First and foremost I would like to say that while I did not end up getting my version of the data (all of which we found using the Dissenting Academies Online) into Kumu (which decided it was just going to sit at 99% loaded and stay there, I really liked this assignment. Some of it was frustrating to get to work correctly, but working with all of those different sheets gives a tangible idea of how the final product is going to look. The constant reorganization of the same information allows you to think of all the different ways in which it is connected. I think that getting to see everything in color and being able to navigate through it really highlights the connections in a more concrete light and I am very excited to see how I can utilize this in my own project!

Connections are way more important than we give them credit for in my opinion. Every single way we react to anything and everything is a connection of some kind. Some of them are fleeting and are gone in seconds, but others last lifetimes. But we don’t every really think about these connections as being tangible things, strings we can reach out and touch. Sometimes we give them material objects like wedding bands, or do our best to document them with photos. However, what I like about the Kumu project is that it gives a visible representation of the actual connection. Rather than say a picture of someone with this book, there is an actual chart of a sort that shows the different lines and connections between people and books. Now, perhaps it isn’t as romantic or exciting as the types of connections that we normally have, but with a little creativity and ingenuity I think we could create some very cool representations of connections here.

Here there be the link to my Google sheet (which I will turn into embedded sheets as soon as I remember how).