Changing Directions + Status Update

Hello! 

Since my initial post, the direction of my project has shifted considerably. I am still doing research regarding digital collections, but my new research question is "How can multispectral data and IIIF annotations be used to enhance user interaction, discovery, and scholarship in digital collections?" Multispectral imaging has the potential to completely reframe collection items, but results are generally publicly unavailable or stored in separate repositories. IIIF allows image stacks to be created and manipulated in digital collections through its choice cookbook recipe, but this feature remains underutilized in the GLAM field. I hope to create a small prototype digital collection using medieval manuscript leaves to showcase this functionality. One of my goals with this collection is to ensure compatibility with manuscript reconstruction projects like Fragmentarium, since having these images present with their true-color counterparts could reveal new insights into these codices.

So far I have written my abstract and made significant revisions to it. I have identified around 20 sources that I will use for my project. One of them has significantly influenced how I think about my project: Hannekan's 2023 article that introduces the concept of "deep digitization"-- combining multiple imaging modalities in an online environment that allows objects to be studied in the broadest way possible. Currently, I am finishing my annotated bibliography and starting my lit review. I'm trying to figure out how I want to structure it, which I anticipate will probably be the most difficult part. I also have gone down a few rabbit holes related to (but not really contributing to) my project. Otto F. Ege's "I am a Biblioclast" is such a fascinating glimpse into the method behind his madness. I can't stop thinking about how his eight year old daughter could not sleep until an illuminated manuscript leaf was hung in her room. 

All the best, 

Alec 

Update on WWII Enlistment Records

 So far, my thesis is going well. The most difficult part is holding myself back from beginning data processing. I’ve scoured the internet and found that, as I suspected, there is little to no research on standard data management for internally derived datasets in cultural heritage. This works in my favor, as I can use this project to fill that gap.

My plan is to take GIS data ethics from archaeology and data management strategies from machine learning, weave them together, and create a framework to serve the needs of cultural heritage institutions. On that note, I need to define a word for cultural heritage that excludes archaeology. I find that there is a conflation between archaeological GIS and historical GIS. Actually, I would go so far as to say there is a difference between historical GIS and the point of this project. In archaeological GIS the spatial data comes from the object's location. In historical GIS there is both intrinsic and extrinsic spatial data. This generally takes one of two forms: A map (intrinsic) or provenance (extrinsic). What this project works with is a collection with intrinsic textual spatial data. That is to say there is no spatial data within the object or about the object, we are interpreting the text to obtain spatial data. Technically, this is intrinsic data, however it is clearly different from a map.

Returning to the point, I have been messing around with the 2002 WWII enlistment data. I converted the ASCII code to hexadecimal, which with the help of Claude was quite easy, but did increase the file size to 5 gb (yes gb). I was expecting 50-60 gb. Now that the data is in hex, it needs to be decoded. To do so I will need to (a) figure out a way to extract all the codes from the documentation quickly and (b) how to effectively chunk the data to avoid sitting for hours while the code runs. Outside of the lit review the next step is figuring out OCR.

Update on my progress

Since my last post I have made a few changes to my topic. I am now focusing on how museums interpret three substances that have been understood historically as medicine but have changed meanings over time. I am using various primary sources and four exhibits from different institutions. I will be examining how they interpret these substances, what materials they chose to use, and how their institutional perspectives influence their interpretations. The three substances I have chosen to focus on are tobacco, alcohol, and opium and the medicines derived from it. Thus far I have found fifteen sources four of which are the exhibits I plan to examine, have annotated all 15, and have made a revised draft for my abstract and thesis statement/question. I plan to use these sources to create a research paper into how museums address the nuances of the ever-changing views surrounding these substances, and what role their institutional bias's play in forming these interpretations. One example of this is the DEA museum has an exhibition on the opium poppy which skews towards the illicit drug aspect of opium/opioids. 

Thesis Progress Update #1 | Allie Cassella

Hey everyone! Hope you all are having a good fall semester. 

Since my last post, I have been doing a ton of work on my thesis project and I decided on a topic. As I said in my introduction, I work in the Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab with the MISHA system. Multispectral imaging has been used for pigment identification, as every pigment reflects or absorbs light differently across different wavelengths, giving each one a distinct spectral signature. I was curious if that would also work for pigments with poison or that use an animal binder (milk, eggs, animal glue). They should have a different spectral signature from regular pigments. I am going to focus on just poison books, and work with the Rochester Public Library to try and image some suspected poison books with the MISHA system. I wanted to try and connect my thesis project with what I do in the lab, and also with my minor, criminal justice, which is why I decided to try and look at poison books and protein binders. I had a bunch of other potential ideas to look at, including seeing if MISHA could be used for forensic anthropology or to detect drug soaked paper (it is a way of smuggling drugs into prison), but I decided that my research question was way too broad. I would not physically be able to do it all in a year, and I had to think about what I could realistically do, and that was studying poison books. I have been working on finding and annotating new sources, as I had to cut a bunch that were now unrelated, and editing my abstract so it reflects my topic. Next step is more editing, and starting to draft a literature review with my sources. 

See you all next time!

-Allie

 

Introduction and Forethoughts

Hello everyone!

I hope this blog post finds you well. My name is Claire Gallucci, and like many of you, I am in my final year at RIT. My primary area of focus is in Modern art history, particularly the feminist, installation, and performance art disciplines. As an emerging museum professional, I have thought deeply about the public-facing side of art collecting institutions. 

Of all types of museums, art museums have the most foreboding reputation as inaccessible cultural heritage sites, grounded in elitism and their content curated for visitors from exclusive demographics. Often, galleries are curated to encourage passive viewership, forcing a sense of value or institutional importance onto audiences. As a result, these institutions end up alienated from the broader communities in which they reside. Conversely, living history museums have been successful in connecting with visitors who have varying levels of competency in the era the museum aims to interpret. They have taken controversial, complex, and even painful subject matter and made it approachable for the masses. They accomplish this through immersion, intentional use of material culture, and cultivating an ethos of active participation and co-authorship. The museum guest is empowered to be in charge of the experience they come away with. I would like to investigate the interpretive framework that allows for living history institutions to succeed and see how it may apply to contemporary/modern art museums. I intend to prove that the concept of active viewership is not estranged from art institutions from a historical standpoint, even as it has not been at the forefront of art exhibition development; movements like feminist performance art and installation art have succeeded in activating gallery viewers in the creation and perception of art; therefore, it is feasible to implement concepts founded in living history into the traditional art museum framework, creating something that is in part new and in part old. 

Research is an intimate practice that is often executed in an extremely public setting. It is a difficult feat to approach developing a research topic, and even more of a challenge to defend its rigor as academia often prompts. As of late, I have found myself reflecting on how my research topic has evolved from my very first semester as a museum studies major. I'm looking forward to continuing to develop this project over the next seven months alongside my peers. 

Research Methods Introduction

 Hello, 

My name is Bella Herendeen. I'm a fourth and final year student majoring in Museum Studies and pursuing a minor in Women and Gender Studies. I'm interested in how different areas of history are represented in archives and exhibitions and how underrepresented voices are handled by GLAM institutions. 

With this in mind, I hope to pursue a thesis paper examining transfers of power within archives and how these changes affect what is prioritized by an institution. Questions I will be asking vary from "who is given the highest position of authority?", "why are certain people gifted this power?", "how is the public affected by these changes, for better or worse?", etc. I do not have a definitive thesis statement at the moment but I hope to introduce one to my concept within the week. Courses I have taken in Museum Studies and History will provide me with a strong background to build my thesis on. Although I will be focusing on archival practices, there will likely be exhibition related case studies included to support the paper.

As someone who's goal is to work with archives in a way that uplifts marginalized voices, I hope this capstone thesis will help me gain an important perspective that I could attribute to whichever institution I might find myself in. 

Thesis Introduction

 Hello, I am Kai Schiesel, and I am a 4th-year Museum Studies Major with a Minor in Film Studies. Initially, I sought out to write a thesis paper on the filmmaker John Cassavetes, but I am now seeking to write a paper on cultural heritage in media. I'll be discussing such films as Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon and Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev due to their close attention to detail and for fully utilizing cultural heritage to make wonderful pieces of art. This idea is still quite rough, but I am excited to combine my interest in cinema and museums/archives together to write a thesis.

I'm looking forward to working with this topic and making it a well-fleshed-out idea.

-Kai

Introduction

 Hello! My name is Priscilla Anderson, but most people call me by my middle name, Sawyer. While my major is Museum Studies, my minor is in Geographic Information Systems drives my focus. If I could define my ‘area of interest,’ I would say my focus is in historical spatial data science for libraries, archives, and special collections, as well as the creation of spatial applications to enhance accessibility.

As I begin to think about my research I realize perhaps the most important thing for me is to make a difference. I don’t want the things I do to disappear into the annals of the internet or languish on a shelf somewhere. I have no expectation of my project actually going anywhere - but I want to create proof that spatial analysis of historical data is useful. I want to show the cultural heritage community that using code and geospatial information systems we can create accessible applications that reach more than just researchers. We can make history fun for individuals who might otherwise avoid it. I want to show that we need to stop seeing AI as the death to intellectual freedom and realize it’s a tool. The fear and distrust I see is, quite simply, a lack of knowledge. AI has the potential to allow us to process big data in a way that was previously untenable, especially to those of us without a background in coding. I’m not suggesting using AI to create catalog records; rather, I propose the use of AI for OCR and vibe coding. Specifically, I want to reprocess NARA’s approximately 9 million record raw WWII enlistment record data file to improve accuracy, create an accessible interactive, and analyze data trends. Ideally, this would begin with conducting AI OCR on the original microfilm, however there is a slim likelihood that I will be able to gain access to these files within a reasonable time frame. Thus, I’d like to begin by cleaning the data with Excel, using python (AI-assisted) to convert the numeric codes to text, geo-coding the locations, examining spatial correlation between records, and creating a spatial search engine.