Digital History Class Winds Down

We're winding down Digital History and Archival Practices.  We're pulling together our projects for the Arts & Sciences Exposition 2018, where we will display the nearly finished map of the St. Bonaventure Cemetery and unveil the apps and the wiki we have been working on.  We started the semester with no experience in app design and now we have functioning apps.  the apps are in beta, so more work to be done, but we're excited to see what people have to say.

Legacy Assignment: We're almost done with the SBU Cemetery Project

Spring in Western New York has not been kind.  In the digital history and archives class we've been waiting for a break to get to the cemetery.  Starting in 2014, students in each version of the class has contributed to our ongoing project to build a digital map of the cemetery creating a "living obituary" with a digital map.  We're nearing the end of the project. 

 A great deal of the work is done in the computer lab and in the archives, but we do need to spend some time in the field collecting coordinates and pictures.

 It hasn't been a good stretch for walking around the cemetery.  Still, we finally decided to go for it.  It was cold, but not terribly cold, and the rain/wintery mix held off for the hour we were there.

Digital History returns to Cemetery digital map project

We're back at the SBU Cemetery project.  It's a work in progress that has been somewhat hampered by the weather.  We finally got something resembling a nice day and headed up to the cemetery to plot locations.  Next week we're talking about big data, maps, and, time allowing, georeferencing.

St Bonaventure Cemetery Map Unveiled

Roll the drums!  Pull back the curtain!

As documented on elsewhere on this blog, starting last spring students enrolled in History 419:  Digital History and Archival Practices began the process of creating an interactive map of the St. Bonaventure Cemetery.  Dennis and I were introducing GIS into the history curriculum.  Mistakes were made.  False starts?  Yes.  However, these provided valuable learning opportunities and they could all be fixed.  Jason has been working in the archives with Dennis to get the map ready, so here it is.  

St. Bonaventure Cemetery Map

This will be a ongoing process.  Students taking History 419 can plan on continuing working with GIS and the cemetery records.