Well, this has been a productive week! Since my last post, I’ve written all six Clio entries for my “proof of concept” tour. However, I did wind up changing the topics around a little, for various reasons. I decided that rather than just doing a more “cemetery-centric” selection of topics, the “proof of concept” would be better served by making sure a range of types of Clio entries I have in mind would be covered. Here are the topics I went with and their types:
Segregation - this is a cemetery-focused entry, but has both macro and micro context on the topic.
“Pauper” Burials - since the Sunland topic will be a big component of the grant, it will need more time devoted to it. This particular entry type features macro and micro context along with the stories of the deaths and burials of four individuals in a condensed format.
Cemetery History - this is a cemetery-focused entry as well, but I made sure to draw in some bigger-picture topics of Orlando history so it will be more interesting to the general public and connect to the other entries.
Joseph Bumby - this is a singular biographical type entry, which there will likely be a lot of in the finished tour. Initially, I had planned to make this entry about the original Greenwood Cemetery entrance and Orlando street names, but I wanted to make sure that I featured a biographical entry to represent the broad range of writing for the full tour.
“Johnny Reb” - At first, I thought there wouldn’t be enough information for two full entries on the Confederate AND Union monuments, but my research proved me wrong! While there is less information on the Union monument available, I found PLENTIFUL sources on the Confederate monument, also known by locals as “Johnny Reb.” This entry was a bit of a challenge to write as most of the sources available were tinged with bias. I tried to stay as neutral as possible since this monument has been such a hot-button issue.
The Sperry Fountain - This is an object-centered entry, of which there will probably be a fair amount in the full tour. The fountain's namesake, Ezra Frank Sperry, is on the list for a biographical entry, so I kept that in mind while writing this piece to ensure they will connect well without too much redundancy.
One of the things I tried to do with this tour was to make sure that several threads ran through multiple entries in a way that will help the tour consumer feel like they are experts. I hope that this method will inspire some confidence in the over 90% of respondents to my survey that said they didn’t know a lot about Orlando’s history. For example, certain names, locations, and concepts appear in several entries, such as Carey Hand, Mahlon Gore, or Lake Eola. None of the information is duplicated, rather, new information is added so visitors can build on their knowledge in a piecemeal way. Research has proven that most people learn best with “bite-sized” chunks of information, based on cognitive load theory, so I hope that providing content in this format, rather than in overwhelming blocks of data will foster true learning for the Orlando public (Ferster 2012, 29).
Another task I was able to accomplish this week was to get my feet wet (quite literally given how rainy it’s been!) by taking high-resolution photographs of the physical spaces discussed in the “proof of concept” entries. Many of these locations had been photographed previously, but given the nature of copyrights, I thought it would be best for my purposes to take my own images so that there would be no issues over permissions.
I do still have a few images that I’m hoping to get at least an email confirmation of permission for usage, especially for images shared online by the Bumby family, however, since these images were shared in a public setting and I’ve made sure to credit them fully in my citation, I think it should be safe. However, I would hate for there to be any problems down the line for the City of Orlando if someone was unhappy with the use of their images in the tour. That’s something that will likely have to pass through the City’s lawyers at some point, but per my experience with the UCF VLP, which always has to follow certain protocols, I’ve learned that it's better to be safe than sorry.
By next week, I hope to have the Clio entry drafts approved by my supervisor and uploaded to Clio so I can run a few test tours for feedback and make any necessary revisions before the internship showcase. Several people have offered to be my test subjects for this, and thankfully seem diverse enough demographically to ensure that I’ll have a wide range of input from the general public to assess the effectiveness of the tour.
Bibliography
Ferster, Bill. Interactive Visualization: Insight Through Inquiry. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2012.
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