My Final Project, a Work in Progress
I started a story map on 20 Loudoun County Historic Cemeteries from scratch after losing what I created (and showed you last week, Dr. E). This time, I choose a different layout to experiment with the photos and text and because I thought a thumbnail at the bottom would be useful to locate each cemetery. They are not being done alphabetically. Not sure I like one map style more than the other. Feedback, please!
I have not figured out how to get the Loudoun County map back; it reverted to a broader map after I added locations. I had 14 done before on the first story map. This weekend I finished taking photos (visited 4 cemeteries on Saturday), and am finishing descriptions. Shared the map publicly, though I am embarrassed to do so:
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/index.html?appid=b8dff999034e45de8cb54a39d62faaea&edit
https://acg.is/Kbu Ta (to access it)
We learn by making mistakes, and I sure am making mistakes.
DATA FOR THE PROJECT
The Loudoun County Cemetery Collection started by Aurelia McCormick has detailed listings of cemeteries made between 1945 and 1950. Data was sorted by grave location in each cemetery. It is not especially useful. https://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=tbl/viletbl00026.xml
The Balch Library cemetery database created in the 1990s may have been updated a little, but the library is not sure who did that or when. Data is wrong for active cemeteries, meaning places where people are still being buried. None of this data is in visual form, but it could be, showing which cemeteries are larger or have more burials, or how many veterans are buried.
The information on www.findagrave.com is not always correct.
The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has some cemetery information, but not online, and not data in a chart.
THIS INFORMATION GRAPHICS UNIT
Tools to visualize data discussed in this unit demystified the job of graphics designer. I didn't know the first infographic dates to 1626, or that Florence Nightingale made her case with them. Michael Kramer says historians can use data as an additional tool, to be creative in explaining data more effectively, but that computers won't think for them. http://www.michaeljkramer.net/digital-history-as-transliteration/ But some of these tools come pretty close.
Some effective data visualization:
Ditto for World Resources Institute, but some links go nowhere.
This Fairfax item is for my neighborhood
https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/demographics/community-profiles
but is not as useful as OpenDataDC, which has crime information.
Hard-to-visualize – but
effective data visualization projects:
[Bad Links:
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
and
All the links are great.
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