Before our next class meeting, take some time to look at the data sets provided (via my email to you) and think about your experience with the materials on-site. What was most interesting or striking to you about the materials? What would kind of questions or connections came to mind as you looked at specific materials? What questions came to mind when you considered the collection as a whole? Of the sets data we’ve been provided, what parameters or combination of parameters (dates, call numbers, titles/descriptions, subjects, locations, names, tags, etc) are most interesting, and what formats might be best to visualize them?
Comment on this post with your thoughts! (I will be approving the comments as they come in, so if yours doesn’t show up immediately it just means it’s been held for approval.)
The materials that were the most interesting to me were certainly the ones that were handwritten or handmade. There’s something that is just unassailably cool (and maybe slightly spooky?) about handling items that are so old and personal and that don’t belong to you or anyone you know.
In terms of some initial visualization ideas, I was wondering if it would be possible to create a map of modern-day Brooklyn that would show which historical maps are available for particular parts of the city? Perhaps you could click on the map to see which maps are available, when they were made, and what kind of map they are, i.e folded or flat?
I also really love the Brooklyn Historical Society logo, and was thinking about using that to visualize something? There’s something about it that almost already looks like visualizations we’ve seen before. It might be an interesting way to show photos – each dot of the logo could include a photo and some additional information? Or perhaps it could be some sort of alternative timeline? In any case, I think it would be very interesting (and beautiful) if we could somehow make the logo interactive.
I found the CORE materials very interesting. I examined a few documents in one folder and was amazed at the scope of the collection. It appeared that everything was retained and compiled – postcards, letters, fliers, etc. It was moving (for lack of a better word) to read a certain letter to the Dept of Education about an issue with a particular school. I was moved to actually behold and handle the letter as it represented the struggle of that time period and substantiated the inequality many were facing. I felt like I experienced a time travel just by reading the materials.
My immediate questions were related to the outcome of the activism efforts. I wondered how successful they were with even the small issues they were addressing. Subsequent questions concerning the collection surround which geographical areas of Brooklyn were oppressed and which ones weren’t.
As far as what formats to best visualize the data, I believe a map or scatter plots would be good options. From my first observation, I think it would interesting (or a challenge) to work with the data because it is compiled in file folders.
I LOVE the photographs! I was really intrigued by the images of old BK. It would be cool to see a map that shows the old BK landmarks and how they appear present day. I also, think making a timeline of all the (or most) of the BHS collections would be interesting. An interactive time frame where a user can click a portion of the time period and they can view what materials the historical society has for that time period.
Its probably a huge undertaking but it would be an excellent way to organize everything and make accessible online. This way people with projects can come into BHS with an idea of what they are looking for.
During our visit to the Brooklyn Historical Society, I was particularly interested in both the maps of specific neighborhoods in Brooklyn and photograph collection of John D. Morrell documenting some of these particular places. Given that the maps and photographs have specific dates attributed to them, I think it would be interesting to mash up these collections in a way so as to construct a visual history of what certain locations looked at various points in time, almost like an “interactive photo-mapping time machine.” Perhaps, there might be a way to overlay these maps against today’s current maps (using the Google Maps API) and create locations (as dropped pins) that are linked to the photographs (which could even be visualized as thumbnails by mousing over them), and can be filtered by year.
Also, given my interest in social network analysis, I’d be interested in examining the relational ties between individuals mentioned within Arnie Goldwag documents. Are these people part of a community of activists connected through a network of strong ties or are they a loose collection of people who are only acquainted by weak ties? What is their popularity within the network? What is their influence? These are some of the questions about the key players of the civil rights/equality movement in Brooklyn that could be answered through a thorough social network analysis, but only if the data can be sorted and organized into a working format.
I know I am posting again but I just read the finding aid about the Cranston Family and I am particularly interested in the letters that Alfred Cranston and his wife wrote. I mentioned in class that I really would love to do a video finding aid that highlights and reads a few pieces ( like these letters ) form a single collection. I think it could be beautifully done in Flash and edited a bit in Final Cut. Let me know what you guys think?!
I think a “video finding aid” is a great idea, as long as you are thoughtful and/or systematic in your summary, make something that truly reflects the collection and considers users’ needs as well as what makes a good “story” about the collection. You could also organize your presentation around an interactive timeline, which would give the visualization a familiar form. Your idea reminded me of this online exhibit from the Holocaust museum which uses an original artifact to tell a story. There’s something really powerful about an actual physical object as a testament to a historical event, and the other photographs and maps are integrated into the story: http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/silentwitness/lola/flash/index.htm.
Please post your proposal ASAP so we can discuss this further!
I posted from my iPhone a few days ago but I haven’t seen it come up, so here goes (this is about the hundredth time I’ve learned the hard way that I should compose online assignments offline).
During our last class I got into the idea of creating a mockup for an iPad app in which users can interactively drag and drop digitized pieces within the same collection into different narratives, linear or non-linear. The app could have a few story structure “templates” to get people thinking about how they want to build a story (e.g. family tree, timeline, character profiles), but also have a free-form stage to organize the pieces freely.
I found the problem of “discovery” which was identified in class to be a really interesting one. There is of course a strong need for giving an order to the data and making it more usable for researchers, “old people”, artists, students etc, but there’s also a strong experience of wonder and mystery when you sort through the unordered pile of stuff.
With the app I’d like to try to preserve that wonder and create a way for users to organize/visualize the data in a highly personal way. This could make the data accessible to students at various levels, even non-readers and English language learners (like family members from other countries whose ancestors came to America?). If many of the finding aids have those “Biographical Notes” like those for the Cranston and Kolkin collections, that data could give a starting point of context to users, and perhaps the app could also include a listing of maps organized by date neighborhood which users could incorporate in their stories?
I see this app as encouraging discovery with less intimidation than closed boxes. Any thoughts?
Definitely what I found most interesting of our field trip to the BHS were the maps.
I think that a cool visualization of these –maybe too ambitious, as it would involve the digitization of all the material- would be an interactive aggregation of all the maps, like a virtual version of the huge folders they have the maps on. You would be able to search / filter the maps by neighborhood, year, source and other criteria (maybe the same metadata they already use for classification). In the interphase, maps would overlap but they would have some degree of transparency, so, having the oldest in the bottom and the most recent in on top, you would be able to see, for instance, the different representations of a neighborhood, or the variations on it, or which parts of Brooklyn have been more extensively mapped -as those regions would have more layers.
I know it’s quite impossible given the remote possibility of digitizing the maps, but I think that it would be a good way of being able to look at the maps collection as a whole and comparatively.
I just realized I haven’t posted in this thread yet. Like some of the others, the most interesting part of the library was, for me, the map collection. I find it fascinating how styles of maps change over the years (choice of colors, style of legends, titles, insets, etc.) I’m also very interested in the concept of maps being *subjective* representations of reality and used as a communicative (or even propaganda) tools. With that in mind, I think an interesting project would be to take maps in the collection from various time periods and correlate them to what was happening politically/socially on the world, national, and local scenes at the times of their publication. Perhaps no correlation would be found, but it would be an interesting exercise that would, at minimum, illuminate any differences in maps from different eras.