One semester down and one to go!
There have been learning curves throughout this process that I have been challenged by, but I love a challenge! In this post I would like to talk about what part of this process were successful challenges and problems I ran into.
The Head Scratchers:
I will start with the rough parts so I can end on the good. I have discussed a bit about spreadsheets so I will refrain from that here and simply say it took longer than expected. Next, I had to give myself a quick run through with the software I used. There is most certainly more efficient uses of time than how I worked on the project, but that is part of the process.
Playing with OpenRefine and QGIS to get things to work together then finding an easier method took a little time for me to understand. My supervisor helped me jump into QGIS, due to this having a larger curve, but I liked being able to challenge myself.
Compounded with that was a lack of time. The late start did give me a bit of a time crunch but, interestingly, that gave me the motivation to stay focused and keep working. If I work in small chunks, I could easily become frustrated and lose interest in the end goal.
Managing the Struggle:
Addressing these struggles truly came down to being patient with myself. I still need to remind myself that I am new to digital history and it is still a new field. DH is just about as old as me so of course I won’t be amazing at it the first time I try it! DH and technology is constantly changing so I need to work through the mental hurdles as well as the technical ones.
The Successes!
Moving on to the easier or more obvious successes, the first is that I learned the basics of clean data! I also did talk about this a bit when talking about spreadsheets but this is fundamental. I now understand that without clean data, the results can be a bit obscure.
Another success and personal strength for me is the accessibility of the map. To work in public history to some extent, this is a great practice for me. I need to make my map as easy to read as possible which means I need a strong key with simple, contrasting, colors for the general public as well as color blind and other groups.
I will be creating a blog post analyzing the map itself which will attempt to focus on public history more than data academic. This part of the project has been the easiest part for me. Working with the public does not mean dumbing anything down, just making it as clear as possible! This internship has helped me to balance academic and public history while building my skill tool belt.