Being in a digital history class
this semester, I would love the chance to collaborate with others and produce a
project that would be better than any of us could do on our own. With this in
mind, the group I will be collaborating with plans to create a digital project
that traces a soldier’s experience during WWI. Thus, my group is looking at
using some kind of online tool to map a soldier’s travels and document his
experiences/letters/journal during the Great War.
In doing an environmental scan,
there are several different digital projects that reflect similar work being
done in the field. First, the National WWI Museum and Memorial’s online exhibit
Make Way for Democracy, which “portrays
the lives of African Americans during the war through a series of rare images,
documents and objects,” uses historical content (America during WWI) that is
relevant to my group’s proposed project (Make Way for Democracy). Another
digital project that reflects work similar to my proposed project its For King and Country’s John Cartwright’sGallipoli Campaign 1914-1915. This online
exhibit is relevant to my proposed project in two ways. First, it relates to my
project in its historical content, being that it focuses on a soldier’s
experiences during WWI. Second, it relates to my project in its use of digital
tools, being that it uses mapping technology to trace the soldier’s journey in
addition to using pictures to present relevant artifacts. Finally, a third
digital project, which relates to my group’s proposed project, is Travels Across the Plains. This project,
which maps the Oregon Trail Journal of Elizabeth J. Goltra, relates to my
project in the technology that it uses. For my group’s project, I envision my
group using similar technology to map a soldier’s letters during World War I. Since
this last project is relevant to my group’s proposed project, presented below
is a review of Travels Across the Plains
as based on the guidelines form the Journal of American History.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Travels Across the Plains, http://dsl.richmond.edu/oregontrail/?page_id=2.
Created by Robert K. Nelson of the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of
Richmond. Reviewed February 22, 2016.
Created by Robert K.
Nelson, Travels Across the Plains is
a project that purposes to map the journal of Elizabeth J. Goltra and her
journey on the Oregon Trail. Considering the content of the project, the
project presents sound scholarship being that the information presented
represents the unaltered archived journal of an individual. Considering the way
the archive is presented, users can see the author’s interpretation of the
evidence: that the challenges of traveling across the plains are evident not
only in the writings of Goltra, but also in the absences of Goltra’s writings.
For example, looking at the map of Goltra’s journal, one will notice that just
after Goltra documents what she calls a “hurricane,” she stops journaling for
about a week and a half. Thus, from the user’s point of view, Goltra likely
experienced challenging times during that week and a half which prohibited her
from documenting her travels.
Considering the form
of the project, Travels Across the Plains
is presented in a very clear way. The mapping, journal entries, and background
information have a simple, but effective structure. Users are able to easily navigate
their way throughout the project and will not get lost with any of the
project’s hyperlinks. Whether users click around the site’s navigation tabs or
click on specific journal entry dates, the map of Goltra’s travels remains as a
large heading across the website. Employing Google maps to document the
location of the journal entries, the project allows users to see exactly where
Goltra was when she wrote each journal entry.
While
the project is strengthened through its content and form, it is weakened in the
fact that it is not directed at a clear audience. While professors, students,
teachers, and researchers can benefit from this project, it is not clear whom
the project is intended to serve. If the project had a clear target audience,
it might be able to serve that audience better. For example, if the project is
intended to serve college students, the project might provide a citation for
college students to use in their research.
Yet,
while the project lacks a clear audience, it effectively makes use of new media
technologies using WordPress and what I believe is Google Maps. Through its mapping technology, this project allows users to view
both journal entries and entry locations at the same time. While theoretically
one could print off a map of the United States that includes the journal
entries as part of the map, the map would have to be so incredibly large that
it would likely be difficult to produce and use. Thus, through the use of new
media technologies, this project allows the archived journal of Elizabeth
Goltra to be viewed in new ways that allow it to be easily and freely accessed
by the public.
No comments:
Post a Comment