The Complete Letters of Willa Cather: Metadata and Dialogue

Margaret Rieckman Author

04/07/2021 Added

27 Plays

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A presentation about my work in the Willa Cather Archival image gallery and the subsequent, valuable conversations.

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[00:00:02.310]Hello, my
[00:00:02.760]Name is Maggie Rickman and this is my UCARE project for the academic year 2020
[00:00:07.440]to 2021.
[00:00:09.150]I'm a junior English and anthropology double major with minors in film studies
[00:00:13.080]and digital humanities from clay center, Nebraska at UNL.
[00:00:16.680]I'm a part of Anthrogroup, the DailyER, Laurus,
[00:00:19.290]the English student advisory board and the writing center.
[00:00:22.740]My studies and other involvements allow me to interact with humanities topics
[00:00:26.040]from several perspectives making for a holistic comprehension of my fields.
[00:00:30.540]Additionally,
[00:00:31.080]the opportunity to do UCARE has given me the opportunity to carry out research in the Willa
[00:00:34.050]Cather archive and has combined my values of accessibility context and visual
[00:00:39.030]incorporation into multidisciplinary and multicultural spaces.
[00:00:43.320]I have been working on my projects since September 2020,
[00:00:46.320]and I hope to continue into my senior year after returning from my study abroad
[00:00:50.040]experience in the fall.
[00:00:52.320]My work in the Willa Cather archive is specialized in image gallery due to
[00:00:55.980]the circumstances of the pandemic and the necessity to work remotely.
[00:00:59.580]The research is part of the larger project titled The Complete Letters of Willa
[00:01:03.180]Cather,
[00:01:03.840]which aims to further the progress of the ongoing digital and scholarly
[00:01:06.960]collection of previously inaccessible correspondence,
[00:01:09.840]complementary bio annotations, and the image gallery.
[00:01:13.380]This project digitally brings together thousands of documents scattered in
[00:01:16.740]nearly 100 repositories around the world and has been possible through
[00:01:20.250]cooperation of libraries, foundations,
[00:01:22.650]and collections across the U.S. with the letters of you, of Willa Catherine,
[00:01:26.500]previously,
[00:01:26.970]unknown to readers and scholars is revealed as she is now visible and
[00:01:30.720]unpublished more personal language. The backdrop of family, friendship,
[00:01:34.770]partnership,
[00:01:35.310]and other written interactions of her life lend more understandings of her,
[00:01:38.430]her published works and therefore support the wide scholarships surrounding
[00:01:41.610]them.
[00:01:43.500]The image
[00:01:43.920]Gallery specifically consists of photographs with various collections,
[00:01:47.310]including those in the national Willa Cather foundation,
[00:01:49.920]historical societies, the archive and family albums.
[00:01:53.430]There are scans of black and white photographs, backs of photographs, postcards,
[00:01:57.480]artwork, et. cetera,
[00:01:59.280]in accordance with the established goals of The Complete Letters of Willa
[00:02:02.280]Cather Project,
[00:02:03.150]I have collaborated with the team and in our frequent zoom meetings,
[00:02:06.810]We ask and answer questions, discuss progress, and support each other's work.
[00:02:15.110]The specific goals of the image gallery work are to increase accessibility
[00:02:18.620]through consistent labeling, coherent organization, and captions that offer
[00:02:22.640]digestible context for various readers.
[00:02:25.010]Therefore viewers with limited knowledge of Willa Cather's world,
[00:02:28.160]or those with visual impairments, for example,
[00:02:30.110]can have access to descriptions that clear the air regarding subject location
[00:02:34.010]and other aspects of identification.
[00:02:37.730]My methodology includes utilizing Google documents and spreadsheets to track my
[00:02:41.420]work as well as mark questions or issues that arise.
[00:02:44.570]The image gallery editing itself takes place in Luna, an online application
[00:02:48.230]connected to the image database through categories like subject and direct
[00:02:52.100]object identifiers,
[00:02:53.420]which are the numbers attached to the photographs. So far in my research,
[00:02:58.040]I edited the entirety of the subject line so that each person,
[00:03:02.830]and there are hundreds can be found in the same place through searches.
[00:03:06.310]This process involves reordering how the individual is listed,
[00:03:09.250]including information such as birth dates, death dates, nicknames,
[00:03:12.250]and maiden names.
[00:03:13.930]I have also had to identify unknown subjects by referencing the existing bio
[00:03:18.910]annotations, ancestry websites, and team members who are catheter scholars.
[00:03:25.120]As for the descriptions,
[00:03:26.800]I found that the main issues are ambiguity,
[00:03:31.300]vagueness, and accuracies.
[00:03:33.580]So far I described over 230 photographs,
[00:03:37.150]which includes writing up and revising three to four sentence passages that
[00:03:41.620]contextualize the visual aspects of the images.
[00:03:44.440]And majority of those photos are portraits landscapes, event photographs,
[00:03:48.400]et cetera.
[00:03:50.860]An unexpected result of the project is the prompting of conversations about
[00:03:55.210]social and political climates regarding race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality,
[00:03:59.440]and the oppressive systems surrounding the vulnerable identities and the groups.
[00:04:02.890]For example, I shared photos during meetings that feature nameless
[00:04:06.520]American Indians, blackface,
[00:04:07.990]and other controversial topics through the contemporary lens.
[00:04:11.260]I've also asked questions concerning how I name vulnerable groups,
[00:04:14.860]what aspects of the photograph to address and how to categorize iconography
[00:04:18.820]historically harmful for groups. In the end, we question,
[00:04:22.360]how much can we leave up to the reader?
[00:04:25.270]The space of our meetings does not have a hierarchical model, though
[00:04:28.840]Cather experts and my advisors, which are my superiors, are present.
[00:04:33.550]We are able to talk through issues together,
[00:04:35.800]combining our perspectives to gauge
[00:04:38.620]what would be the best approach for online readers.
[00:04:41.230]The environment of our project allows me to apply conceptual ideas
[00:04:44.170]I've learned in my coursework to contribute to a productive dialogue,
[00:04:48.370]as well as take away the insights of others,
[00:04:50.260]whether from these types of discussions or tangents,
[00:04:52.270]I can genuinely say that I learn something new every day. In addition,
[00:04:55.630]there is a community outside of work as just last Friday,
[00:04:59.770]I was able to attend most of Melissa J. Homestead's,
[00:05:02.560]who is one of the members of our team, book release
[00:05:06.880]about, um, the creative partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis
[00:05:11.530]And it's amazing that, um,
[00:05:13.990]I get to have insights into her work,
[00:05:17.110]both in the Willa Cather archive and her personal work with writing this book.
[00:05:23.110]This experience has been valuable for my current education and future academic
[00:05:26.410]goals. And I'm confident that continuing my involvement will lead to even more
[00:05:29.950]enriching interactions with my team, the image gallery and Cather's texts.
[00:05:34.150]I hope that I will be able to be trained on the encoding process and other
[00:05:37.630]aspects of the project
[00:05:38.950]as we move from online back to in-person procedure in the coming months.
[00:05:42.730]This is a multifaceted study, and it is gratifying to know that my work is making
[00:05:46.180]it more accessible for audiences to consume and pursue projects of their own
[00:05:50.050]relating to Cather. After I graduate next spring and continue onto
[00:05:54.850]grads graduate school and or education opportunities such as Fulbright,
[00:05:59.000]I hope to incorporate digital humanities discourse into my curriculums to
[00:06:03.200]enhance my and other's learning. Projects
[00:06:05.600]like the complete letters of Willa Cather opened up educational doors that
[00:06:09.590]provide context and multiple forms, sending a message that a photo,
[00:06:13.010]cannot speak a thousand words without knowing who captured it and why,
[00:06:16.550]what they included and excluded, and the identities of the subjects. Similarly,
[00:06:21.350]even though letters can speak a thousand words
[00:06:23.870]literally, they still need the context in their own right.
[00:06:31.300]And I want to send a big, big, big thank you to my advisors, Andy jewel,
[00:06:35.710]and Emily Rau for their guidance and support my colleagues, Shea, Paul,
[00:06:39.580]and Jamison for the opportunity to learn outside of my work,
[00:06:42.370]Melissa Homestead and Kari for their endless Cather knowledge, and lastly,
[00:06:46.810]the UCARE program for the opportunity in research in the humanities.
[00:06:51.070]I owe a lot to you guys for granting me this continued opportunity and
[00:06:54.460]humanities research and recognizing that we have
[00:06:58.750]viable questions and subsequent conversations to pursue.
[00:07:02.560]Thank you.

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The Complete Letters of Willa Cather: Metadata and Dialogue

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