Michael Christie’s article, “Databases and Aboriginal Knowledge,” brings up an important point that technology has become so important in categorizing and providing people with information from databases and internet sources; however, not all cultures are exposed or a part of this collection of information using technology phenomenon. Christie discusses a few Larrakia women’s desires to preserve the knowledge of their elders through digital technology. They have concern that the children of the Larrakia community do not want to learn anything from their elders. Perhaps technology is the only way to pass down aboriginal knowledge of tradition and identity to the Larrakia youth.

It is interesting to me that those few women from the Larrakia community seemed so willing to expose their culture to technology and potentially become more involved in the technological world. But then I asked though about it how else does one store and collect information in an extremely efficient and accessible way? It makes sense to consider making a database with information for the Larrakia youth and community, but the issue is that is could take away from the methods of literacy and discourse in preserving their identity.

This article reminded me of my experience with a nomadic tribe in Tanzania. During my trip in Africa, the school group I was with ventured off into the mountains of Tanzania at 3:00 a.m. to find a tribe. Since this tribe is nomadic it is extremely difficult to locate and track their whereabouts. We picked up a civilian from a random village along the way who was our guide to find this tribe. He grew up in a village in the mountains, and when he played in the mountains of Tanzania as a child he stumbled upon this tribe. He continued to venture into the mountains and secretly learn about this tribe and their language. Not many people know about their existence or understand their culture. My guide told us he was one of the very few who understood their ways of life because he grew up interacting with them. He explained that the tribe struggles to exist because of the issues of incest and their youth dying from birth defects. He also explained how they regard marijuana as something with that provides strength and spiritual value. They hunt for all of their food and often get sick from certain diseases found in wild African animals. The culture obviously has different values to those of western values, but the idea that their tribe is slowly dwindling and has the potential to become extinct with very little knowledge of their identity is extremely unfortunate.

Aboriginal knowledge is something that should be regarded as more important and collected in certain ways. I believe that technology can provide cultures with the resources to store information about tradition and identity. I think it is unfortunate that the Larrakia women feel that they do not have much choice but to start using digital technology to preserve their culture. However, I also find it unfortunate that cultures like the nomadic tribe in Tanzania do not have resources to preserve their culture. It is difficult to say what the right thing for indigenous cultures is to do in order to pass down their knowledge, but it is a matter of if they are willing to change their processes of discourse and literacy in order to hop on to the technology train.

This week’s readings really opened my eyes to the role databases (and data) play in my day-to-day life. I didn’t know much about data management, but now that I do, I have a greater appreciation for DBMSs and back-end developers.

The idea that nearly every aspect of my technological life is recorded, classified, and then organized in a meaningful way is mind-blowing. Big data can be intimidating; creating an efficient, flexible, and secure database to handle big data is a daunting task, especially when the data is inconsistent (it always is!). How would our lives be different if databases didn’t exist?

Apple’s iCloud database ( https://help.apple.com/icloud/#/mmfc0efea4 ) is one of the most important databases in my life. Its contents include personal information (photos & videos, contacts, geotags, etc.), account information (passwords, credit cards, etc.), and backups for electronic devices and apps (iPhone, iPod, etc.). What makes iCloud so powerful – and dangerous – is that all of this information can be accessed with one user account. Also, because this database is stored remotely (in the cloud), I can access the information anywhere and on any device.

iCloud backup is one of the most compelling features of Apple’s cloud-based database system. It keeps all of your data up-to-date and secures the most recent version in their remote servers. For example, iCal data can be synced across many iCloud enabled devices. I love this feature because I can set an event with reminders on my computer and when the event rolls around I will receive notifications on my phone as well. This approach to database design is very convenient, but it definitely has it’s problems. For example, when I change the login info to one of my email accounts, the database has trouble updating the various instances of this data across all my devices. This may be the cause for the server and login error messages I receive every once and awhile.

I had to do a bit of supplementary research on databases this week. I wondered what made databases more important, or even what distinguished them, from archives. Using http://www.archivists.org/archivesmonth/whatisanarchives.pdf, I deduced that an archive contains real sources of information, where a database shows you where you may go to find the information you may require. Of course, data bases are indispensable resources of history. According to http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit04/primer04_01.phtml a database can be anything from a phone book to US Census Data. They can even be sources of inspiration: in “The World According to Garb” by John Irving, Garp, a writer, gets inspiration for his next book by looking through the White Pages in the phone book. I feel that the Slave Voyages Database might be important in the same way: it is impactful to see the sheer number of names and cases, and even the countries of origin compared to the ports where they disembarked, but the database does not give us the humanizing aspect: the faces behind the names that tell a story. The same goes for the example in the XTF database article, which gives the names of books, authors, publishing cities, but does not necessarily illuminate the reader to what the book may be about.

A database is  the bones of a story, a bare outline that must be fleshed out. The Quantifying Kissinger blog is much more effective in telling the story of Kissinger’s years in government, using audio recordings and “meeting memorabilia” to show not only the dates of the meetings but to tell a tale of a man’s personality in government. On the contrary to the databases mentioned above, this Kissinger database logs real information, instead of simply being a list of titles.

This also makes me think of the US Census Data, which collects information about people like names, race, income, etc. This data is used to “to determine the distribution of Congressional seats to states, to define legislature districts, school district assignment areas and other important functional areas of government, make decisions about what community services to provide” etc ( according to http://www.census.gov/aboutus/). This is another example of a data base being used as a baseline to decide what to do, the actual Census data must be interpreted and expanded upon to achieve the goals of the Census (name and exonomic standing alone will not do much, it is much more meaningful when as many aspects of people’s lives as possible are outlined). Or, going back to my original example, a database can mean more when the reader is able to fill in those cracks for themselves.

This week, I learned about databases by reading about that chapter in Stephen Ramsay’s A Companion to Digital Humanities. In short, a database is like a computerized filing system. As mentioned in the reading, the purpose of a database is to store information about a particular domain or subject. The reading gave us an example of a database that contains information about American novels. A table was given as an example of a database design that included a list of the author’s name, year of birth, year of death, title of the book, publication year, publisher, etc. This example reminded me of databases that hospitals have to use in order to speculate patients and their past medical history.

In my previous part-time job, I worked as a blood donor recruiter for the UCLA Blood & Platelet Center. The UCLA Ronald Reagan Hospital would contact us daily letting us know which blood type they were in need of, and it was my job to make sure we meet that demand by calling, emailing, or going out on blood drives to recruit new donors. I was trained to use the MediTech system which was the hospital’s database of all the patients’ information. One of my responsibilities were to make sure that the donors were indeed eligible to donate. First, I would search the donor’s name in the database. When I do this, I’m able to see the donor’s basic information such as birth date, gender, contact number, address, etc. In addition, I can view the donor’s blood type, the last time the donor donated blood or platelets, if he or she traveled to a foreign country that is a high risk area for malaria, if he or she has tattoos or piercings that would make the donor ineligible to donate for a year, or if the donor is taking any medication. Moreover, there were various tags or acronyms that we would have to decipher because some of them meant that the donor could never donate or that he or she would have to talk to a charge nurse first before being approved to donate blood. By navigating and investigating the hospitals database of patients and donors, I’m able to determine if a donor is eligible to donate blood on a certain day.

If it wasn’t for this donor database, it would be next to impossible to recruit a high volume of blood donors because it would be difficult to keep track of all of the donors’ information, especially the aspects that would make them ineligible to donate blood or platelets. Therefore, databases are extremely crucial in the digital era where quick retrieval of information is ideal.

My Cartography assignment

The Data + Design was super interesting to read and provided a lot of really valuable information. I wish I found it earlier because I could have applied a lot of the information on data presentation to my assignments for a cartography class I’m taking. For the assignment I linked above I did not collect the data myself so I can’t relate it to the “Collecting Data” section of the online book but I did find the “Visualizing Data” and “What not to do” sections very relevant. The style of the online book has that classic mac sleek look to it. In my experience, a lot of websites or info-graphics that do this often over simplify or misrepresent data. However, I feel like this book did a good job in presenting its information. Due to all the different “chapters”I feel that the information got represented fully.
The methods of data collecting were really well explained in both text and visual format. The importance of accurately presenting information through a visual medium is being ever more important. Because visuals are often widely used and understood it’s important to make sure that they portray the correct information and this is mostly controlled by the presenter. In cartography there are four “quadrants” in the cartographic process but these can be applied to any representation of data. The two quadrants determined by the presenter are pattern-recognition and encoding. In general pattern-recognition is deciding what data to use and encoding is deciding how to represent that data. The viewer’s two quadrants are decoding and spatial cognition. Decoding is how the viewer understands the information presented and spatial cognition is how that information effects their view of the world. Although the spatial cognition quadrant is mostly restricted to cartography, the rest of the quadrants can be easily applied to any sort of data.
In the “Perception Deception” chapter the most relevant section for me in terms of my cartography assignment was the small paragraph about the contrast between level differences. Luckily the map-making tool I was using, Google API uses a color gradient assigned to the data values so that level difference isn’t an issue. However, if you want you, can define colors for specific data values if you want in the Google API code. Because this type of map (a choropleth map) is purely based on the color of an area, as the value of the color is the ‘symbol’, it’s super important that the colors are chosen wisely.

This week I first read Stephen Ramsay’s “Databases” in A Companion to Digital Humanities. Ramsay states that “databases are an ubiquitous feature of life in the modern age, and yet the most all-encompassing definition of the term ‘database’.” Database systems, and in particular computerized databases, have allowed digital humanists to compile mass amounts of information available for easy retrieval. After Ramsay’s work I then explored Emory University’s “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database”. This eye-opening database has 
information on more than 35,000 slave voyages that forcibly embarked over 12 million Africans for transport to the
Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is described as “[offering]
researchers, students and the general public a chance to rediscover the
reality of one of the largest forced movements of peoples in world history. After observing both of these works, my mind began to wander towards another unfortunate period history where people kept extremely detailed records of the movements, ages, deaths, etc. of their victims—the Holocaust.

During World War II, the Nazi’s kept meticulous records about their Holocaust victims. They kept track of every body, every murder, every age, location, and movement of each prisoner in their concentration camps. They treated the horrible acts they committed like a business operation, where everything had to be recorded down to the very last detail. When I went to Poland last spring, I saw first hand just how detailed and comprehensive these records actually are.

These documents were collected after the War, and allowed the public to discover not only the atrocities of what happened, but also enabled them to track the movements of their family members. Recently, my grandmother longed to find out where her extended family ended up after the War (her side of the family immigrated to Brooklyn, NY after World War I after feeling escalating resentment towards the Jews in Poland and Germany). To find out this information, she went to a Holocaust museum and searched through their databases for her family name. She discovered that the family members who did not make it out of Europe during the War perished in one of the concentration camps. Because the databases that organizations compiled from the Nazi’s extensive records, people today can discover what happened to their ancestors.

Works Cited:

Stephen Ramsay,  “Databases,” in Companion to Digital Humanities, edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Professional, 2004)

Emory University, Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database

Although it’s not a database of historical or research information, throughout this week’s readings I couldn’t help thinking about the website of the company I work for currently. I work for Pinnacle Exhibits, a brand management company that specializes in 3D exhibits and installations. We create temporary environments to change minds, motivate behavior and leave a lasting impression. We are a diverse band of branders, builders, designers, makers, communicators, advertisers and engineers united by a hunger to wow people in 3D. Through my position and time with the company I have learned the great importance of each of these roles—it takes all the talents I listed above to complete each project we take on. I really valued the comment in Meirelles, Design for Information: “It is my hope that this book help broaden the dialogue and reduce the gap between two communities—designers and scientists—and foster problem-solving skills in designing information.” I, and my colleagues at Pinnacle, consider bridging this gap our mission. We employ our diverse talents and specializations to create 3D experiences, and strive to connect consumers with brands.

As Pinnacle continues to grow and evolve as a brand management company, so does our own brand. Our rebranding process has been heavily involved in many aspects of the company, but we especially want to produce an impressionable website. The site is a work in progress, but has already greatly evolved since I joined the company. In the past, the site only incorporated “beauty” shots of our work. At first glance the site was very appealing, but it was not interactive or welcoming. We work to connect brands with consumers, and yet online exhibits of our work did not showcase those consumers interacting in the space! So, our solution to this problem was to incorporate more welcoming, human elements in our online exhibits. The section in Data + Design considered the differences between print and web-based media, as well as static versus interactive exhibits. As a company, we are moving towards all digital and interactive presentations for our clients, so it was interesting to read more on this comparison. Moving forward, it our goal to progress with the digital world. Photos are quickly being replaced by gifs, and short videos. Now homepages and backgrounds of websites use video clips instead of still images—and we want to follow that trend. You can check out our first attempt at chronicling our work through video here. Eventually our goal is to create a portfolio of still images and rich videos on our website that fully represent the Pinnacle brand and work.

I relate this experience to the final project we are creating for this class. Instead of creating exhibits of our work, like we do for Pinnacle, we will be creating exhibits of research information—but the principal is the same. We will have to make important decisions about the message we want to convey, and the elements we need to incorporate in our site in order to convey that message successfully.

SlaveVoyages.org is a website that “is the culmination of several decades of independent and collaborative research by scholars drawing upon data in libraries and archives around the Atlantic world.” The website took two years of research and information to collect. The fact that the creators of this site were able to have access to primary sources which documented the people that were illegally captured is mind-blowing to me. The sources were coming from hard copy volumes of voyages from different ports. What went through my mind was that how fortunate we are (recognizing that this was a very dark and dishonorable spot in history) that we have historical evidence in documentation form. This made me think of how many names we do not have because of the sex trades that occur today.

For example, Yahoo posted an article  about the tourist wonder that is Dubai is having women from Pakistan sold to nightclubs and brothels. Hundreds of women are taken hostage and threatened to become sex workers. In the case of the Yahoo article, the women are coerced by being lied to obtaining beauty parlor work. Unfortunately no progress is made in stopping this horrid trafficking problem in Pakistan because the gangs in charge have influential power and connections to politicians and the police. This is just one country’s problem with trafficking to Dubai. Millions of people are trafficked every year, according to the UN, and 800,000 are trafficked internationally. Those names are not documented. Those names are lost. How do we determine that we want something documented, such as slavery? Would it be that we do not want to document names of people, not just because it is illegal and inhumane, but is seen as a cause of shame? How do we determine ethically what should be database-d and what shouldn’t? The TransAtlantic Slave Trade Database is history to us that we should never forget. Then why should we forget those who are still sold today?

Sources:

Soroptomist faqs: Sex Slavery & Trafficking facts

Database: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database 

Yahoo Article: Agony of Pakistani Women Enslaved by Dubai Sex Trade

It stated in the reading for this week that a database can be thought as a set of relations. This automatically made me think of how a database could be applied to a set of relationships, which made me think of my large Italian family and how we could be broken up for storage in a database; although, in a way, we already have been. One of my grandmother’s sisters created a book in the past decade or so that documents the up-to-date history of the Gagliardini family, beginning from the days of poverty in Cupramontana, covering the years of migration, from Italy to Ellis Island to Madera, California, and eventually, even mentioning all the great-great-grandchildren, like myself. The original reason for the creation of this “database,” much like others, is for the storage and retrieval of information about my family. Essentially, it has helped family members keep track of each other as well as appreciate the difficult journey our family went through for us to be here right now; in addition, it also has acted as a treasure chest for all the stories told throughout the years, and many photographs as well. For practical reasons, all the “data” has been designed and split up into categories and specific order; family history comes first, starting chronologically, but also focusing on certain aspects, such as food. There is another section that purely focuses on family records. There are documents for each family, starting with my great-great-grandparents’ family, then a page for each of their children’s family, then so on, and so forth. These documents have actually helped me very much to put a name to certain faces that I might have seen at a family reunion, although could not keep track of. There is also detailed information, like date of birth, which helps the family keep track  of birthdays easily. Although this book is not digitized like most databases, it still acts as a database in the way it stores information; and although there is no form of searching like in digitized databases, the table of contents aids in the search, but the way it is split up also allows easy retrieval of information.

“Gargliardini Family Reunion ’14”