Senior thesis, Susana Flores

After working on my co-op with American School of the Deaf (ASD) during recent summer with researches and cataloging their archive. I realized that American School for the Deaf has tremendous collections related to deaf studies, its history of first deaf institution, their founding fathers and e.t.c. of historical artifact but they didn't have a proper digital archive to share with their community. Right there was a breaking point for me because after taking up Museum studies course with digital age, these historical artifacts and informations should be shared with public via online. The concept of developing proper digital archive doesn't only apply to ASD but hopefully applies to other libraries with deaf studies collection / archive.

I already knew as a fact that American School of the Deaf is in the process of building their connection with Connecticut Digital Archive under University of Connecticut library. I'm uncertain about Gallaudet University with their digital archive since there is insufficient information about their historical artifacts online.  For my senior thesis project, I will need to do more research and do some interviews with curators / directors about their digital archives and their ownership rights with their archive artifacts. Hopefully, we could discuss about opportunity of develop and improvise their digital archive from there.

Ruth Starr, Thesis Topic

I intend to look at the challenges of accessibility with local institutions around Rochester for my Senior Thesis topic. As I've become invested in this aspect of Museum Studies, I have learned that accessibility efforts are incredibly un-standardized at varying institutions. One of the reasons for this, of course, is the discrepancy in resources at cultural organizations. Another reason, which I am interested in, is the general staff understanding of diverse audiences.

The museum field has seen an influx of accessibility initiatives - largely being charged by education departments. However, for equal access to be achieved, this must be a goal for the entire institution, and thereby, the entire staff. I am curious about the mindsets surrounding disability, accessibility, and aspects of social justice within local institutions.

I am incredibly honored and humbled that Tabitha Jacques, the current director of the NTID / RIT Dyer Arts Center has agreed to support my project by serving as a secondary advisor to my thesis. As we head into the middle of the semester, I will continue to set the foundation for my research by contacting local institutions, and connecting with community members to begin the dialogue surrounding accessibility.

Additionally, I am fortunate to be taking part in the three-part webinar series "Stories of Inclusion: Inclusive Practices at Cultural Institutions" sponsored through a partnership between the American Alliance of Museums and Museum Access Consortium.

There are many exciting opportunities on the horizon, and I am avidly anticipating how my thesis project will continue to evolve to create the greatest impact on local institutions' practices, and our unique Rochester community.

Historical Violent History & Staff

My thesis has to deal with the violent history at historical sites & museums and how the staff at the museum handle it. Reactions to violent history can range from making it a gimmick to attempting not to mention it at all. Sometimes you only get the information on specific tours, sometimes it's played up for Halloween. Yet, what does a museum really gain from hiding this information, or on the opposite end, playing it up? I want to interview staff from 4 different historical places: The Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, Antietam national park, Alcatraz, and The Sloss Furnaces. I want their take on this phenomenon and how they view the treatment of violent histories at their own sites. Do they have a hand in why they talk about it like they do? Do they think it should be different? And how does this attract visitors?

Respose to Readings

The readings that have been assigned to us to read in the Research Methods class for the past five weeks have been very valuable in helping me see just how to set up a thesis and develop a research question and my ideas in a clear and cohesive fashion. In fact, the article by Whitney Baker about bumper stickers really helped me understand a lot more clearly just how important it is to make my paper a cohesive whole. The biggest problem I found with that article was that though Baker states in the abstract that she will talk about preserving bumper stickers very little is mentioned about preservation throughout the paper until the conclusion, which just basically states that there needs to be more research before it can be written about. However the paper would have been a good cohesive whole without talking about preservation methods in the abstract, which really proved to me that a very specific and truthful abstract are really important to the creation of a good paper. (1)

The readings have also showed me just how varied and specific many thesis style articles are. Everything from work in collections, education, digitization, and informatics are there as well as many people working off a specific idea, such as the garbage plate or bumper stickers. However no matter how varied one thing is always needed in an article such as this, and that is that the author needs to pull from the writings from their field of study to help place the ideas in the article within the larger conversation of the field. This means that all authors need to research what has been previously done in the field and work off of that knowledge to create a paper that is a different look at the topics than the literature that has come before. It is only through this process that one can write a paper that can make a meaningful contribution to the literature of the museum field. The article by  Volker Kirchberg and Martin Trondle about visitor studies made that especially clear to me because they didn't really have very much previous literature to work off of on this topic, at least compared to other topics in the museum field, so they worked off of what little they had as much as they could so that they could help contribute more to the field. (2)

1) Whitney Baker. "Soapbox for the Automobile: Bumper Sticker History, Identification, and Preservation." Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals, no. 3 (2011): 251-270

2) Volker Kirchberg and Martin Trondle, "Experiencing Exhibitions: A Review of Studies on Visitor Experiences in Museums," Curator 55, no. 4 (October 2012): 435-452.

Reader Response in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Since the beginning of summer I have been focusing on reader response found in different copies of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. I have seen five copies of the book, four of which had some sort of marginalia. However, I want to closely study the Cary Collection's version because of the hand coloring of some of the illustrations. My working research question is What forms does reader response take in the Cary Collection's copy of the Hypnerotomoachia Poliphili? I am going to answer this question by pointing out the marginalia and trying to prove that the coloring was not done professionally but as a way to personalize the book. I am going to look at literature for my lit review that deals with reader response, the Hypnertomoachia Poliphili in general, and coloring found in incunabulas (a book printed within the first 50 years of the printing press). My next steps is to do this research and to go through the book and count how many illustrations have been colored.

                        For your enjoyment here is a picture of my cat "helping" me with my thesis.

History of Baseball in Rochester

Chapter 2 of the Turabian text suggested searching your interests when considering a topic, and that is how I began my project. I love history and I love baseball, and so I chose to look at the history of the Rochester Red Wings as the topic for my thesis. I contacted Michelle Finn of the Rochester Public Library and found out from her that the library has quite a few baseball related items in its collection, such as scrapbooks, photographs, yearbooks, and other memorabilia related to the Red Wings. Through the research that I have done so far, I know that the Rochester Public Library had an exhibition on the history of baseball in Rochester, called "Pride and Passion," a couple years ago. So I think that it would be interesting to create an online exhibit that the public would be able to view on the library's website. As I continue with this project I will need to figure out what story I want the exhibit to tell. Right now I am entertaining the question of whether baseball is still considered to be "America's Pastime." I think this question might help my topic to "fit into a larger context"(Turabian, p.15).

Small Topics, Big Ideas & Big Problems

If it's one thing I have learned from the readings we've had to analyze these last few weeks, that the biggest ideas can come from the seemingly smallest of topics. From garbage plates and bumper stickers to crowd sourcing and large student archives, it doesn't matter how big the topic is, the ideas that you pull from it can be as big as infinity. However, just because the idea is big does not mean that it's great. You can easily run into large problems in your research, some you need to fix, and some that you need to question.

As in the case of Bumper Stickers that Whitney Baker had been studying. She found that preserving the bumper stickers she was doing her research on was tricky, how do you know the right way to do it? To make sure the glue does not ruin itself and what you are trying to preserve? (268, Baker) Much like Starecheski's questions of why do people bother to contain oral histories? When the population has easier ways to create their history themselves? (Starecheski 215) I think that these questions are important, that by deciding what we want to talk about, we create questions that keep us going. No matter how big, it allows us to keep up with what we are interested in, long past the time we thought we would be able to shut our computers and be done with it.

It's kind of magical, in a way.

Measure Twice, Cut Once: Rehousing Colorama

**This video does not have any narration**

Learning Research Methods

After 5 weeks in Research Method course with assigned scholar readings and senior thesis research, I have discovered sufficient information related to analytic research, structuring thesis and how to approach and apply these ideas to my senior thesis. From our assigned readings, there were several various readings provided somewhat interesting approach with its ideas, its concepts and its exhibitions to allow me understand better with the research process especially with Emily Fekete and Timothy Arnold.

Comparing the articles between Emily Fekete to Timothy Arnold. Emily focused on the cultural significant with local traditional dishes in a particular city  and on the other hand, Timothy Arnold focus on preserving and collecting Twitter posts related to protests in Egypt and Global Audience.

Emily Fekete's article focused on the meaning of cultural signifiant especially with signature dish, garbage plate of the Rochester city and how the people in the community saviors these kind of dishes. " Other aspects of the local food culture have not read beyond the confines of the region.Though these foods have a rich history thin the area, their importance has not transcended place." Same time, she used applied her creativity writing to elaborate on the Greater Rochester's homegrown culinary traditions.  Therefore, this reading covers the subtopics of cultural significance and people who enjoyed participating Fekete's research by sharing their insights with Garbage plates.

Timothy Arnold and Walker Sampson's article focused on digital collection development of Egypt's 18 days peace protests'  twitters and how the digital collection preserved within amount of data that Twitter platform provides including with limited tools. " A review of scholarship on media and the Middle East reveals a lack of engagement with digital media content, whether as primary sources or in critically questioning the tools and analytics provided." In addition, the article focus on the protests and roles of social media.


                ____________________________________________________

1. Emily Fekete, “I Know When I’m Having One: The Cultural Significance of the Garbage Plate in Rochester, 
NY " Material Culture (2014) :1 

2.  Timothy Arnold and Walker Sampson, “Preserving the Voices of Revolution: Examining the Creation and Preservation of a Subject-Centered Collection of Tweets from the Egyptian Days in Egypt,” The American Archivist 77, no. 2 (2014) :4

Learning Through Reading

The last five weeks we have been reading through articles that have taught us the structure of a research paper, proper use of citations, how to form a research question and so on. There are two readings in particular that have taught me skills that I previously had not learned. 

The first reading that I've learned from is; Experiencing Exhibitions: A Review of Studies on Visitor Experiences in Museums. This reading incorporates an important part of our senior theses, the literature review. While talking to my advisers, they told me about the literature review, however, I did not know how to even go about writing one. This reading showed me not only how to write one but how to structure it so that it flows into the actual research and point of the paper. 

The second reading that taught me something new is; Eavesdropping at the Well: Interpretive Media in the Slavery in New York Exhibition. This paper utilized footnotes in ways that the other readings did not. The author used descriptive footnotes that allowed him to go more in depth in a subject without going on a tangent within the reading. I think that this is a useful skill that I can use in my own writing. 

Rabinowitz, Richard. "Eavesdropping at the Well: Interpretive Media in the Slavery in New York Exhibition." The Public Historian 35, no. 3 (2013): 8-45.

Kirchberg, Volker and Trondle, Martin. "Experiencing Exhibitions: A Review of Studies on Visitor Experiences in Museums." Curator 55, no.4 (2012): 435-452.

Sweat the Small Stuff, Robbins

In reading research articles from other scholars, I found the importance of never over looking fine details. In order to effectively employ this, one must take on the understanding that your reader is reading your paper for the first time, with fresh eyes, knowing almost nothing about what to expect in the paragraphs to come. This fresh approach leaves the reader, subconsciously, susceptible to easily picking up, and being distracted by, any mistakes you may make in your paper.

When assigned the reading Soapbox for the Automobile: Bumper Sticker History, Identification, and Preservation, my interest was peaked, I knew I had some background knowledge on the topic and was excited to know what knowledge I could glean from the authors research. However, I became distracted by very simple errors made in the construction and execution of the paper.

Her abstract lead the reader to believe that she would be exploring the handling and care of bumper stickers, in hopes to create institutional standards. "This paper documents the survey findings and provides guidance for dating and preserving bumper stickers."[1] Though it was disappointing to find that the article went on to talk about bumper sticker permanence and identification, with the conclusion saying, "More research into the chemical and physical qualities of the component ma- terials of bumper stickers is needed in order to better understand their vulnerabilities and to develop more refined preventive and remedial preservation solutions."[2] I think that is a very good example of what happens in writing. Sometimes, where an author initially wants to go in their research is not always where they end up. It is very important as writers, to insure that where you stops correlates with where you began. Had the author revisited her abstract and structured it towards permanence and identification, her paper overall may have been more succinct. 

I better example would be the Eavesdropping at the Well: Interpretive Media in the Slavery in New York Exhibition. [3] Throughout the article we are reminded and brought back to the initial abstract. "The interpretive strategy in this gallery aimed to move visitors from an outside view of the enslaved in New York, as articles of commerce, toward a more concrete and intimate encounter with them as human beings."[4]

[1]Whitney Baker, Soapbox for the Automobile: Bumper Sticker History, Identification, and Preservation
[2]"             "        "             "
[3]Richard Rabinwitz, Eavesdropping a the Well: Interpreting Media and Slavery In New York Exhibition, The Public Historian August (2013)
[4]"      "           "             "

Diving into Research Methods...

Although the articles I've read were "longest" ones, I truly appreciate their works because those helped me learn a lot about various ways to structure a thesis and also how they approached ideas of how to begin a research paper. Not only that, but they also helped me to get an idea of how to begin one regarding Eleanor Roosevelt and her program -- the Prospects of Mankind that consists of the monthly series of the forum for prominent leaders and decision makers to discuss the issues with Eleanor as mediator and host. Therefore, there are two particular examples of  "What We Talk About When We Talk About Food" and "Eavesdropping at the Well" whose authors showed how they have molded the structures such as the research question, methodology, type of evidence, conclusion, etc.

1) In "What We Talk About When We Talk About Food," I liked how Adam Steinberg introduced a brief but interesting abstract based on food, and then he would dive into the narrative story of how food are used to tell stories of the immigrants and their struggles to adapt in new surrounds. It was a brilliant move for him to begin without giving any hint of boredness or passive voice. 2) Richard Rabinowitz in "Eavesdropping at the Well" and his writing style surprised and impressed me because, while he focused on the deployment of interpretive media as well as the parallel of the sequence of media elements and the historical narrative, he apparently made sure to clarify his goals, so we could understand what he was talking about. When I read his article, I realized this should be difficult to put off like that, but he managed to construct the topics into the pattern.

1) Adam Steinberg, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food: Using Food to Teach at the Tenement Museum,” The Public Historian (2012)
2) Richard Rabinwitz, Eavesdropping a the Well: Interpreting Media and Slavery In New York Exhibition, The Public Historian August (2013)

Learning about researching Papers

During these first 5 weeks of classes I've learned a lot about the various styles of research papers, and the methods that are going on in the background.  And our discussions about them in class have also expanded my own understanding of what exactly I'm reading. It has also helped me look deeper into the books I'm reading about my research topic. For example, while reading Rich Wagner's book on the history of brewing in Philadelphia I thought more about how he sourced his information, and contemplated whether I could emulate this with my own research, or if it's even something I want to do in my research

The cover of Rich Wagner's book Philadelphia Beer : A heady history of brewing in the cradle of liberty

One of these reading's that really influenced me was Steinberg's article about the use of food at the Tenement Museum. He talks about how important food is to telling stories.[1] This is something I would really like to create while working on my research paper, the stories behind the beers that were made here. In the early 1800s, and even in the years leading up to the prohibition, many resources vital to brewing were still very limited in upstate New York; this made the recipes used to make the beer a story on their own. The article we read that made me think about my own research was Fekete's article on the garbage plate, but it was more of a what not to do when thinking doing a survey.[2] I have met a lot of people I can source information from and they're all come from very different places. I feel like if I were to construct some sort of questionnaire about their thoughts of current day brewing in Rochester, and why or how that has developed, I would be able to get an interesting array of answers, instead of the extremely biased or uninformed answers I would probably get if I were to pose the question on my personal Facebook.

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[1] Adam Steinberg, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food: Using Food to Teach at the Tenement Museum,” The Public Historian (2012): 80-81

[2] Emily Fekete “’I Know I’m Home When I Have One:’ The Cultural Significance of the Garbage Plate of Rochester, NY,” Journal of Material Culture 46, no. 1 (2014

Research Methods check-in

After reading the work of other scholars, I have learned more about ways of structuring a thesis. Although it may seem superficial at first, I never realized there were so many different approaches used to begin a paper. For example, in the article "What We Talk About When We Talk About Food: Using Food to Teach History at the Tenement Museum," Adam Steinberg opens with an abstract, then jumps right into the narrative.(1) There are no subheadings to segment the piece, or otherwise interrupt the narrative work he presents. I believe this was done to preserve the format he wanted to present, but there were also requirements and expectations set by the publication, The Public Historian. Fortunately, we have some flexibility and can tailor the structure to our topic, research methods, and writing style.

For the same publication, Richard Rabinowitz uses an abstract and a preface before presenting the first part of his paper.(2) The abstract is a broad scope of the content, while the preface serves to tell the reader specifically what his goals are. In stating the goals so clearly, one would think the paper would be easier to follow, however, his use of subheadings, sub-subheadings, and sub-sub-subheadings does not have the kind of flow Steinberg's article had. While I have not yet determined the structure for my own paper, I hope to use the best methods from each; I will state my goals clearly and use subheadings judiciously. I can see how it might be easy to use subheadings as a crutch, or a poor substitute for proper transitions. In Rabinowitz case, however, his use of subheadings appears to reflect a step-by-step process (vs. a narrative structure).

In addition to examining the structure of various articles, it also became apparent how important it is to document processes, especially if a paper is project-based like Rabinowitz's article. This will go a long way toward establishing credibility and answering questions a skeptical reader may have before they even ask them.


1. Adam Steinberg, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food: Using Food to Teach at the Tenement Museum,” The Public Historian (2012): 79.

2. Richard Rabinowitz, "Eavesdropping at the Well: Interpretive Media in the Slavery in New York Exhibition," The Public Historian (2013): 8-9.

Story-Based Research, Starr

It is a logical presumption that research styles and methods vary amongst different fields. For some disciplines, analytical or formulaic research provides the most beneficial conclusions to be applied to current practices. Museum Studies, however, is very interdisciplinary in nature. It follows, then, that the research we review in this field is such as well. Some studies lean to the analytics, while other focus on qualitative observation and story. Thus far in our research review, I’ve been most intrigued in the research studies which have employed the power of narrative to engage the reader with their topic.

One such example of story-focused research is Adam Stienberg’s work at the Tenement Museum, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food: Using Food to Teach History at the Tenement Museum”. In his writing, Steinberg engages the reader through elements of creative writing – something that one would not often expect in formal research. In doing so, the reader is able to connect to the study personally, and “experience” the Museum’s work vicariously. While such language would likely not be utilized in formal research for other fields, the storytelling nature of this study connects to the intended museum-centric audience in a more effective way.

“But something is missing — something you would find in abundance in any tenement back in the day: food. Lots of food. Not fancy and expensive food. Not imported and organic food. But simple, filling, tasty, tangy, mouthwatering food.”[1]

Similarly, Emily Fekete’s research study on the sociocultural significance of the upstate New York delicacy, “I Know When I’m Having One: The Cultural Significance of the Garbage Plate in Rochester, NY”. In the study, Fekete effectively employs storytelling to paint a picture for her readers, build a connection, and make her research accessible to museum and story-based professionals.

“I lived in Rochester for twenty years and frequently visit the city whenever I can. In that time I have eaten my fair share of Garbage Plates from various eating establishments and have found that the responses of the people I interviewed reflect many of my own feelings about the food and the city itself.”[2]

Each day our work in Museum Studies strives to build connections between objects, history, culture, and people. In order to this, Museums must discover how to make moments of the past relevant to engage with the lives of people today. This is often done by development of a greater story – something that is unifyingly human. For research to be most applicable to current practices, employing the power of narration relates what is learned in study to the dialogues within institutions every day.  

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[1] Adam Steinberg, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Food: Using Food to Teach at the Tenement Museum”, The Public Historian (2012): 80.

[2] Emily Fekete, “I Know When I’m Having One: The Cultural Significance of the Garbage Plate in Rochester, NY”, Material Culture (2014): 26-27.

Research Methods Thus Far

            In the first month of MUSE-489, Research Methods, I have learned a surprising amount about how researchers employ a plethora of research methodologies, how they create research questions, and what types of evidence they collect. All of the authors contribute and craft their narratives in differing ways. Two readings in particular have stood out to me this semester in terms of how research methods– “Preserving the Voices of Revolution: Examining the Creation and Preservation of a Subject-Centered Collection of Tweets from the Eighteen Days in Egypt” and “ ‘I Know I’m Home When I Have One:’ The Cultural Significance of the Garbage Plate of Rochester, NY”. Both articles broke down the barriers of what I had believed a scholarly article could be. Both approached new topics of interest in the 21^st century, digital curation and food culture, respectively.

            A majority of research articles that I have read often employ similar methods of collecting data, such as surveys, academic research, and case study analysis. Timothy Arnold and Walker Sampson, the authors of “Preserving the Voices of Revolution: Examining the Creation and Preservation of a Subject-Centered Collection of Tweets from the Eighteen Days in Egypt” present an alternative method of collecting information and data in the 21^st century, Tweets.  The authors sought to document how to collect Tweets through Twitter’s Application Programming Interface (API) and figure out the best way to preserve ephemeral artifacts such as Tweets. While social media has been thoroughly examined in relation to riots and political upheavals, it has not been documented. The authors pointed out that “few have conducted rigorous content analysis simply because the content is unavailable to scholars who do not have the ability to build tools to collect data from Twitter”[1]. I had never previously thought about Twitter as a medium to gather information from or a methodology for collecting data. It seems unconventional since social media is relatively new and its potential uses have not been harnessed entirely. It inspires me to use creative methodologies for my own thesis research though building an API might be a little lofty for my skill set.

An infographic by Safaa Hamed that illustrates the use of digital media in Egypt during the Egyptian Revolution as well as their daily lives (source: https://www.behance.net/gallery/11124497/Digital-Media-in-Egypt-(Infographic) ) 

            Research articles can either succeed or fail at hooking their audience with the abstract alone. Emily Fekete managed to catch my attention immediately given that her article,“ ‘I Know I’m Home When I Have One:’ The Cultural Significance of the Garbage Plate of Rochester, NY”, is about an area that I have become extremely fond of during my college years. As mentioned previously, food culture has become quite topical in our society. This shift has resulted in people becoming “foodies”, which means that people have an increased interest in what is on their plate, where it came from, and what its backstory entails. Despite Fekete’s article being easy to read, it lacked a sense of professionalism and variance in the research methodologies employed. Her research question was to figure out how the Garbage Plate was culturally connected to Rochesterians. This in turn means that her target audience was all Rochestarians of varying ages. By Fekete’s use of a Facebook survey through Survey Monkey and emailing those individuals, she is instantly skewing a bias towards those 50 and under. Older individuals do not frequent the Internet as often, let alone Facebook. Through these research methodologies, she is not properly gathering the opinions of a group that properly represents those that comprise Rochester’s demographics. Because of this, her results are illegitimate in terms of assessing the cultural value of the Garbage Plate to Rochester as a whole. Fekete even acknowledges, “the survey results likely reflect a younger generation”[2]. Currently my thesis idea does not require surveying individuals or emailing interviews to obtain data. However if my topic was to include these methodologies, this article has taught me that I would need to administer the survey in such a way that was reflective of my target audience.

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[1] Timothy Arnold and Walker Sampson, “Preserving the Voices of Revolution: Examining the Creation and Preservation of a Subject-Centered Collection of Tweets from the Egyptian Days in Egypt,” The American Archivist 77, no. 2 (2014): 512.

[2] Emily Fekete “’I Know I’m Home When I Have One:’ The Cultural Significance of the Garbage Plate of Rochester, NY,” Journal of Material Culture 46, no. 1 (2014): 34.