Digital Projects
Beyond the discrete work I've done and resources I've created that are featured on this Omeka site, I've also created public and digital humanities scholarship applying computational and data-driven approaches to cultural heritage materials or sharing techniques for teaching about digital archives. These projects are listed below or can be searched via the search bar:
The 13,471 photos from the Jim Peppler Southern Courier Collection depict 530 identified individuals, 52 places, and 199 subjects. This exhibit is composed of data visualizations that seek to make the thousands of photos more discoverable and accessible.
This site contains materials developed for the FYS 100 course themed around "digital archives" taught by Elizabeth James at Marshall University beginning in Spring 2021.
The Francis H. Pierpont Civil War Telegrams, held at West Virginia University, document the Civil War period in the “Loyal” or “Restored” Government of Virginia that remained in the Union while the eastern portion of Virginia seceded. This site analyzes the circa 850 telegrams using data visualization and computational methods.
During the Great Depression, a New Deal Agency called the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information (FSA-OWI) hosted a photography program that allowed traveling photographers to take photographs of life and living conditions throughout the United States, including 2524 photographs taken in West Virginia. This collection is housed at the Library of Congress and is now known as the FSA-OWI Black-and-White Negatives Collection. The West Virginia FSA-OWI photographs depict a breadth of human experience during this time period and provide unique insight into the lives of West Virginians in the 1930s and 1940s.
Archivists and librarians rely on classification systems, controlled vocabularies, and processing approaches that prioritize certain perspectives while erasing others. As a result, it is critical that the field examine metadata creation and descriptive practices frequently, critically, and iteratively using all techniques at our disposal. This site discusses a case study in which one mid-sized institution explores the issues inherent in approaching reparative archival description from a metadata as data standpoint.