lib410-spring2023 / group-1

Haunted Locations in Oregon

This digital collection consists of data objects that document reportedly haunted locations in Oregon. It was created as a final project for the Humanities Research Data Management class (LIB410) taught by Kate Thornhill at the University of Oregon in 2023 Spring term.

Course Description

The Humanities Research Data Management class, sometimes referred to as Humanities Data Management, provided students the theory and practical experience to design a humanities data collection. The course taught students how to collect, process, archive, and publish the data which was retrieved from GLAMs (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums). Students created a thematical digital collection acting in the capacity as researchers. Methodologies developed in class focused on technical, legal, ethical, and social aspects of curating the collection. Experience was gained by finding, assessing, organizing, and reformatting data; creating and remediating descriptive metadata; evaluating and determining copyright and licensing; writing a data management plan using the standards set by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and sharing thematic research digital collections using GitHub and CollectionBuilder, an open-source platform.

Members of the group project

Emily Colson - Project Manager

Jonathan Nelson - Collection Development Manager

Matt Skeels - Metadata Manager

Olivia Wilkonson - Object Preservation Manager

Collection description and website address

This digital collection is a survey of reportedly haunted locations in Oregon, mostly consisting of photographs of historic buildings and cemeteries. The collection consists of 21 images taken from 1855 to 1977 in several regions of Oregon, including the Willamette Valley, the coast, and Southern Oregon. Locations were designated haunted by personal recollection of folk legends as well as by other Oregonians. Objects were collected through a combination of national and state repositories. The collection offers a different look at a survey of historical places in Oregon by taking into account Oregon’s long history of superstition and folk legends.

Our CollectionBuilder repository URL: https://lib410-spring2023.github.io/group-1/

Data Management Plan

The group's Data Management Plan (DMP) documents their data curation methodology, technical expertise and roles, file standards and formatting, privacy and security concerns, and data preservation and retention. Two appendices are included: Appendix A is the Metadata Application Profile guidelines, and Appendix B is our tongue-in-cheek research into an apparation in one of our data objects. Finally, a works cited section includes our references.

The DMP can be accessed at this URL: https://lib410-spring2023.github.io/group-1/dmp.html

Lyrics

"Well the highway is alive tonight

But nobody's kidding nobody about where it goes

I'm sitting down here in the campfire light

With the ghost of old Tom Joad"

-Bruce Springsteen