I study history.

So, the website will change (and break after the upgrade) but it does exist right now as a proof of concept. It can be found here

The scope for this class is as follows:

Scope:

The Curiosity project is designed to provide scholars, students, and teachers with a way to access, explore and carry out research with a virtual copy of Charles Hindley's Curiosities of Street Literature, a collection of broadsides, "cocks", "Catchpennies," and ballads from the 18th and 19th centuries published in London in 1871. The originals were printed on single sheets and sold for a penny by urban street sellers and itinerant rural peddlers. The format goes back to the 15th century. It became the most popular form of printed matter for poor and working-class audiences in the wake of the so called "Taxes on Knowledge" imposed during the panic about popular radicalism in during and after the French Revolution. These taxes were repealed starting in the 1850s; their total elimination by late 1860s set the stage for the rise of modern tabloid newspapers in Britain. Once the tabloid press developed (The Daily Telegraph began publication in 1871), the street literature Hindley collected lost its threatening qualities and could be marketed to more upscale readers and collectors, The edition we are reproducing is separated into four "divisions" and includes a general introduction as well as introductory material for each section, a cancellation notice, and some replacement pages. This organization is based on classificatory models from 19th century natural history.

The project is displayed using the Omeka Content Management System created by the George Mason University Center for History and New Media. This content management system was chosen for maximum flexibility and extensibility. The current version of the Curiosity project is built upon version 0.9 of Omeka and exists in a proof of concept stage. The Curiosity project is currently deployed on a customized version of the Omeka system that has been reworked to include new navigation functions and the option to open a larger image for download and/or reading. Each page of the book has been scanned into archival quality tiffs and uploaded into the Omeka management system using a standard image compression algorithm.

Targeted users of the Curiosity project include:

• Teachers
• Students
• Researchers

Target Functionality:

We will attempt to replicate the navigational structures of the book using the Omeka system. To accomplish these goals, we will upgrade to the most current release of and create a plug-in that will allow us to add previous page and next page buttons. To utilize the plug-in, a new field will be added to each item. This will allow us to assign a unique identifier to each item for the plug-in to utilize in navigation functions. The project will rely on existing Dublin Core Metadata for metadata searching as well as content-specific tagging of each page to enable additional search functions.

Layout:

In order to replicate the structure and navigation of the book, we will recreate the book as a collection, uploading and creating each page as an Item in Omeka, and then assigning each division of the book as an exhibit. Utilizing CSS, the layout and display of the project will be modified to display the image on the left of the screen and either commentary on the displayed image, or the full text of the image on the right. Included at the bottom of each page will be a previous and next button, a first and last button, a link to the table of contents, as well as a link to open the full size image in a new window. If necessary, the images will be converted to from the archival tiffs to a new format using a standard compression algorithm and re-uploaded in to the Omeka system.

Time Line:

The final project will be completed and turned in on May 10, 2009. Milestone dates are as follows:

• March 15: upgrade to Omeka v. 10 or 1.0 (if available)
• March 30: images uploaded and additional field added
• April 15: plug-in coding completed
• April 30: Plug-in and system testing completed; system deployed.
• May 10: documentation and testing completed. Final project turned in.