Blog Post 7: Curation Team Planning

Group 1: UNH Library Team

We are collaborating with various professionals at the UNH Library to digitize Moran's (a former Professor and photographer) archive photos & to produce an exhibit in Virtual Reality that includes this photography.

How will we split up the teamwork? What is each person's individual role?

We will divide up the photographs evenly between people in the group. Another person can be in charge of creating the Thing Link account (only one sign in, so people will take turns using it). Four people will team up to go to the library, where some people will talk to the exhibit organizers. 

What materials are we working with?

The materials well being working with include: writing introductory text on the 360* gallery images on the digital tour, analyzing the 50 photographs the exhibit has curated, our discussion with the Library exhibit organizer, Kai, during our Tuesday meeting & the software of Thing Link to create the VR tour.

What is our process? What are the beginning steps that we’ll take?

Our process will consist of first meeting the UNH library exhibit  representative next Tuesday. Then visiting the exhibit ourselves to view the collection and get started on creating the digital tour. To do this, we’ll take a 360* image or still photos of the collection along the library’s walls. Finally, import them into the library's Thing Link & create a description for the images by adding a tag to each photo. The collection is divided into 4 different sections.

What are our goals?

Our main goal is to create a VR tour of the “This is UNH 100 Years Ago” exhibition in the library. The tour will showcase the fifty photos featured in the exhibit, as well as introductory text and our own reflections of the work. An important part of this goal is making the exhibit more accessible. By putting the exhibit online, more people will be able to view and interact with it.

How will we categorize our project based on the textbook's terminology?

Our project would be best categorized as a visual space, that is, as some sort of hybrid between a virtual museum and a virtual walk-of-history of the past of UNH. Though it includes works of art such as photography, it has history that extends its meaning past that of simply a work of art. It can best be described, then, as a contemporary photo exhibit of archival figures, places, and pieces of history.

What is the purpose of the project? How will we will present it?

The purpose of the project is as fluid as its meaning can be— the viewer of the virtual tour may tune in to UNH 100 years ago because they want to view UNH before its modern expansion, or because they want to explore old photographs without having to pay to go to a more mainstream museum. The viewer may be curious about a number of things— what was student life like? Sports? How much has the campus, majors, and classes changed? The viewer may want to learn more about the technology, or they may want to test out new their newly ordered cardboard VR headsets.

Who is the audience?

Similarly, the audience is primarily UNH students, as the exhibit is on the Diamond Library’s website, but it should be accessible to who ever is interested in it.

What materials we will need? (Previously touched upon)

The materials we are working with include digitized files of 50+ photographs, and of course, a 360 camera. We will use a standard camera as a supplement and will be using a variety of other tools such as an online application called ThinkLink. This will help us craft the presentation of the project, which (as part of the fun) is yet to be completely determined.