Spring break was not exactly a break (at least on my end). I continued refining the site/archive, installing and configuring plugins. Once we figured out our metadata and configured our Contributions forms, as a team we entered data: each fridge represented as a collection, each fridge object as an item, as any contributed item to that fridge, a part of the fridge’s collection. We entered all the fridges in our database, representing all 5 boroughs. We prepared tutorials for how to contribute to the site. Next, we started getting contributions from our audience. It was fascinating that our site was functioning technically and also as intended – our archive kept growing, with our fridges now mapped out, represented via photos and stories.

In order to also host oral history items on our archive, I installed/configured the OHMS plugin suite and a new template for our site as required by OHMS. We presented our site to class, refined our presentation, and finally presented at the GC Showcase. One of the best things about building projects (or any creative work, really) is sharing them – thanks so much to our classmates (fun and very constructive feedback) and everyone at the showcase! To Dr Maney, to Micki Kaufman, to Stefano Morello, who were critical contributors to our project. And of course, to our fridge community!

Of course props to my fantastic teammates. It was a pleasure to work with everyone – I looked forward to all our meetings! It was a lot of hard and very rewarding, enjoyable work!

Week 9 – for several weeks now,  we had been having meetings with fridge organizers. I installed Omeka Classic on Reclaim, the third install and the last, and the smoothest! At this point, I was very familiar with Omeka in general and plugins, so everything went smoothly. Because we no longer had the server issues, plugins also worked without any problems. Reclaim was also very responsive (thank you GC!! and thank you Reclaim!) and helpful with any questions I had during configuration/ in case of backend questions. The internet also was my friend while figuring things out 🙂

We also had meetings deciding how we would use Dublincore metadata for our archive.  While this may seem like a simple or straightforward task, it certainly was not. It took a lot of brainstorming and thinking through – yet was also enjoyable (for me, at least). Thus we refined the metadata part -what we more broadly defined in our data management plan.

Week 8 – we worked on our Release/consent forms for contributions and our logo. In preparation or our presentation and dissemination, I built our landing page on Commons: https://nyccommunityfridgearchive.commons.gc.cuny.edu

Having gained access to our Reclaim account, I set up an email for us, configured our account, and installed Omeka S on Reclaim (due to a misunderstanding on my part- I thought we were only able to install Omeka S, not Omeka Classic). Omeka S is similar to Omeka Classic but just not as sophisticated and has a completely different user interface than OClassic. While OC makes use of plugins, OS has modules – several of the plugins I had installed were not available as modules… In addition, the Collecting module, which replaces the Contributions plugin, for example, was not as functional as the latter. The interface was more similar to a library database (which requires a certain familiarity to navigate), whereas with Omeka Classic, the interface is just like any website – which means anyone who lands on the page can easily navigate it and not put off by the specific terminology/format of a library/catalog/archive/database. This may seem like yet another mishap, and in terms of all the  extra time and effort  I had to put into it, it somewhat is, but I did appreciate having learned more about Omeka through all this hands on experience. On a very positive note, I did figure out that we were in fact going to be able to install Omeka Classic on Reclaim.

Week 7 – At this point, to resolve some of the issuesI encountered with the plugins, I had quite a few exchanges with Hostgator technical team (of my website). The did not prove very helpful as the errors were related partly to Omeka, but also partly to the server – one of the technical assistants told me that it was in fact a server issue. I also scheduled appointments with Stefano Morelli, a Digital Fellow, who is very knowledgeable of Omeka  (interestingly so, this coincided with our class recommendation of meeting /getting advice from Digital Fellows). He was super helpful. We were unable to solve the issue, though – as I’ve said, the issue was server related.

Many many hours of work – web searches, getting consultations, etc -and the Contributions Plugin, which is so critical to our project, was not working! Just as I was getting extremely frustrated, an email arrived from Dr Maney giving us the great news: that the Reclaim accounts were here. If you know me, you know exactly the language I used when I responded right away – excitement and exclamations!

On the flip side, I learned a lot about Omeka during this process and felt readier for the next stage than I was for the first.

Week 6, we finished our Data Management Plan. It was a lot of intense work – we had a very productive Zoom meeting writing it up. The lecture and advice from Steve Zweibel proved very useful. I presented our DMP during class.

Because ours is an archive that uses metadata; we had to think about data management on two levels: management of data we collect, and configuring metadata for the archive.

At this point, I had started looking into Dublincore, so we tried to think of ways to align our naming practices and identifiers with DC. It became clear to me that with our Data Management Plan, we  would be submitting a rough version our metadata, and that we would be refining them further along. It also became clear that planning out this way, although rough at that point, would be critical in guiding our team work.

Week 5, we finished our Work Plan. I wrote the Omeka/Technical part of the document.  We also started working on our Data Management Plan/  Data Abstract &  Dictionary. We met Micki Kaufman and got great advice on our work/process.

Since we had decided not to pursue the New Media Lab hosting option, I suggested that, at least for the time being, we could host our archive on my personal site. By this time, Dr Maney had informed us that CUNY would provide us with Reclaim hosting option though at that point the timeline was unclear. As we were (or I was) eager to start building the site, I installed Omeka on my site. I learned about all the plugin options and made suggestions to my team members as to which plugins might be useful to install. I installed and started configuring several plugins and setting up the website. I encountered several glitches, and tried to figure out resolving the issues.

Week 4, after working on the revised proposal, we worked on project planning and our project timeline. Dr Rhody’s  advice proved very helpful. Reflecting back on it now, too, the timeline helped us prioritize and divide tasks, making our process more clear,  efficient and effective. Thanks to also Trello, Slack, and our Zoom meetings, things went smoothly.

On the individual level, I started working on getting our IRB cleared and figure out hosting. I contacted Rebecca Banchik regarding IRB and after a lot of back and forth (and very helpful) communication, that also with Elena, and with also input from Dr Maney, we got cleared. The reason for a lot of back and forth was that we wanted to clarify our exact goals with the project regarding how our data would be used. As for hosting, we initially wanted to explore hosting within the New Media Lab space. I connected them, sent out our application, and upon our communication with them (once again, they were super helpful and responsive), it seemed like it would be a better idea to pursue other options.

At this point, I also started learning Omeka. I had missed all the workshops, so I went online and followed tutorials and got information from the Omeka website. I was eager to get my hands on it and start building the archive.

I attended the Fair Use in the Digital Humanities workshop by Jill Cirasella. The session started with Copyright definition and FAQs, then moved onto definition/explanation of Fair Use, which is critical for us DHers to understand. Because there is wiggle room in the Copyright law, and consequently common law is in effect in the US (“judicial rulings become legal precedent, shaping the law over time”), Cirasella explained the wiggle room and gave examples of major cases that shaped Fair Use. She then discussed how Fair Use applies to Digital Humanities, giving further examples from cases that are related to the concept of transformativeness, in particular.

Copyright and Fair Use can be tricky to navigate, so it’s critical to have access to detailed information and when available, an expert. In my case, while I have some understanding of Copyright and Fair Use pertaining art/academic contexts, I had a specific, burning question: is doing computational text analysis of copyrighted works, say a newly published novel considered Fair Use? My understanding so far was that it is, as you transform the work enough for it to not be a Copyright violation -but I heard so many different takes on the issue I was confused. It was great to learn that it is considered Fair Use. 

Cirasella shared her slides during the presentation and afterwards via email, so I would like to share them with everyone: Transformed, I’m Sure

Here are a few additional resources she also shared:

Fair Use Checklist

Fair Use for Nonfiction Authors

World Intellectual Property Organization