Clayton's Project Reflections

Considering the rough road that we had this semester, I am very pleased with how this assignment has turned out.  I am certain that the success of the project is due in large part to the group that we had assembled for it.  All of the group members live in the Nashville area, so it was quite easy for us to get together to work on it.  In addition, the vast majority of what we do as DE students is online, and it is nice to have a respite from being tied to the computer to get anything done.

It made sense to divide up the responsibilities of the assignment among the group members for both the project proposal and for the implementation of the project itself.  The delegation of tasks made it easier for us to work independently, and then put the pieces together.   Admittedly, this worked much better for the project and less so on the proposal.  No matter the circumstances, it is difficult for five people to write one paper because we all have our particular styles of writing and putting the parts together does not always line up.  I believe, however, that we managed the challenge pretty well with our proposal.  The assignment of tasks for the project itself was very effective and allowed each group member to focus on one area and become a relative expert.  Although, one downside of this method is that I do not feel that I learned much about those parts that I did not work on, such as the metadata portion.

Our project certainly started off on the right foot, in that, Joon already had the images that were to comprise the digital library.  It would have taken longer to start from scratch.  Truly, throughout the project, our group seemed blessed with good fortune.  Each step went as smoothly as it could have.  The question as to which content management software platform to use and where to host the site were the only real difficulties that we faced.  Once we learned that Omeka was easy to use and provided free server space, the decision was a no-brainer.  Indeed, as the group member that uploaded the image files and such, I can say that Omeka was easy to use.  The only issue that I had with Omeka, as mentioned in our presentation, was the limited number of themes that could be used for the site.  Granted, this was likely due to the fact that we were using the free version.  There are probably more themes available to site administrators if they are willing to pay for them.

All in all, the experience was a good one.  I am glad that we were able to do a project that provided some hands-on training in digital librarianship, rather than the same-old-same-old research paper option.  Again, my stellar group contributed to the positive experience and made it all the more enjoyable.