Week Three: Final Project

      In the course Digital Humanities we are required to keep a blog throughout the semester and discuss topics surrounding the emerging field of humanities in the digital age. This blog is the first blog I’ve had and I would like to use this blog to assist my work and research for the final project in this course. The final project aforementioned asks students to apply techniques of digital humanities to a subject within the humanities. Students are given a lot of choice and freedom to use their creativity and could create a project beneficial to the academic world online.

    Since we were encouraged to begin developing topic ideas for this assignment early within the semester, I have started brainstorming ideas and would like to use this post to keep track of my thoughts. Last semester I worked on an essay discussing the Psychiatric Survivor Movement in Canada and accessed the Psychiatric Survivor Archives of Toronto (PSAT). While they have only been able to digitize a small portion of their documents online, they allow individuals to e-mail their staff to request specific documents. They have been able to digitize all copies of the Phoenix Rising magazine, which was a magazine created for and by psychiatric survivors, patients and ex-patients in Toronto through the 1970s-1960s (although it is important to mention it is a little difficult to research through). The Phoenix Rising is accessible to anyone for free on their website. They have also been able to upload a collection of posters used during the Psychiatric Survivor Movement, also accessible for free on their website. The PSAT’s main objective, as they have stated is to preserve their history online.

    While I have not determined how I can contribute to their project directly, I would like my essay on the Movement’s efforts to also become accessible to anyone interested and perhaps have some interactive components to make it easy to access the documents I used from the PSAT, however I am still brainstorming new ideas. If anyone has any helpful ideas as to how I can incorporate my work on the Movement for our final project I would love to hear them in the comments below. I have also provided a link to the PSAT’s website for anybody interested in seeing their work.

Website: http://www.psychiatricsurvivorarchives.com/index.html