My Digital Work

Over the past year, I’ve created a number of digital history resources. Here’s a brief summary.

A Sailor’s Life in the New Steel Navy

This site was created for the History and New Media graduate course at George Mason University. I scanned all of the images on the site, and performed all of the research in relevant primary and secondary sources on the period. I created the film on the home page using clips from the Library of Congress.

Company G, 182nd Infantry: Fighting the War in the Pacific

This site presents the findings on my years of research on an Army rifle company in World War II. It contains a small portion of the material I have amassed in my research, including original Army documents, war time images, and photographs of artifacts. The site has been well received by the soldiers currently serving in the 182nd Infantry, as it is the most authoritative resource on the web of the unit’s long service in the Pacific during World War II.

Attacking Complex Problems: The Life and Work of Dr. John Warfield

I created this site as a Graduate Assistant at George Mason University Libraries Special Collections & Archives. I spent several months investigating the 100+ archival boxes in the Warfield collection, to develop a biography on the former university professor and innovator.

Special Collections & Archives Virtual Exhibit Hall

This is another site I created as a Graduate Assistant. I built a basic framework which allows SC&A staff to build online exhibits, without having to write HTML code. They are using the site to generate digital exhibits to match physical exhibits they build in the Fenwick Library on the Fairfax campus. Their first exhibit was developed this fall and can be seen on the site.

Naval History and Heritage Command YouTube Channel

As a volunteer at the Naval History and Heritage Command, I’ve undertaken a number of fascinating projects. One of the most visible is the Command’s YouTube channel, for which I create the majority of the content.

Website: Company G, 182nd Infantry

I haven’t had a chance to blog about the website that I launched in February: www.182ndinfantry.org. The site tells the story of an Army rifle company serving in the Pacific in World War II. Development of this site was my first real experience with complex web design. The content was pulled from my research on the unit, Company G of the 182nd Infantry Regiment. My grandfather, Ed Monahan, served with this unit of the Americal Division for over 4 years, through 4 combat campaigns. I’ve spent 7 years researching the unit’s history, and this site was my first opportunity to share my results with the world.

I’ve been floored by the response to the site. I wasn’t sure if people would find it – and even if they did, would they find it interesting? The answer seems to be a resounding yes. I’ve had several thousand visitors over the past 4 months, from somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 countries. The image below shows the countries that have sent visitors to my site:

And these visitors are intrigued by what they find: the average visitor spends almost 7 minutes on the site, and looks at about 8 pages. I frequently have visitors spend up to an hour on the site, clicking on more than 100 links per visit. I’ve even been contacted by several soldiers who are currently serving in the 182nd Infantry (a Massachusetts National Guard unit) to tell me that the soldiers of the unit have been scrutinizing the site and learning about the men who served before them.

I couldn’t be happier with how this project has turned out.

Colamariablog…Reborn!

This blog has been gathering dust in the corner with the completion of the two digital history courses at Mason, but I’ve decided I’m going to put it to a bit of use going forward. Obviously there’s not a large audience out there with a desire to read my rambling thoughts, but from time to time, I come across neat little historical tidbits or artifacts in my research for work or school. I think I’ll start posting them on here, and see where it takes me. Hope you’ll follow along…

Final Comments

Commented on Chris and Lazlo‘s blogs.

One More for the Road

I thought I was finished last week, but I made a few more minor changes per the feedback in class:

- Modified my menu titles for Working with Coal and Routines and Duties

- Stole George’s “Back to Top” idea and put this link at the bottom of all pages

- Fixed my section title heading positions (thanks Chris, I used your negative margin suggestion)

I made a few other tweaks, including slightly revised text as part of an ongoing review by a colleague. I think that wraps it up.

Comments

This week I commented on Lynn‘s blog.

The End of the Line

I think I’ve gone blind over the past week from coding and typing, but I can finally say…I’m done. I have two minor things to finish up tomorrow morning (add citations to my PDF version of the site, and load a PDF on the USS Maine explosion to Omeka), but aside from that the site is finished. I implemented a number of changes suggested by various people: banner layout, site background, and menu divider. All of the text is now complete, and the remaining Omeka items I needed have been loaded. I went through and replaced all the funny characters (quotes, dashes) with proper HTML code – that was pretty painful.  And I was finally able to get all the pages to run through validation correctly. I turned on the redirect from my main domain to the Omeka site, so www.steelnavy.org is no longer just sitting there with a “Coming Soon” tagline. I guess that wraps it up.

So, is this my final post? Do we need to continue blogging, or are we finished? I’m not sure I have anything more to add to what we’ve covered over the past 4 months.

Comments

This week I chimed in on Dan‘s discussion.

Experiments with Banners

It seemed like the main focus of concern on my site was the banner at the top. To be fair, the projector didn’t give a good representation of what it looks like. But to address the concerns, I’ve got a couple of other versions of it that I worked up. I did check out What The Font, but the suggestions it presented weren’t really a close enough match to the Navy logo I’m using. So here are some other possible banners.

First, here’s the original:

Now, a revised version. I added a gradient to cover up the jagged bottom where the feet are. And I outlined the font in black.

Finally, I tried a font using the red and blue from the Navy logo. I think this one stands out pretty nicely.

It is important to me to keep the sailors in the banner, as that’s what this site is about. Without them, it may not be readily apparent that this is a site about people, not ships and battles. I specifically selected these photos of grimy sailors for the banner, because their general appearance helps set the tone for what I’m trying to say on this site.

The red banner is currently running on my site, for a closer look check it out. Feedback is appreciated, as always!

Comments

This week I commented on Laszlo‘s offer to feed us, Lynn‘s Navy photo, and Laszlo‘s initial use of Omeka.