Please allow me to introduce myself...

Hi, all!  I think that everyone in the Research Methods class has at the very least met me, but for anyone reading this who hasn’t, my name is Jess Andrews, I am a 4th year in the Museum Studies program, and I anticipate graduating in May 2018 with a BS in Museum Studies with a focus in public history.  This will be my second degree, as I previously earned an AA in Liberal Arts with a focus in creative writing, western mythology, and art history from Cottey College in Nevada, MO in 2015.

Ever since I was very young, I have had a passion for learning and teaching others about history.  I have been fortunate enough to work at a number of different collecting institutions since high school, including the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor, ME, the Bangor Historical Society (formerly the Bangor Museum and Center for History), the Roberson Museum and Science Center in Binghamton, NY, and the RIT Archives.  While all of these institutions have offered me unique and valuable opportunities, I have to admit that I preferred working at the historical institutions over the others.  In addition to this love of history, I am highly creative in all aspects of my life, from baking and cooking, to how I dress and decorate my space, to how I complete assignments and solve problems.  This also means that no matter what institution I am working at, I tend towards the more creative aspects of museum work, such as exhibition design, tour writing, public programming and event planning, and museum promotions.  The majority of my experience has been in tour writing, specifically historical ghost and cemetery tours, which allow me to delve into another passion of mine-- the macabre and illicit.  Ghosts, ghouls, and goodtime girls, I’m fascinated by it all, and I enjoy channeling this fascination into museum projects such as tours, exhibits, and presentations, because there’s more to history than rulers, battles, and innovations.

Now, most of you are probably wondering by what a hamster has to do with all of this. That is Nugget, and there are several very good reasons that the picture above is of her, and not of me.  One, I don’t actually have any recent pictures of me in which I look like a normal human being (i.e. pictures in which I’m not wearing elf ears or faerie wings).  Two, who doesn’t like cute, furry critters?  Monsters, that’s who…  And three, I honestly can’t think of a better animal to use to describe myself than a chubby, anxious, slightly neurotic rodent whose favorite way to spend a Saturday is sleeping and eating, and who very well might squeak and fall over if you talk too loudly or poke it suddenly.  Or maybe it will bite you instead… it all depends on the day.

The Chapter is Finally Closed But...

Whew... It was rather a long way to pay off! But it is sort of safe for me to say I have completed my senior thesis. I hope so! Today was all we had looked forward to--RIT's College of Liberal Arts Poster Session! It was very incredible experience when presenting my poster and my findings to faculty, students and community members. I truly enjoyed explaining my findings with them and even discussed with them on the current issues, e.g., women's rights, civil rights, and etc. Ironically, some of them admitted that they actually did not know much about such issues in details, which shocked me a bit.

From what I have learned in my research, it is essential to find as many issues as you can in order to comprehend the aspects of the issues, and arm yourself with a knowledge and understanding of issues. Understandingly, it is also hard to find the sources that are not academically rigorous and/or heavily bias in nature. If someone was interested in researching on current issues, I would encourcage them to stay focus and dig more on those, rather than just choosing a topic on one issue where he or she may not be able to grasp an understanding of that. The current issues are often sensitive, let alone to discuss those.

While my senior thesis might be completed, I will continue working on my website of Prospects of Mankind.

Nearing the End

I found my topic in June 2015, it's been almost a year since I've been researching my topic and I can honestly say I haven't gotten sick of it. While my thesis is due in 6 days I still have a lot of writing left to do, it almost seems to be far too much. Luckily, I am getting to the point where I am able to group illustrations together and discuss them in groups rather than individually. I met with both of my advisors at the Cary and we looked through the HP together however that did prompt me to rewrite my reader response section because of all the new information that came up. I also have to write my literature review.

I've come so far but I still have so much further to go. 

The Progress of my Thesis

             During the intersession, I received the feedbacks from the RIT faculty Committee and reviewed those in order to understand where I was going to revise the changes in the additions to my thesis. They gave me a focus on a digital exhibit, which I did not think of before. Why didn’t I think of it before, I do not have a clue. My advisor, Professor Tamar Carroll, recommended the WordPress to begin. I yet have to create it, but I will do it this later within week 5 or 6.

Since I did not have the chosen books at home, I read the online sources and annotated those into a Word document that I would look up again. To my disappointment, I had a problem finding the sources of Prospects of Mankind, but I managed to find one or two of its film series. I had expected to find at least three than one film; nevertheless, I was very thrilled to watch those that I had found many interesting things about Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as the discussions on issues that reflect on women’s rights, social justice, and others.

Now it is in week 5, I am extremely busy, but I have been trying to make several times to work on my thesis, to meet with my advisors to discuss, to skim the sources and to continue undergoing the changes.

I also have been writing the roughly 10 pages of my thesis in the beginning, but as I wrote into 8 pages of my first draft, I found that it did not progress what I wanted it to in a way. Professor Decker suggested me to skip some of the sections that I may struggle with for now. That helps me to further my writing, although I feel very awkward to leave some of the sections blank for a while.

Intersession Research

Now that classes are wrapping up it is time to look towards the next coming weeks. Starting next Monday I will be starting to scan illustrations and put both colored and non colored in a spread sheet, I'm going to take to the end of the month to find any textual evidence to support the colors that were used. The other big project I have to do is transcribe and attempt to translate the reader response found in each copy. I plan on having that done hopefully by Week 1. Now that I am no longer doing any imaging on the book, it leaves a lot more time to do these two projects as well as look for more sources and reread the sources I have and taking careful notes on them. At this point I don't really know what will come out of this research but I am really excited to find out.

Marginalia in the Cary's copy

Marginalia at Columbia University

Reader Response at Newberry 

Research Update

Since starting my research I have learned a lot. My research at this time is consisting of biographic information of Aldus Manutius, history of the 15th century printing industry in Venice, and basic printing history of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. The rest of my sources so far are about how the book was used in the 15th century which is where my reader response research will begin. I still need to do extensive research on reader response. I also need to start research on digital imaging and multispectral imaging of printed books. I will be reaching out to Roger Easton fairly soon so that we can image the hand-colored pages. I am hoping the results can tell us the material the pigments are made of and from that I am hoping we can get a date range. If anyone has suggestions on where to start please let me know! 

In other exciting news - Steven and I were able to determine the owner of the book before Melbert Cary acquired it in 1932 based off of a bookplate that was stuck on the inner board. 

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

Susana's Intro

Hi everyone! My name is Susana Flores and originally from Bay Area, California. I'm majoring in Museum Studies with an immersion in Deaf Studies. My interests always been in Art, History and Science. I enjoy any arts in general but do have some interests in Black/ White photography, Baroque Painting arts and Graffiti arts.

I recently completed my internship at American School of the Deaf (ASD) in Hartford, Connecticut. My assigned project was to preserve, catalog and label the books from late 1700's - Early 1800's in their Archive library room and I also worked on transcription projects with the Connecticut Digital Archive under University of Connecticut. My experience working as intern at Hartford, CT was very enriching and i'm already looking forward to work with ASD again next year for their upcoming exhibition for thier 200th anniversary

Statue of Thomas E. Gallaudet with 

Alice Cogswell in front of ASD admission office.