Library Fellows Projects
Spring 2020 Fellowships
Cursive & Recursive: Generating Transcriptions of Archival Documents Using Machine Learning
*This program is open to both undergraduate and graduate students.Vanderbilt’s Special Collections has a wealth of handwritten or early modern material that is difficult for computers to read. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has come a long way, but still struggles with these texts. We will digitize select manuscripts (or bring your own from your research) and learn to produce transcriptions using machine learning techniques to teach the computer to recognize handwriting. We will then build a simple web exhibit displaying the digitized manuscript and its transcription side by side. You will learn project management skills, collaboration, and version control with Github; learn how machine learning works and when it doesn’t; and learn data management and project documentation best practices. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]
Encoding Music Manuscripts in Vanderbilt University Special Collections
The Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) is the musical parallel to the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI). Used in various musical digital editions across the globe, MEI has in recent years arisen to become the premiere application of digital humanities methods in the sphere of music scholarship and analysis. This project seeks to acquaint a new generation of students to the nuts and bolts of coding notated music as applied to manuscripts held by the Libraries' Special Collections. As well as developing skills in coding and project management, students will explore how music is distinct from, overlaps with, and can be connected to other subject areas within the larger digital community. The conclusion of the project will consist of a public presentation. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]
Ethics of Information
Even before we learn to read, humans consume information through a variety of formats – children's books, fiction and non-fiction, academic scholarship, and more. The internet has made the consumption of information easier than ever, but also brings with it issues related to access, privacy, and ethical concerns. In this seminar, fellows will explore issues related to technology and ethics by examining a variety of information genres and discussing strategies for engaging with information in its many forms with a critical eye. Using a variety of formats (such as a podcast, presentation, or video Public Service Announcement), Fellows will create final projects that analyze issues related to ethics and privacy. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]
Gateway to Traditional Chinese Monuments: Data Curation and Web Development for Cultural Heritage Preservation
*This program is open to both undergraduate and graduate students.
Recipients of this fellowship will help faculty to develop data for Architectura Sinica, a Chinese architectural history dynamic site archive and architectural thesaurus. Students work with A&S faculty and library staff to develop entries on individual sites and/or add visual material for thesaurus of technical terms for Traditional Chinese Architecture. Students are acknowledged as co-authors for digital publication of the entries they complete. Pre- or co-requisite of History of East Asian Art (HART 1200) or Architecture and the Mapping of Empire in Asia (HART 2100), or faculty recommendation is required to participate. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]
Netsuke: Gucci of the Edo Period
Curated by students Gawon Lee and Jiayi Hou as the culmination of their 2019–2020 Library Buchanan Fellowship, Netsuke: Gucci of the Edo Period sheds light on a group of approximately forty netsukes, or ornamental toggles worn in pre-modern Japan. These detailed and delicately carved and crafted objects, donated to Vanderbilt more than twenty years ago, will be displayed together for the first time, to highlight their significance in Edo Japan (1603–1868) where they were originally made and worn. Several of these netsuke represent overarching themes and narratives that the students uncovered during their year-long fellowship. [ Fellowship Project ]
Tending to Popular Thought: What People Read and Why
Everyone knows what a book is. But what do 'gutters,' 'fore-edges,' 'diapers,’' 'running heads,' and ‘pilcrows' have to do with books? In this course, students will learn interesting and amusing stories behind useful, though specialized terms in the history of communication from medieval manuscripts to digital publishing. Along the way, students will study the history of books and printing from pamphlet wars to the e-book revolution and from the anatomy of the book to the aesthetics of book making. The class will include a group of undergraduates who have been designated as library fellows. As a group, the fellows will select examples in our special collections and learn how to curate an exhibition--online and in the Library’s Second Floor Gallery. Fellows will present on their work at a reception where everyone is welcome. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]
Vanderbilt Historical Tree Tour
The Vanderbilt Arboretum has a long history that has been documented on its website and blog.
For some time, there have been plans to create a self-guiding tour focused on historical trees present on Vanderbilt's campus. This project will create a portable device-based tree tour that will allow users to locate historical trees and learn about the history of the trees and the university through links to additional information on the Arboretum website. The project will involve photography, metadata management, web design, and historical research in the Libraries' Special Collections and University Archives. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]
Fall 2019 Fellowships
Strengthening Ties: Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Founding of Vanderbilt University/Celia Walker and Mary Anne Caton
Vanderbilt students celebrate founder's day on March 17, the day Cornelius Vanderbilt wrote to Bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire, "I make the following offer, through you, to the Corporation known as the Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church South...." From this gift sprang our university. But what is (or was) Central University? And who was Holland McTyeire? And how did Cornelius Vanderbilt, a northern financier, get the idea of giving such a large sum of money to a southern institution, a place he never visited? These are just a few of the stories that may be found in the rare letters, photographs and artifacts held in Vanderbilt University's Special Collections. If you are interested in Vanderbilt University's history and would like to know how to curate an exhibition, please apply for this fall 2019 Buchanan Fellowship program. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project]The Evolution of the Peabody Esplanade/Steve Baskauf and Stacy Curry-Johnson
The Peabody Esplanade is one of Vanderbilt's iconic greenspaces, framed by rows of stately trees. Yet when Peabody was founded a little over a century ago, it looked nothing like it does today. How did a space occupied by randomly placed trees evolve into the Jeffersonian styled campus envisioned by the planners of Peabody? This project will involve GIS analysis of historic aerial photographs, measurement of the location and size of existing trees, and creation of a permanent tree database. At the conclusion of the project, we plan for the results to be used to create an exhibit to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Peabody Library, as well as recognition of the trees on the Esplanade that have been determined to be over 100 years old. [ Fellowship Project ]
Text Mining at Scale
XQuery is a great language to learn if you are working with semi-structured data of any sort—literary texts encoded in TEI, bibliographic data in JSON, or even tabular data that you are currently keeping in Excel. By learning XQuery, you’ll learn how to explore hidden patterns in your data and to visualize them for others. We’ll also teach you how to connect and combine different sources of data. This semester, we will focus particularly on querying large sets of textual data using Apache Spark, a framework for querying distributed data sets, and Sparqsonic, an emerging query language for Spark based on XQuery. After completing the sessions this semester, you will be able to explore and extract information from big data sets in the humanities, social sciences, or other disciplines with ease and confidence. Fellows must be available to meet during the XQuery Working Group, which meets from 2:00 and 3:00 p.m. on Fridays during the fall semester.2019 Spring Project
Our Crowd: Student Life at the University of Nashville
University life in the 19th century was quite different from today's modern campus. Every aspect of students' lives was highly regimented in order to shape the young men into productive members of society, and rules and regulations permeated every aspect of student life. Students learned by recitation and their detailed notes reflect close attention in daily classes from Latin composition to spherical geometry. This semester, two Buchanan Fellows examined how students lived, studied, and had fun in 19th-century Nashville. They visited the old South Campus with architectural historian Robbie Jones and learned about other educational initiatives with Dr. Mary Ellen Pethel. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project]
2018 Fall Projects
Data Visualization and the Humanities
Libraries, maps, network graphs and datasets reflect and shape the work of scholars in the humanities. This library fellows course provided an overview of the way that literary and historical scholars organized, analyzed, and presented their research to each other and the public using data visualization. The course included theoretical, historical and practical work, sourcing materials from the library’s special collections and elsewhere in the library. Combining traditional humanities and digital humanities, the course also introduced students to a variety of visualization tools and techniques, enabling them to build map digital maps, network graphs, and other types of visualizations using humanities data. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project]
The News as It Happened: Journalism in Vanderbilt’s Special Collections
Vanderbilt’s Libraries are proud to be the place of record of journalists and newspaper editors whose actions broke news of national importance. From Jim Squires’ decision to publish the Pentagon Papers in the Chicago Tribune to Kathy Sawyer’s coverage of the Challenger disaster, news reporters and their editors carry a responsibility to provide unbiased, timely news. Today, that duty could not be more relevant or important. This fall semester fellowship examined key figures in the world of journalism whose papers are housed in Vanderbilt University’s Special Collections. Fellows worked collaboratively to produce a physical and interactive exhibit focusing on the contributions made by these writers. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]2018 Summer Project
From Listeners to Leaders: A History of Women at Vanderbilt
This summer semester fellowship will examine the history of women at Vanderbilt from the university’s nineteenth-century beginnings to the present day. We will consider women’s experiences as students, faculty, and staff at Vanderbilt, which only began to admit women and men undergraduates in equal numbers in the 1980s. The fellowship will also explore the history of the Margaret Cuninggim Women’s Center, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2018. Students will learn about exhibition and curatorial techniques while engaging with the library’s Special Collections materials. Students will work collaboratively or individually to produce an exhibit focusing on different aspects of women’s experiences at Vanderbilt. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]2018 Spring Projects
The Power of Propaganda
In this seminar, students learned about the principles, strategies, techniques, and effects of information dissemination. The course dealt with intellectual property and propaganda in the context of scholarship, religion, war, politics, culture, and advertising, and explores implications for the future of information sharing in our modern technological age. Students also learned about exhibition and curatorial techniques while engaging with the library’s Special Collections materials. Students will work collaboratively or individually to produce an exhibit or a poster, focusing on different aspects of propaganda and its role in information dissemination. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
This course taught students how to solve practical spatial problems using cutting edge Geographic Information Systems (GIS) tools. Students identified interdisciplinary questions amenable to spatial solutions, learned how to collect and curate geographic information, and designed real-world mapping applications. By the end of the course, students gained familiarity with multiple types of GIS systems, and selected the system that best fits their research needs. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]
2017 Fall Projects
The Once and Future Book
Everyone knows what a book is. But what do gutters, fore-edges, diapers, running heads, and pilcrows have to do with books? In this course, students will learn interesting and amusing stories behind useful, though specialized terms in the history of communication from medieval manuscripts to digital publishing. Along the way, students will learn a bit about the history of books and printing from pamphlet wars to the e-book revolution and from the anatomy of the book to the aesthetics of book making. In addition, the Buchanan Library Fellows in the class will become “exhibitionists,” learning the fine art of curation and seeking out examples in our special collections to produce their own exhibition in the Library Gallery. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship Project ]2017 Spring Projects
Helguera Colombiana Exhibition
The pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers and programas in the J. León Helguera Collection form one of Vanderbilt’s most significant special collections and one of the most important Colombian collections worldwide. The Helguera collection provides special insights into the social, political, and cultural life of Latin America through ephemeral materials that few collectors retained. Many of these resources are not held in the national archive in Colombia and many are unique to Vanderbilt. This project built on a previous fellow’s work in 19th century pamphlets to create a new digital collection of early 20th century materials with an exhibit highlighting principal themes and issues in Colombia’s more recent history. The Helguera collection of pamphlets from 1900-1935 consists of over 1,500 items and is wide ranging in scope. It includes topics such as: the Panama Canal and secession, presidential messages, government reports, literature, civil war, border disputes, mining, railroads, industry, race, indigenous issues, and homages to heroes. [ Fellowship Proposal | Delgado Fellowship | Fletcher Fellowship ]
Tracing the Movement of Populations
The project entails planning and creating 2 exhibits in the Central lobby relating to population movements in (1) North America and (2) Latin America and the Caribbean based primarily on our special collections. The Latin American component will be integrated into the research methods course taught by Covington and Robinson (History). Schultz will collaborate with available history faculty. [ Fellowship Proposal | Adelstein Fellowship | Saclarides Fellowship ]
Visualizing Cass Gilbert’s Woolworth Building
Recently purchased for the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery, the Reiman Collection contains more than 150 previously-unknown architectural drawings of the Woolworth Building by Cass Gilbert's office, including elevations, floorplans, mechanical drawings and details. These working drawings complement those in other public collections, notably at the New-York Historical Society and the Library of Congress. The Fellow will employ Scalar to develop a new multi-media study of architecture for students and researchers beyond Vanderbilt. With this platform, the Fellow will assemble resources contextualizing the Woolworth Building architectural plans recently acquired by the Fine Arts Gallery. [ Fellowship Proposal | Fellowship ]2016 Fall Projects
Augmented Reality Sandbox
With the maker-space movement in mind, this project built an augmented reality sandbox by hacking together multiple technologies. This link shows an example sandbox. The Fellow worked with the GIS Coordinator and Earth and the Environmental Science and Civil and Environmental Engineering science librarian to create a sandbox using methodology outlined by UC Davis (http://idav.ucdavis.edu/~okreylos/ResDev/SARndbox/). The fellow learned coding and project management skills in a project that built on environmental science principles. The sandbox was displayed in the Wond’ry as part of the building’s opening. [ Fellowship Proposal | Wang Fellowship ]
Helguera Colombiana Collection
The pamphlets, broadsides, newspapers and programas in the J. León Helguera Collection form one of Vanderbilt’s most significant special collections and one of the most important Colombian collections worldwide. The Helguera collection provides special insights into the social, political, and cultural life of Latin America through ephemeral materials that few collectors retained. Many of these resources are not held in the national archive in Colombia and many are unique to Vanderbilt. This project built on a previous fellow’s work in 19th century pamphlets to create a new digital collection of early 20th century materials with an exhibit highlighting principal themes and issues in Colombia’s more recent history. The Helguera collection of pamphlets from 1900-1935 consists of over 1,500 items and is wide ranging in scope. It includes topics such as: the Panama Canal and secession, presidential messages, government reports, literature, civil war, border disputes, mining, railroads, industry, race, indigenous issues, and homages to heroes. [ Fellowship Proposal | Delgadillo Fellowship ]
The United States of America vs. Alfried Krupp, et al.
Of the various trials for war crimes held in Nuremberg, Germany, at the end of the Second World War, the Krupp Trial was the tenth in a series of twelve military tribunals held under the jurisdiction of the American occupation zone. The trial lasted from December 8, 1947 until July 31, 1948. The presiding judge assigned to the Krupp Trial (United States of America vs. Alfried Krupp, et al) was Hu C. Anderson, who was then presiding judge of the Tennessee Court of Appeals. The contents of the Krupp Trial Collection (34,000 pages housed in 50 archival boxes) are the personal papers of Judge Anderson which he used at the trial and later donated to the Law School of Vanderbilt University. These papers include: trial transcripts, affidavits, certificates of translation, maps, photostats and hand written notes kept by Judge Anderson. The materials of the Krupp Trial Collection make a valuable contribution to the ongoing narrative of human rights, war crimes, abuse of power, theft of property and slave labor. With the assistance of library personnel from multiple departments, Jennifer went through all the papers, looking for discrepancies and removing old brads and staples, as she prepared to create a finding aid of Judge Anderson’s personal papers and documents related to the Krupp Trial. In fall 2016, Jenifer completed the online resource. [ Fellowship Proposal | Alexander Fellowship ]2016 Summer Projects
Creating a Vernacular Archive for the History of Medicine: Science & the Subject’s Perspective
Between 1954 and 1995, healthy American citizens volunteered to serve as “guinea pigs” in medical experiments at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Since 2010, MHS Professor Laura Stark has collected more than 100 oral histories, as well as photographs, letters, diaries, and other memorabilia of the period, from the former “normal control” research subjects; the NIH scientists who experimented with them; and the staff members of the organizations that coordinated the moves of their parishioners, students, beneficiaries, and wards to the Clinical Center. These historical materials: 1. document the experiences and worldviews of research participants, 2. illuminate the broader context of clinical medicine, and 3. demonstrate the connections of the field of medicine to religion, higher education, organized labor, and the judicial system in postwar America. Over the course of three semesters, Jenifer Dodd made the materials discoverable in a digital repository, produced a website to orient users to the materials, served as a data-sharing liaison with institutions outside of Vanderbilt, and completed pilot network analysis of the material. [ Fellowship | Dodd Fellowship ]
Mapping Access
This dean's fellowship drew upon geospatial data, participatory research, urban cartography, and new mobile technologies to map sites and strategies for accessibility on the Vanderbilt campus. The premise of this project was that mapping the accessibility of the Vanderbilt campus environment can both provide necessary information for navigating between buildings and can also provide knowledge and insight into the concept and practice of accessibility more generally. According to the late-twentieth century universal design movement, features of the built environment that benefit disabled users also benefit non-disabled users. For instance, curb cuts designed to enable wheelchair users to access streets and sidewalks also enable bicyclists and people pushing carts or strollers to navigate these spaces. Universal design goes beyond the narrow approach of accessibility compliance offered by laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act to capture a broader range of built forms that enhance the experience of built environments for all users. [ Fellowship Proposal | Eidelman Fellowship ]2016 Spring Projects
The United States of America vs. Alfried Krupp, et al.
Of the various trials for war crimes held in Nuremberg, Germany at the end of the Second World War, the Krupp Trial was the tenth in a series of twelve military tribunals held under the jurisdiction of the American occupation zone. The trial lasted from December 8, 1947 until July 31, 1948. The presiding judge assigned to the Krupp Trial (United States of America vs. Alfried Krupp, et al) was Hu C. Anderson, who was then presiding judge of the Tennessee Court of Appeals. The contents of the Krupp Trial Collection (34,000 pages housed in 50 archival boxes) are the personal papers of Judge Anderson which he used at the trial and later donated to the Law School of Vanderbilt University. The materials of the Krupp Trial Collection will make a valuable contribution to the ongoing narrative of human rights, war crimes, abuse of power, theft of property and slave labor. With the assistance of library personnel from multiple departments, Jennifer will prepare an EAD finding aid of Judge Anderson’s personal papers and documents related to the Krupp Trial. [ Alexander Fellowship ]
Linked Data from the Medieval Middle East
The project significantly enhanced the data of Syriaca.org by creating new datasets and tools using Linked Open Data. We created a dataset in RDF, set up a Stardog database to hold and query it, shared our data with partner projects, and even created ways to visualize the data. This project made scholarly information freely available and greatly enhanced the ability of scholars to make new connections between historical datasets. [ Ayris Fellowship ]
Creating a Vernacular Archive for the History of Medicine: Science & the Subject’s Perspective
Between 1954 and 1995, healthy American citizens volunteered to serve as “guinea pigs” in medical experiments at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Since 2010, MHS Professor Laura Stark has collected more than 100 oral histories, as well as photographs, letters, diaries, and other memorabilia of the period, from the former “normal control” research subjects; the NIH scientists who experimented with them; and the staff members of the organizations that coordinated the moves of their parishioners, students, beneficiaries, and wards to the Clinical Center. These historical materials: 1. document the experiences and worldviews of research participants, 2. illuminate the broader context of clinical medicine, and 3. demonstrate the connections of the field of medicine to religion, higher education, organized labor, and the judicial system in postwar America. Over the course of two semesters, Jenifer will help make the materials discoverable in a digital repository, produce a website to orient users to the materials, serve as a data-sharing liaison with institutions outside of Vanderbilt, and complete pilot network analysis of the material. [ Dodd Fellowship ]
Qualitative Analysis of Research Practices in Religion
Ithaka S+R has proposed a multi-institutional research project to identify best practices for library support for faculty in religious studies/theology. The question they pose: “What resources and services do your faculty members need to be successful in their teaching and research?” The fellow will conduct a project for faculty in religious studies. The fellow will work with the librarians on the team, to conduct the research interviews during the spring 2016 semester. The expected protocol will be to interview a target number of faculty over the course of several weeks in February. Preparation research before each faculty interview, analysis and reporting for each interview, according to protocols Ithaka S+R will establish. [ Kohut Fellowship ]
Manuel Zapata Olivella Collection: The Ethnographic Collection
Manuel Zapata Olivella (1920-2004) was a noted Colombian anthropologist, folklorist, physician, playwright and novelist. Vanderbilt’s Special Collections houses his personal papers that consist of over one hundred fifty boxes of manuscripts, correspondence, publications, tapes, interviews, scrapbooks, and photographs. His ethnographic collection (Grupo etnográfico) consists of audio and written transcripts of interviews from a wide range of ethnic groups, including many who were marginalized and from remote areas. Interviews focused on health, traditional medicine, healers, plants and food ways, witchcraft, religious traditions, fiestas, marriage and death rituals, music, folk tales, and magic. The fellow will create a small online exhibit of selected ethnographies and write corresponding essays that trace Colombia’s regional and ethnic differences and underscore the impact this has had on contemporary Colombia. [ Maranahão Fellowship | Wright Fellowship ]
Mapping Access
This dean's fellowship draws upon geospatial data, participatory research, urban cartography, and new mobile technologies to map sites and strategies for accessibility on the Vanderbilt campus. The premise of this project is that mapping the accessibility of the Vanderbilt campus environment can both provide necessary information for navigating between buildings and can also provide knowledge and insight into the concept and practice of accessibility more generally. According to the late-twentieth century universal design movement, features of the built environment that benefit disabled users also benefit non-disabled users. For instance, curb cuts designed to enable wheelchair users to access streets and sidewalks also enable bicyclists and people pushing carts or strollers to navigate these spaces. Universal design goes beyond the narrow approach of accessibility compliance offered by laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act to capture a broader range of built forms that enhance the experience of built environments for all users. [ Samples Fellowship ]
Wisdom Digitized, Wisdom Multiplied
The goal of this project is to develop and test an application that will allow older adults, and other communities in local and far-flung locations typically marginalized by the digital divide, to use their telephones to listen to, interact with, and contribute to our Voices from Our America (VFOA) and Wisdom of the Elders (WOE) digital archives. Our aim is to provide a tool via which individuals and communities without Internet access can still be part of the digital revolution, increasing the public’s access to and engagement with materials generated by and housed at Vanderbilt Libraries. [ Stevenson Fellowship | Webb Fellowship ]
2015 Fall Projects
Folding, Printing, Binding, Cutting: Contemporary Artist’s Books Project
From southern presses in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama to those in the West and Northeast, the 500+ artist’s books in Special Collections represent diverse traditions in book objects. The goal of this project was to create a visual representation of the context for the book’s creation and a website layering the network analysis of this collection with a map of the artists’ presses together with selected collection images and video. Haley digitized the remaining artists’ books, following archival standards, to create an Omeka website including a network analysis of the collection, selected images of books, and a map of book artists’ studios, and schools. [ Brown Fellowship | Exhibition | Graph Gist ]
Creating a Vernacular Archive for the History of Medicine: Science & the Subject’s Perspective
Between 1954 and 1995, healthy American citizens volunteered to serve as “guinea pigs” in medical experiments at the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Since 2010, MHS Professor Laura Stark has collected more than 100 oral histories, as well as photographs, letters, diaries, and other memorabilia of the period, from the former “normal control” research subjects; the NIH scientists who experimented with them; and the staff members of the organizations that coordinated the moves of their parishioners, students, beneficiaries, and wards to the Clinical Center. These historical materials: 1. document the experiences and worldviews of research participants, 2. illuminate the broader context of clinical medicine, and 3. demonstrate the connections of the field of medicine to religion, higher education, organized labor, and the judicial system in postwar America. Over the course of two semesters, Jenifer will help make the materials discoverable in a digital repository, produce a website to orient users to the materials, serve as a data-sharing liaison with institutions outside of Vanderbilt, and complete pilot network analysis of the material. [ Dodd Fellowship | Exhibit ]
Honoring the Life of Composer Alfred H. Bartles
Alfred H. Bartles (1930-2006) was a composer, arranger, cellist, and jazz pianist who had important ties to Nashville and the Blair School of Music. He belonged to the first generation of cross-over musicians who felt equally at home in both classical and jazz disciplines. In December of 2015, near what would have been his 80th birthday, the Wilson Music Library in collaboration with the Blair School of Music hosted a memorial concert to celebrate his life and unveil the Alfred H. Bartles Papers. Brian organized the concert, helped to create a finding aid for the papers and created an Omeka web resource of materials and information to further expose this collection to the public. [ Entwistle Fellowship | Exhibition | Finding Aid | Event ]2015 Summer Projects
19th Century Broadsides in the Helguera Colombian Collection
Building on work conducted by Gloria Perez, Emma Banks reviewed Vanderbilt's rare collection of 19th-century Colombian broadsides that comprise a portion of the Helguera Collection of Colombiana to select the most important documents to be incorporated into the database. She researched their context and prepared an online exhibit with accompanying essays. The broadsides together with the pamphlets, newspapers and programas, form one of Vanderbilt’s most significant special collections and one of the most important Colombian collections worldwide. [ Banks Fellowship | Collection ]
Bioimages: a Semantic Web Resource
The Bioimages database and website is a unique resource created by Vanderbilt professor Steve Baskauf. It consists of a collection of high quality images that help students learn about plants, ecoregions and ecodiversity. In addition to collecting multiple images of over three thousand individual plants and trees representing over one thousand taxa, the data is coded in RDF, the semantic web metadata standard. Until now, the current website was not been able to take advantage of this rich metadata as there have not been tools or resources available to create linked data queries or interfaces. The potential, however, to create an enriched user interface using the semantic web enabled open source linked data management system, Callimachus, was great, given the quality of the metadata encoding. Sean worked with faculty and staff to import and explore the Bioimages dataset in Callimachus. He helped construct meaningful queries of the data using the SPARQL query language and helped develop a user interface for the Biomages dataset. [ King Fellowship | Bioimages at Vanderbilt ]Interactive Research Tutorials in the Law library
Since the roll out of our new library website in 2013, our LibGuides have had an exponential increase in exposure. This project was designed to increase the value of our LibGuides to our patrons by providing a pool of interactive tutorials to help patrons learn how to access and navigate library resources. The Vanderbilt Transnational Law Journal is edited by students who must write an article during their second year of Law School. We also have an International Law Practice Lab and study abroad programs in Venice and Brazil. This project provides those end users with high quality interactive tutorials to help them learn, just-in-time, how to use VU Library resources to research foreign & international law. Cecily worked closely with librarians on creating a series of polished interactive tutorials which may be copied for inclusion on LibGuides created by any VU LibGuide creator. [ Larison Fellowship ]
Responsive Web Design for the Revised Common Lectionary Website
The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) website is the most heavily used online resource in the Vanderbilt Library system. With over 100,000 unique visits from over 180 countries each month, mobile use has grown to one-third of the total. Based upon a user survey and independent user responses, development of a new delivery method using responsive web design is needed for ongoing technological relevance. Lian developed such a model by examining RCL analytics, researching best practices, and proposing an implementation plan. The plan included mockups of what the site would look like at a variety of display sizes, from a large desktop screen to a small mobile phone display. [ Liu Fellowship ]2015 Spring Projects
The Letters of Flannery O’Connor: A Social Network Analysis
The novelist Flannery O’Connor was a prolific correspondent, especially after an illness forced her to retire to her family farm in Georgia. Many of her letters were published in the seminal collection The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor. These letters, published in 1979, allowed scholars a glimpse into O’Connor’s keen intellect, sense of humor and thoughts on subjects ranging from the craft of writing fiction to theology. They also illustrated the vast network of correspondents O’Connor maintained. The Vanderbilt Special Collections houses a small but significant group of letters written by Flannery O’Connor to Brainard and Frances Neel Cheney. Molly tracked metadata from the letters in the Vanderbilt collection as well as letters in other university archives to better examine and analyze O’Connor’s intellectual life in letters through a visualization using using a Neo4J GraphGist for presentation of the social network graph. [ Lasagna Fellowship | Graph Gist ]
Map Digitization Project
The Robert A. McGaw Tennessee Map Collection was presented in 1988 to the Vanderbilt University Special Collections Library in honor of long-time administrator and history enthusiast, Robert A. McGaw. The collection consists of 110 maps of Tennessee created between 1760 and 1900. The breadth of this collection allows one to follow the progression of how Tennessee was portrayed through the 18th and 19th centuries. This project entailed digitizing and georeferencing the maps to look at the ways in which the perceptions of Tennessee have changed since 1790. In particular, the focus was on the historical, environmental, and cartographic changes seen with the Cumberland River. Gabriela used the maps to create a digital exhibit for the library and explored how mapping errors affected the way goods were brought into the area in Tennessee’s early days of statehood. [ Oré Fellowship ]
Minecraft Project
Minecraft is among the best-selling video games of all time. Players of the game use a limited collection of blocks to build a wide array of structures, from palaces to libraries. Recently, scientific organizations such as the Danish Geodata Agency, and the British Geological Survey have recreated geologically accurate maps in Minecraft. The goal is to engage new generations of users with geological data using this new medium. Anjelica created a Minecraft “world” of the geological aspects of the Central Library. The world was created by taking existing geographic information system information about Vanderbilt’s campus and uploading it to a Minecraft server. The game permits students, faculty, and staff to explore the distinctive features of the Campus Library. A 3D model of the virtual library was displayed in a library exhibition. [ Saulsberry Fellowship ]
Wish You Were Here: Enrico Caruso Postcard Project
Renowned Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) toured widely between 1895 and 1920, visiting exotic locales around the world. On these and other trips, Caruso had a habit of sending himself postcards that reflect the local attractions as well as decorative illustrations of the time. His postcard collection, now part of Vanderbilt University’s Special Collections, is part of a group of Caruso materials acquired by the late Francis Robinson, a Vanderbilt graduate, assistant manager of the Metropolitan Opera and biographer of the tenor. Danielle wrote metadata for all 660 postcards, curating the collection by themes, and created a website connecting the postcards to Caruso’s life and to the performances he gave at the identified locations. [ Beaujon Fellowship ]2014 Fall Projects
Historical Tour of the University
In 2013, the Library began a strategic project to use GPS software and primary source materials to create an interactive historical tour of the Vanderbilt campus. The current self-guided tour contains information and visuals about twenty historic buildings and sites on campus. Corey added an audio component that enriches the historical interpretation and makes the tour accessible to people with visual impairments. Campus administrators and students read scripts with historical information prepared by Corey who then added the audio features to the tour. [ Bowen Fellowship | VU Historical Tour ]
Manuel Zapata Olivella Collections Correspondence
Manuel Zapata Olivella (1920-2004) was known throughout Latin America as the “Dean of Black Literature” and is considered one of the 20th century’s most important Afro-Hispanic narrators. He was also a noted Colombian anthropologist, folklorist, physician, playwright and novelist; his work to document and preserve the history and culture of Afro-Colombia through oral history, television, radio, and literature is legendary. Vanderbilt’s Special Collections houses his personal papers that consist of over one hundred fifty boxes of manuscripts, correspondence, publications, tapes, interviews, scrapbooks, and photographs. Gretchen and Fernanda worked together to select correspondence in the collection which provided a unique window on the history and society of Colombia and on people of African descent in the Americas as a whole. Essays by Gretchen Selcke focused on the writing of Changó and Zapata Olivella’s literary relationships. Fernanda Bretones Lane discussed Afro-Colombian identity and the anthropolgist’s role in promoting black culture through the Congresses of Black Culture in the Americas. [ Bretones Fellowship | Selcke Fellowship ]
Recording History as It Happened: The Vanderbilt IMPACT Symposium
The IMPACT Symposium was established 50 years ago to bring leaders and intellectuals from around the world to Vanderbilt University to encourage discussion on current issues affecting our world. The approximately 200 speakers have included such luminaries as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, Barry Goldwater and George Wallace, Edward Kennedy and George McGovern, Allen Ginsberg and William F. Buckley, as well as such leaders as Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, Zbigniew Brzesinski and Margaret Thatcher. Akailah selected items from the first decade of the program, wrote biographical summaries of the presenters and placed each year’s topic in an historical context. She worked with library staff to create an online resource to share these materials. [ Jenkins Fellowship ]
Prepare to Practice
The Alyne Queener Massey Law Library, in conjunction with the Law School’s Career Services department, will host its second annual Prepare to Practice series during the spring 2015 semester. The week-long series of lectures and workshops teach advanced skills and concepts to further prepare law students beyond the school’s curriculum to enter the professional world. The inaugural series will be held March 24-28, 2014 and is focused on professionalism, ethics, and practical legal research skills. In preparation for the 2015 Prepare to Practice series, Ashely worked with library staff to develop a theme for 2015 and create strategic marketing initiative that captured the spirit of the series; analyzed the advertising methods used in 2014 to find better methods of reaching out to the law school student body; created a web page for informational and archival purposes; and developed sessions around unique topics and areas of interest that did not duplicate the law school curriculum or other VLS-sponsored programs. [ Shan Fellowship ]
Vanderbilt Libraries Special Collections Topics in Wikipedia
Expanding on the edit-a-thon conducted at the library in 2013, Nicolette worked with her colleagues in the graduate school to host an edit-a-thon on global topics. She identified relevant primary and secondary materials in special collections and worked with staff to digitize images to supplement written articles. Nicolette organized and supervised the edit-a-thon and held informal help sessions for participants. [ Kostiw Fellowship | Press ]2013 Projects
Helguera Colombian Collection
The Colombian Helguera Collection contains rare broadsides, pamphlets, and programas which are of great value to scholars engaged in 19th-century Latin American history worldwide. Broadsides were often posted in public places to describe upcoming events from circuses to meetings or serve as political diatribes about current leaders. Gloria selected pamphlets and programas to be prioritized for digitization and worked with library staff to design an online exhibition of images and text that reflects the central problems of 19th-century Colombia: a weak economy, lack of education, conflicts between state and religion, and poor transportation. She wrote descriptions of the materials to be included in the digital collection and in the online exhibition. [ Perez Fellowship ]
Historical Tour of the University
This goal of this project was to create a historic tour of the campus which would offer self-guided tours of some of the historic buildings and some of the events in locations where they happened. Robert worked with the university architect, archives, historians, etc. to create/compile information about points of interest accessible by tablet/mobile device via embedded QR codes. He selected images from the University Photographic Archives and verified information from Campus Planning records and the University Archives. Powered by GPS technology, the tour offers accurate turn-by-turn directions to historic attractions, monuments and interesting sights as well as some of the hidden gems on campus like the Tomb of the Three Bishops; as if you had brought along a Vanderbilt tour guide. [ Steiner Fellowship ]
Illustrated Editions of Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) by Charles Baudelaire
The W. T. Bandy Center for Baudelaire and Modern French Studies is a world renowned library collection dedicated to the study of the 19th century French poet, Charles Baudelaire. Kevin became familiar with the work of Charles Baudelaire, the comprehensive collection of the library, and the importance of Livre d'Artiste and artist's books. He identified and compiled a comprehensive annotated bibliography for the illustrated editions of Les Fleurs du Mal, researching the editions' artists and illustrators, and photographing and scanning the selected examples for each edition for the web presence. This online exhibition and bibliography is useful to national and international scholars. [ Milewski Fellowship ]
Vanderbilt Libraries Special Collections Topics in Wikipedia
Wikipedia, the open source online encyclopedia, has become a major source of factual information during the past decade. A Wikipedia edit-a-thon brings together students, librarians, faculty members, and members of the Wikipedia community at large to develop articles belonging to a certain shared topic. Yun identified articles related to our special collections that did not yet exist or needed improvement in Wikipedia, identified relevant primary and secondary source materials in Special Collections, worked with curators to digitize images to supplement written articles, coordinated with Wikipedia administrators, and advertised the edit-a-thons to the Vanderbilt community. [ Cha Fellowship | Article ]
Vanderbilt Libraries Website Visual Communications
The Library launched a renovated website in July 2013 with consistent design and infrastructure, and improved access to library services and resources. Taylor contributed to strategy development for promoting the library's resources, services, and events through its new online presence. She created best practices for image selection and targeted publicity materials to an array of audiences, creating a schedule of items to publish on the website, identifying sources of information of interest to students, faculty, and the community, and using web tools and analytics to develop metrics, measure goals, monitor traffic, and report results. [ Bryant Fellowship ]
Vanderbilt Television News Archive: Online Exhibit of Presidential Speeches
The Vanderbilt Television News Archive is the most comprehensive collection of recordings of the national news broadcasts. The recordings include specials that are valuable to the historical record but are not widely known. Brielle selected from the Archives collection non-copyrightable presidential speeches for an online exhibit. She worked with digital projects team members to design and develop the online exhibit, developed descriptions of materials included, worked with Vanderbilt Television News Archive staff to prepare materials for the web. [ Harbin Fellowship ]2012 Spring Project