Initially, I was tied between selecting two different project ideas. My first idea included a collection of images linked to several novels written by Asian American writers for my Asian American literature course. After meeting with Dr. Robertson a few times via Skype, I decided to focus on information pertaining to Asian Americans in the South. I wanted to begin with a collection or exhibit of Asian American history and culture in the South.
Eventually, I decided to focus on adding images that were taken by me during my sabbatical in Spring 2015 and other times. I have collected several images over the years, but I did not have them categorized and displayed together. Instead, I have been using some of the images for my online Asian American Literature and First-Year Composition courses.
My Digital Humanities project seeks to answer the following question: What do we know about Asian American history and culture in the South? I chose this focus because there is not enough information documented about the history, cultural venues, religions, community centers, events, and influential Asian Americans in the South. Since I began my project, I realized my aim became broader. I also wanted to know more about the local people and social issues (e.g. community activists, major contributors, social injustice, etc).
At first, I proposed that my intended audience would be my students because I wanted them to know more about Asian American history and culture, especially in the South. After meeting with Dr. Robertson via Skype, I realized that my audience should be broad to include the public for a possible crowdsourcing project in the future. There is so much information that I have yet to discover, and if I invited the public to contribute to the project, it will be a great way to develop it for public access, engagement, collaboration, and viewing. Therefore, I had to rephrase my project question and replace “college students” with “we.”
For my project, I selected Omeka because it allows me to display the images as an Exhibit. After gathering and selecting images from my multiple photo collections and categorizing them, I added them to Omeka. Then, I added the metadata to describe each image. By adding each item/image to Omeka, I was re-introduced to the importance of adding Metadata. At first, I selected the Berlin theme; but I did not like the layout of my project. So, I selected Seasons because the layout looked spacious and more visually appealing. For the organization of my images, I selected Exhibit style for my working project because I was able to select different layouts of the images and add brief comments/notes. I also selected File, Block, or Gallery for the layout of the images. I added the Geolocation plugin for the location of some of the items/images. Since I began working on my project, I had to reorganize the order of may Exhibit pages and add more information or comments for each page. Also, I learned to add a Geolocation Plugin that is user-friendly; it allows me to map the locations that are linked to most of the items/images. I am still learning how to refine my mapping skills.
My process has slightly changed since the initial stages of my project. I realized that including a summary on each page would be helpful for my viewers. My peers and Dr. Robertson also agreed. At this stage in project, I need to do more research and include information and images on the history of each Asian American town in Texas, Culture, and Who’s Who in the South. This part will include more interviews, trips, and networking.
After posting my working project for my classmates to review it, I received helpful and positive feedback from my two classmates and Dr. Robertson. Both classmates, Pethel and Cavanaugh, provided helpful and positive feedback for my project. They suggested adding a summary for each of my exhibit pages. They both mentioned that adding the map was a good idea. Pethel suggested moving the link to my map on the side instead of on top of each item. Pethel also suggested adding an image and brief explanation to my landing page or about page. They both agreed with the idea of making my project as a crowdsourcing project for the future. Pethel suggested using FaceBook.
After reading the feedback from my classmates, I added information to my About page as an introduction to my project. I also added a brief summary or narrative for each exhibit. Upon Dr. Robertson’s feedback, I added more metadata, specifically the date and rights, to the existing items. I kept the order of pages for the Exhibit the same. I have tried to refine my map, but I have learned that I need more time to work with the map or geolocation plugin. I like the idea of crowdsourcing my project after I have worked on it a little more. Since my project is in the beginning stage, I will not add the social media platform until I work on it a little more throughout this DH certificate program.
Working on Asian Americans in the South has taught me to explore my curiosity in order to share it with others who might be just as curious or want to learn more about it. It also taught me the importance of looking at the project from different perspectives. Receiving feedback from my classmates and professor has helped me tremendously. I was not sure if I was on the right track until I received helpful and positive feedback for my project. Learning to use different digital tools has helped me to select an engaging and user friendly software for my project. I had some minor setbacks when it came to adding additional metadata and information or summary for some of the images. I may have been too ambitious by working on this huge project, but I have learned so much from this course in order to continue working on my digital humanities project. To view my project, please visit the following link: http://elainecho.org/Omeka/