonder if I’m simply not looking in the right place or not searching effectively. Recently this happened with a search for the Kefauver Committee Hearings. I obviously didn’t expect to find all of those many pages online. Some materials turned up via Google books, but I end thinking that my search is flawed. (After all, wouldn’t the Kefauver Hearings have been digitized by now?) Thank you for suggesting this one.

Comment on Educating Faculty: Confronting the Fear Factor of the Digital Humanities by Michael Mizell-Nelson

Michael Mizell-Nelson — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:45:32 +0000

Great. One of my favorite parts of THATCamp is the way they serve as great big data dumps as people share urls leading to sites, reports, etc. We can only accomplish so much in one day, so building on the momentum moving forward is important. Seeking city-wide as well as region-wide collaboration is one of the main reasons why USM and UNO sought to get the ball rolling. Thankfully, Baton Rouge and Hattiesburg will be contributing a great deal to the sessions as will the Clemson contingent and others who may not be located in New Orleans.

Comment on Session Proposal: Seeking a Digital Interface for a Project about Maps, Bees, and Old Houses by Stephanie Braunstein

Stephanie Braunstein — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:29:59 +0000

What a refreshing way to use the Sanborn Maps! I’m looking forward to learning more about your project.
SGB

Comment on Tech Learning Modules by Jaelle Scheuerman

Jaelle Scheuerman — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:19:12 +0000

This topic is of interest to me from a technology services perspective. I would particularly be interested in discussing what kinds of technology resources are helpful to those who want to incorporate these modules into their humanities courses.

Comment on Creating Two Totally Excellent HISTORY Websites: University Desegregation Anniversary (& US Largest Slave Revolt) by Lisa Flanagan

Lisa Flanagan — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:48:35 +0000

It seems the same issues, combining the best of form and content -academically, technologically, aesthetically, in terms of audience, etc. – are at root of any online digital project. Not to mention that the best resources now might be be as useful or desirable as the project develops or technologies continue to change.

Comment on Educating Faculty: Confronting the Fear Factor of the Digital Humanities by Doreen Piano

Doreen Piano — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:39:53 +0000

Vicki, that program Bibliopedia looks fascinating and I like the idea of x-institutional, citywide DH Group. Let’s do it but also make sure to see how and why participating in such a group should count for scholarly inquiry. Look forward to finally meeting you!

Comment on Creating Two Totally Excellent HISTORY Websites: University Desegregation Anniversary (& US Largest Slave Revolt) by Laura Rosanne Adderley

Laura Rosanne Adderley — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:18:58 +0000

I work at Tulane and am familiar with the downbytheriver project. To clarify my own proposal. While both of these projects are embryonic–both are actually up and running and have sort of institutional homes. 1811 project is approximately 4-years old, and the 50th Anniversary of Desegregation work is about 9 months in. The hard lessons learned and what I want to work on is how monumentally challenging it is to do the rigorous historical stuff well, and find the resources, skills and technology to get that online. Thanks for early positive energies. I should emphasize too that I am early days in trying to get my own both technical and local history content training properly up to snuff for this work.

Comment on Tech Learning Modules by Lisa Flanagan

Lisa Flanagan — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:12:10 +0000

I have a few digital technologies (Prezi, VoiceThread, WordPress) I have incorporated into my courses over the past few years and would love to hammer out more specifics on how to give them a primer in the technologies themselves as they fit the assignments, especially since the free versions of these programs include certain limitations that need to be addressed and since we have no campus digital technology training resources for our students to get outside assistance. I’m happy to share the assignments themselves to show how the technologies are being incorporated into the particular course content, issues, and themes.

Comment on Educating Faculty: Confronting the Fear Factor of the Digital Humanities by Vicki Mayer

Vicki Mayer — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:59:25 +0000

These are great orienting questions. A couple of things to add to the pot: I would really like to see a citywide DH group, if only to not continually reinvent wheels and have funding partners for grants. Also, everyone has mentioned open source programs, but my experience is that if you’re not a programmer, the learning curve is steeper and you still rely on people to fix the bugs that always crop up. Finally, there’s a great post based on a presentation I saw at HASTAC 2 weeks ago about the problem with silos in the humanities and the proprietary issues that are coming up with the database operators (Jstor, Muse, etc). hastac.org/blogs/michael-widner/2013/04/30/towards-future-humanities-research-bibliopedia-linked-data-and-probl

Comment on Creating Two Totally Excellent HISTORY Websites: University Desegregation Anniversary (& US Largest Slave Revolt) by Lisa Flanagan

Lisa Flanagan — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:58:10 +0000

This session topic has some cross pollination with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade’s “Down by the River” project: www.downbytheriverproject.org/. There are a few of us working on the project in various capacities who will be attending.

Comment on Tech Learning Modules by Doreen Piano

Doreen Piano — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:49:38 +0000

I love this. It sounds great for an advance online writing class I’m teaching on digital media/humanities in the fall.

Comment on It’s Session Proposal Time!!!! Also Twitter, Boogaloo, etc. by Gena Chattin

Gena Chattin — Mon, 13 May 2013 16:20:12 +0000

Hi Mary! That is a great idea. Standards are so important, and it is really easy to lose digital information to obsolete software and file formats. Why don’t you copy that into a blog post and propose it as a session? There are instructions on how to do this at the top of the page at nola2013.thatcamp.org/sessions/, but let me know if you have trouble.

I was! I was in Lexington, Kentucky for 13 years and studied at U.K. and Midway College. Half of my Kentucky friends are Transy grads, though, so I ended up spending a ton of time on Transylvania campus too. Sometimes I feel like I went there. But I grew up in West Virginia, so does that make me a Kentuckian? Not sure…

Comment on Session Proposal: Zotero and Open Source Tools by Doreen Piano

Doreen Piano — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:22:32 +0000

I am excited to learn more about this tool so thanks for offering a workshop on it!

Comment on Educating Faculty: Confronting the Fear Factor of the Digital Humanities by Doreen Piano

Doreen Piano — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:21:36 +0000

Jeanne, Yes, absolutely, especially period scholars who could use big data tools to mine info. The idea of quantitative methods in English most likely sends shivers down some literary scholars’ backs but presenting not as a replacement of traditional criticism but another way of analyzing might be key.

Comment on Educating Faculty: Confronting the Fear Factor of the Digital Humanities by Jeanne Pavy

Jeanne Pavy — Mon, 13 May 2013 14:21:49 +0000

Great idea, Doreen. I think there are probably other lone wolves around that would be interested in the kind of campus working group you describe, to share knowledge (or at least enthusiasm and interest) as well as our (meager) resources, etc.
I think one of the most compelling things about DH projects is their visibility to the larger community–the contribution you make to the discipline with your project is not hidden away but (hopefully) discoverable by other students and researchers. I think even more traditional scholars must find themselves using these digital tools and resources, and that is bound to change how they think of them, and to consider the possibility that they themselves can contribute to the development of these tools/resources.

Comment on Building an Interdisciplinary Digital Humanities/New Media Community in the Deep South by Vicki Mayer

Vicki Mayer — Sun, 12 May 2013 14:38:21 +0000

Yea! I’d love to see even a semesterly meeting group with notes online so others can see all the projects out there in Nola. To the last point, has DH come and gone, I’d say NO! It’s a fuzzy concept, MOOCs and all, but it is here to stay. I was just in Toronto for a DH meeting of about 1000 people from everywhere. I think the key for New Orleans is to not go at it alone, to pool those resources, whether time or money. I’ll be there for sure!

Comment on Creating Two Totally Excellent HISTORY Websites: University Desegregation Anniversary (& US Largest Slave Revolt) by Vicki Mayer

Vicki Mayer — Sun, 12 May 2013 14:30:17 +0000

Happy to partner on this with you if you want.

Comment on It’s Session Proposal Time!!!! Also Twitter, Boogaloo, etc. by Mary

Mary — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:22:41 +0000

Gina-I got my undergraduate degree from Transylvania University, also in Lexington. Are you a fellow Kentuckian?

Comment on It’s Session Proposal Time!!!! Also Twitter, Boogaloo, etc. by Mary

Mary — Fri, 10 May 2013 15:21:26 +0000

I am a current PhD student in Urban Studies at the University of New Orleans. I intend on using THATCamp to expand my knowledge of online tools useful to digital archiving. I would love a session that discusses the most acceptable academic and professional practices for digitizing old photographs and trade journals. Learning about different free app creation software would also be of interest. Getting excited!

Comment on Sessions by It’s Session Proposal Time!!!! Also Twitter, Boogaloo, etc. | THATCamp NOLA (New Orleans) 2013

Wed, 08 May 2013 22:49:59 +0000

[…] Sessions […]

Comment on Tech Support for Collections by Gena Chattin

Gena Chattin — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:24:16 +0000

This is a huge issue and one that grant funding agencies have only begun to consider, much less tackle. Even if the collections don’t grow, there’s so much cost associated with keeping up the hardware and replacing it. I saw a neat report about this some months back, too: www.sr.ithaka.org/research-publications/sustaining-our-digital-future. Sustainable funding is such a challenge for institutions of all sizes.