Author: watrall
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Creating Structure for TOMB
As Katy mentioned over on the Digital Archaeology Institute blog, we’re focusing on two major steps in the development of our project: 1) creating the framework, and 2) developing the content. For more details about the content development, head on over to Katy’s post. Some of the major steps in creating TOMB’s framework will include…
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Building the Plane While Flying It; Or, Understanding the Politics of the Sonic through Earwitnessing Participant and User Collaboration
Crank.Spin.Putter-Putter-Putter. Click. Swipe. Type. These are the sounds that circulate in my mind as I architect the #hearmyhome project. Most days, it feels like I am building the plane while flying it. Working to circulate and collaborate with participants, I network the project on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram while simultaneously actually designing the platform. Other…
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Mapping Morton Village: Writing the Content
In this post, I would like to discuss what will be included within the Mapping Morton Village interactive map. For the past several weeks, Nikki Silva and myself have been working on the written content of Mapping Morton Village. We decided to write the content of the site with the public in mind, focusing on…
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Structuring the Fields
It is time to show the fields we are using in our database on Baptismal Records for Slave Societies (BARDSS). In previous posts, we pointed out that this database was possible thanks to a project hosted at Vanderbilt University and led by professor Jane Landers. Landers and her team have been travelling to…
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The Importance of Fields in Database Projects
We discussed in previous posts about the importance of selecting representative fields when we are creating a database based on historical records. It is critical to go back again to this point due to the importance it has while designing a functional digital database. We all know that historical sources contain…
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Databasing Historical Records: Some of the Challenges
Structuring a database is not an easy task. During this year of work, we have faced many challenges that have required from us great intellectual efforts and reflection. Nevertheless, I have heard from “digital humanists” and programmers that because we have a software developer, we are not making the database, that someone…
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This is my story: The beginning of reclaiming the past to look to the future
This is my story: Detroit 1967 is in the infancy of development. So, what is it again? It is a multimedia archive and repository that serves to catalog and historicize this canonical and significant time in the 20th century with oral histories from eyewitnesses and participants of the rebellion. This endeavor is a continuation of…
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AHA presentation and discussion of BARDSS
In January, we presented our project, the Baptismal Record Database for Slaves Societies, at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association. This was the second time we showed our project in public. The first time we did it was during a workshop organized by Vanderbilt University, by professor Jane Landers in November 2015.…
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Simulacra and Simulation and my Journey into the Third Order of Copyright Law
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to protect a representation these days. Anyone remember reading Baudrillard? I remember reading that whole treatise on simulated reality years ago and associating the whole thing with war and television. These days, I’m pretty sure he was thinking about copyright. Just kidding. I’m pretty sure he…
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The Process of Digitization
My past couple of posts have been more on the political and ethical side of digitizing materials for the Namibia Digital Repository. This post will approach the project from the other side: the process of digitization. For those who are conducting historical research, digitizing materials is a necessity if we are going to ever finish…