Review of Spencer’s Final Presentation: The Ward Project

I have to say, I am thoroughly impressed by Spencer’s project thus far. Spencer is creating a website using Omeka software to document the history of the Guelph neighbourhood known as “The Ward”. His presentation started off with a slideshow documenting his work thus far featuring pictures of The Ward he took himself. 

Spencer has undertaken an extensive amount of research from sources such as the Guelph Mercury (from where he self-digitised many of his sources), the city of Guelph (using sources such as Assessment Rules), the Guelph Historical Society, Guelph Civic Museum, and the University of Guelph Libary Archives. He has collected a plethora of primary source documents, from photos to news articles, personal accounts, and municipal formal documents, to build an online gallery of several exhibits featuring 4 specific collections of fascinating stories out of The Ward. His project is being hosted on this Omeka-designed website, as well as an external interactive map from Google Earth, and website space from the University of Guelph Host site. 

Spencer has laboured intensively on this project, and I believe it showed today in his presentation and what he had to talk about. Spencer even dealt with such setbacks as having his computer crash when working with many large files, loosing the information he had gather up to that point. However, he has since recovered his lost work and continued to add to it. Spencer indicated that this project has been a heavy time committment, with most of his time allocated towards research. Within the last week, he has dived into unfamiliar territory with the development of his website and online aids. His work with Google Earth has an Image Overlay to layer Ward maps, and the link to this interactive map is connected to his main project site. The images and text on his site required several hours of manipulation and even the acquisition of photos themselves had proved a little challenging as some databases- such as the Wellington County Archives- wanted to charge him upwards of $7/photo. 

I look forward to seeing his final project: I actually cannot wait!!!!!!!! I think it is really unique and as a city that I love, I am personally fascinated by Guelph’s local history. I think one major strength Spencer’s project has is its reporting of interesting stories which many do not know about. One example featured in his collection is entitled “Psychedelic Iron”, which is about the hippie squater camp in the Northern Rubber Company building from 1990-1998. The squater camp was the home of the Assembly of the Church of the Universe, a drug-using nudist community founded by a former leader of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. That’s so cool and hilarious!

 

Trudging on

Hey Guys!

Writing to you all from the Great Lakes Ottomanist Conference here at Guelph! 

These last few weeks have been a real scramble to get the chapbooks project finished. We have planned to have it completed before the project deadline of April 9th by around Tuesday, April 2nd. This weekend I have been quite busy at the Conference, however I have managed to edit a few more images.

There are two more chapbooks which I have scanned and wish to edit, however they need to be added to the google-drive to make it accessible to my Laptop, however, due to the fact that this weekend is Easter and the archives are closed, these documents have not been made available to me online. Going with my theme of Scottish perceptions of foreigners, one of the documents is of real interest to me as it is a(n inaccurate) re-telling of the life of the Prophet Muhammed, and I cannot wait to edit it and post this up online. It was also 24 pages, and so I just wanted to have it all scanned in one sitting, but not giving myself the time to edit each page individually. 

I am looking forward to taking the time to upload all the times along with their respective Metadata, but part of me is a little scared because it is new territory! I need to have a glass of wine and bite the bullet….. (or maybe two glasses of wine).

I also have been talking with my American History Professor Dr. Nance, and last semester she introduced me to the idea of American and Anglo-Saxon (often European) conceptualisations of others- particularly those who they colonise, or discriminate against believing that their “race” was superior to others- as children. One of the poems I scanned is called “The Negro Boy” and it is about a child in Africa living a simple life and then being taken as a slave. Often Westerners would anthropromorphise “less developed” others as children, or beautiful young women- someone unthreatening and able to be manipulated and “taken care of” by the “sophisticated” and “civilised” Westerner.

For our respective pages, the Chapbooks will be presented not as a paper, but rather as a story. In addition to other depictions of foreigners I scanned which portray them as such non-threatening, dependent figures, I will tell a story with these chapbooks and bring up this idea that perhaps “The Negro Boy” is a metaphor for the African continent and those who have been taken up in the slave trade: often it is easier to sympathise with children then with a grown adult- or with the faceless millions caught up in a cultural genocide. 

What do you all think??

“3D Printed Guns”- Controversy Analysis

Hey everyone!

I stumbled upon this recent, 20-something minute documentary about a (crazy) young man in the US who owns a 3D Printer and has dedicated himself to home-manufacturing of dangerous weapons such as assault riffles. He is developing his own codes to manufacture these guns, as well as recieving codes from interested followers, and he has recently been granted a licence by the US government to sell some of the gun parts he is manufacturing in his storage garage.

His goal is to allow everyone and anyone the ability to manufacture guns at home, and he sees nothing wrong with it, believing this to be a solution for gun-enthusiasts to evade gun control laws.

This video serves as a perfect case-study of our previous class topic of 3D printers and what that spells out for the global economy as well as interesting legal issues. If people can re-produce anything on their own, what would that do economically to those industries and people employed to manufacture and sell goods? Their service would be obsolete. And likewise, in the instance of those wishing to allow complete ease of access to potentially harmful information- such as the reciepe to produce weapons- how could this new piece of technology hinder legal efforts to protect society and individuals from harm?

There is an interesting point made, in that many powerful inventions- such as the internet or automobiles- often have harmful, unintended consequences, which the inventors never could have foretold. Hopefully, the case illustrated here is an anomoly, but it could also be repeated in the future as this technology becomes more widely available.

What are your thoughts on this issue? How could an invention such as 3D printers be regulated so that they can be used appropriately? There are rules in place for the internet, however cyber crimes of all kinds seem to be outpacing the efforts to control them.

Digitising this afternoon

Hey everyone!

This morning my fellow Chapbookers and I met with the Library Archivist, Melissa, and she showed us how to digitise the Chapbooks. It included many specifics, from how to scan properly, to cateloging the master copies, and editing them. We are going for a look that is crisp, clear, and interesting to the viewer once it is online. In order to accomplish this, we will be using some techniques developed from the U of Indiana’s Chapbooks digitisation project, whereby they use pieces of white and black paper to reinforce pages which are being scanned in order to reduce movement and the outblending of text on the other side of these thin pieces of paper. From there, the original copy will be quickly edited on PhotoShop, to make any final crops, and enhance the brightness and contrast of the images. We will be upgrading our access to OMEKA software plug-ins, and we have our eye on one plug in which will allow our website to display entire chapbooks with the graphics of flipping the pages of a book. This will enhance the visual appeal of the project and make it more interesting for the public to read through. 

We also discussed the logistics of how and when we will scan the Chapbooks, deciding to work extensively next week in groups. It took 30 min for the first scan demonstration of the cover of a William Wallace book (pre-Mel Gibson), however there were many specific steps to go through and explain, as well as technology in the room to explain. Melissa stated that it might take some time the first few pages we begin to scan, but it will pick up as we build a process. What is most interesting about this historical project, is that we ourselves are making Guelph Library history by being the first class to undertake such a scanning project, and develop a strategy on how to efficiently scan the Chapbooks!! So if we have questions, run into troubles, or take some extra time, that is to be expected and absolutely alright! 

Already I have learnt a lot! I am scanning my first two chapbooks this afternoon in approximately 1,5 Hours. I am so excited and I will let you know how it goes! Maybe I might snap an iPhone photo or two, and then Instagram that joint!!! 

 

Review of Hailey’s Project

Hey y’all hey!

Hailey is working on a rather exciting final project. Hailey is creating a website to document the story of the Royal Army Service XXX 30 Corps, the 8th Formation of the British Army, which her grandfather was a part of during the Second World War. She is making a website that presents a wide range of information about the movements, campaigns, and significant contributions of the 30 Corps to the British war-effort.

For her research, Hailey has pooled a wide range of sources. She has used interviews and stories from her own family, as well as stories direct from her grandfather, and family hierlooms such as photos, medals etc. Hailey has also found archived first-hand accounts from other members of the Corps from library documents, and has found other primary source documents online and in person, such as maps, reports, statistics, photographs. In addition, Hailey has found secondary source analysis texts. 

With all of this information, Hailey is creating an interactive website with an audience of students in high school wanting to find out more on WW2 as well as for adults with an interest in world world history. She is using google maps and inserting symbols over locations where the Corps was, such as Sicily and El Alamein,, which come with pictures of them in the corresponding locations and descriptions. Her website will include a page on works cited for further reference. 

Like many ther students, she is building a website which is a new venture for her and will teach her a new skillset. Unlike other groups such as OMEKA which build the website in a much more pre-formated way, Hailey is kicking it old school and writing out the HTML Script with Master GIS Software. She has shared the difficulties it has been giving her, such as its complexity and how difficult it may be to locate a source of error, which demonstrates her willingness to try out new territority and the scope of her learning, as the answers to her questions must also be discovered. I think that that is a great way to learn about a new topic such as website building. Without a doubt, Hailey will continue to learn quite a lot. 

I think Hailey’s project is a very solid idea and a very commendable one too with how she is going about it- both its research and creating the template of its presentation. She mentioned how through her volunteering at public schools, she was very impressed with the level of digitial media used to teach younger pupils, with technologies such as Smart Boards and digitised historical databases. I think that the purpose of her website is thus very significant as it can definitely serve as a credible historical teaching resource beyond the run of this semester. Her presentation itself was well rehearsed and she did not have any pauses. I look forward to seeing the final project when it is up and running, and I sincerely hope that Hailey finds a way to get this site out for students and others to use! 

Working on the Chapbooks

Hey those of you from HIST following my blog!!

So this week I have been preparing myself for my presentation on the Chapbooks with the rest of the Chapbooks students in our class. This morning we had a meeting where we discussed our plan of attack for tomorrow’s (Tuesday) presentation. We’re going to disucss problems that we have encountered, our themes and their broader context, working with OMECA, as well as giving a historical overview of the Chapbooks as a phenomena themselves. 

For my topic, I have chosen to select Chapbooks by the theme of “Foreigners and Migration”. Firstly, I have a general interest in the concept of migration across cultures, countries, and time zones, and how peoples’ identities, societies, and perceptions of themselves are changed by migration. With the topic of (im/em)migration, Scotland has a reputation as being the original homeland of emigrants and their decendants throughout the British Commonwealth countries. In addition, as the seat of the British Empire, the peoples of Great Britain experienced contact and had access to knowledge of people from across the world. Just as Scots were travelling around the world, by no means were they isolated from it.

I therefore wanted to explore the theme of a collective Scottish perception of foreigners in the Chapbooks literature as well as the perception of the exact opposite: Scots going abroad (emigrating). I did not want to include stories about other peoples from the British Isles such as Ireland and England in my definition of foreigners, as the contact with other Britons would have been real high and not that extra-ordinary of a phenomena. I was more interested with Scottish writings and tales of those abroad, or of foreigners in Scotland. I am interested to see how these people would have been exoticised, mystified, held in high regard, or feared and ridicculed compared to the deep level of human-connection and heroism of Scottish Emigrants. I am interested to see if Scots venturing abroad were treated as almost superhuman (real brave, making selfless sacrifices) while simultaneously depicting those from abroad as being somehow less human or not fully recognised as being of the same complexities and sensitivities as a Scot. As Scottish society was the sole producer and consumer of these books, Scottish culture would have been seen as a neutral standard from which all other cultures and people would be evaluated upon and compared to. 

So lets see where that goes! Some of the titles I recorded from the Trellis Database which I would like to scan are:

“Turkish Lady: to which are added, My Mother did so before me; Jockey to the fair; The happy beggars; Cynthias perplexity” 1802*

“Four new songs: Daft Jamie; the two emigrants; the learig; Irish hafts for English blades” 1824

“Four popular songs: viz.What murrian now; The German lairdie; Kenmure’s on and awa, and the Miller” 1824

“Lizy Liberty: a favorite song (by John Skinner; to which are added; The Patriot, from the German of Berger; Logan Water, a favorite Scots song & the answer” 1970

“Madrid shaver’s singular adventures: and wonderful escape from the Spanish Inquisition: a true story” 1850

“Bad company or the magpie, a tale: to which are added The negro boy, and the short-great-coat” 1800

“Betsey Baker: to which are added, Who’s master, or, A fight for the breaches; York yo are wanted; and Emigrants farewell.” 1829

“Elizabeth, or, The exiles of Siberia/by M.Cottin” 1851

“Gipsy lass: a ballad, and The fair thief” 1790

“History of Mehomet: the great imposter; containing his birth and parentage…” 1800*

“Iron shroud, or, Italian revenge” 1839, and three copies from 1950. 

*Regarding the story of the Turkish Lady and the History of Mahomet (Mehmet), both are about people from the Ottoman Empire (which was around until 1923). I am helping a History Prof here at Guelph host the 2013 Great Lakes Ottomanist Workshop with Scholars in Ottoman Studies congregating in Guelph during the last weekend of March. I would LOVE to show the scans of these documents to the participants at the conference. I think it would be a great connection between the small circle of people in Middle East Studies at Guelph and the larger focus of the History Dep’t at Guelph.

Also, I am assuming Mahomet is supposed to be of a Sultan (as Mehmet is the Turkish name for Muhammed, a common name of many of the Ottoman Sultans) but it could also be about the Prophet Muhammed, just having used the Turkish spelling as most of the connections Europeans had to the Muslim world were with Turkish.speakers. Another thing to keep in mind regarding the “Turkish Lady”, is that during the Middle Ages and up until the 19th Century, Europeans often interchanged the words “Turk” with “Muslim”, and this story could therefore be of a “Muslim” woman, regardless off whether she was an ethnic Turk or not. 

Using Social Media to Connect Communities: Guelph-Tübingen Ummah

Hey Everyone!

Even though it is not related to my final project or any of our weekly assignments per se, I thought I could share with you all a project I am undertaking using technology (social media). I studied this past semester at the Zentrum für islamische Theologie at Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, in Tübingen Germany. At Guelph I am a History Major with an interest in Middle East studies, and in order to meet people from Middle Eastern and Muslim societies, I joined the Guelph MSA (Muslim Students’ Association). When I came back from studying at the Centre for Islamic Theology, I wanted to connect my young Muslim friends in Germany with those in Canada. I noticed that while they spoke completely different languages and had different ethnic backgrounds, they had many similar experiences, dreams, questions about their counterparts in other countries, and ideas about themselves and their place in the world. I thought it would be a great idea to use my own resources and create a simple platform for them to connect with one another. The word “Ummah” in the title, means “community” in Arabic, and within the Islamic faith, it refers to the worldwide community of Muslims.

I created the group a week and a half ago, and within two days, the group had over 60 members from both Canada and Germany. I figure it would be a good idea for the participants to get used to the group platform, discuss general topics in a public forum with one another, and then hopefully take it upon themselves to connect personally with one another. I noticed that there are more young women who have joined than men, and the ones which have been most out-going in person on both sides tend to have found each other without any problems online!! haha I also have a few invites from other universities in Canada and Germany.

I would like to track where discussions lead to and what kind of trends develop. I am really interested in Migration, Immigration, and how socieities and communities change over time. I am also particularly interested in the idea of “minority identities” within a society. That is what has attracted me to the Chapbooks assignment at the MacKinnon Library. Even though the books do not specifically deal with migration, they do tell a narrative and paint a snapshot into the Scottish cultural identitiy of the many immigrants to Canada and other countries across the world brought. It also illustrates the world of a minority society within the United Kingdom.

Similar to the “general culture” of Islam* (let’s say, Sunni Islam, the largest form of the religion practised worldwide), people have migrated from Muslim-dominated societies to Christian-dominated states, adapting to new (in this case, Germanic) languagues and Eurocentric cultures. They have changed according to their surrounding societies, however still bring forth elements such as faith, religious practices, mothertongues, dress, food, world views etc which still connect them, allowing people who have never met, and often don’t even speak the same language, to connect based on a fluid and open form of kinship. I feel that both the Chapbooks project and my experience connecting these two circles of young Muslims I am connected with will hold certain lessons and commonalities. For example, literature and lectures from famous Muslim artists and Imams, or famous Qur’anic quotes and stories (Hadith) from the Prophet Muhammad will be known to young Muslims born in both Canada and Germany, in Arabic, Turkish, German, English, French etc and likewise, certain Scottish songs, myths, traditions etc will have been maintained for several generations of Scots, whether they were living in Scotland, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand or whereever else they moved to!!

Using Digital Technologies in Archaeology

 

Hey Internetpeople!

I wanted to bring to your attention a real cool (and famous) application of digital technologies to explore subjects in the humanities: in this case archaeology. Digitial Satellite mapping technologies such as Google Earth have made visible long-forgotten ruins, which would be of great interest to archaeologists but are invisible on the ground, or even from an airplane only so high about the surface of Earth.

Using Google Earth, the burried foundations of ancient Egyptian pyramids have been made visible as well as another project (using radar), in which an archaeologist used Google Earth to map out the streets of an unexcavated ancient Egyptian city. I think this is mind boggling! Using technologies in space to find what lies underneath the earth’s surface: saving money and time which guess work when it comes to finding archaeological sites and conducting survey work based on the composition of the soil and how ancient structures changed the soil structure. 

How digital technologies further advance the humanities!

Google Earth Pyramids found: http://gizmodo.com/5934205/lost-egyptian-pyramids-appear-on-google-earth

Landeskunde Entdecken Online: Technology to Present History and Art to the Public

Landeskunde Entdecken oneline: 

http://www.leo-bw.de/web/guest/home

The state in Germany where I lived last year has a website set up by the Landeskundliches System Baden-Württemberg, a centre for regional studies of the state of Baden-Württemberg. Landeskunde Entdecken Online (LEO: meaning local studies discovery(exploration online) presents artifacts and other primary source documents with accompanying metadata descriptions and general information about the item. I think that this resource is REALLY cool and it is very much a virtual museum, allowing -say- scholars in Guelph- to check out what is in storage and on display in this region of Germany without actually going there.

There are also reports and videos about Humanities projects going on concerning the history of Baden-Württemberg, scholars involved, and particular displays. The creepy lady in the centre gives you a rough overview on how to use this interface and what kinds of documents are available to look at. 

I think it is particularly interesting how different interfacs in digital humanities research change their set up and presentation depending on who the target audience is in the area. A resource such as Orlando is strictly documents, and one needs to pay to have access to it: it also requires a great deal of skill and how-know to navigate through it effectively. Without surprise, I would imagine very few outside of academia would have a private subscription to a system such as Orlando. However, LEO (Landeskunde Entdecken Online) is an interface for the general public and along with all the images, videos, and flashy interface, has a digital tourguide to show you around. 

What are your thoughts on this pretty neat project? 

Skype Communication Project: Guelph MSA- Zentrum für islamische Theologie Tübingen, Germany Ummah

Hey everyone!

On my spare time, I am using facebook to connect my friends from the Guelph Muslim Students’ Association with my young Muslim friends at das Zentrum für islamische Theologie an der Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany where I studied in 2012. I thought it would be a cool idea for my friends on both continents to connect with one another, and ask each other questions about their experiences as young Muslims in the western world, juggling between dual (or sometimes tripple+) identities, expectations from both their families’ and their countries’ cultural norms, and their own questions of curiosity about Muslims in another part of the world. I noticed in both Canada and Germany, as well as all across the world, the internet has become such an important medium for young Muslims to understand their world, connect with eachother, foster debate, create their own music and other forms of expression, and to keep their faith alive but bring it new, personalised meaning to themselves as the first generation of the 21st Century. 

I have so far posted an inquiry on the facebook group in Germany, and there has been much excitement for it. I still need to find a few minutes as post something to the Muslim Students’ Association facebook page for those friends of mine in Guelph. I cannot wait to see how it all transpires, and which languages will be used to communication, and which mediums aside from skype or facebook. For the English-to-German communication barriers, I am luckily fluent in both languages and can act as a translator, but I also am excited to see those students with Farsi or Arabic as their first languages communicate, as well as those who are from Turkey or Bosnia and other larger ethnicites which are represented in both cities. 

Do you have any questions or comments or suggestions as to what I could add or think about??