This gallery showcases all my recent projects, organized in reverse chronological order.
- use the tag cloud (at the right or below) to see examples of specific demonstrated skills
- use the drop-down under the Portfolio navigation above to sort by specific project types.
SU iSchool
I teach several classes online for the School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse University, for their MSLIS program. I lead 90 minute live sessions in Zoom once a week for 11 weeks in a quarter term. During these live … Continue reading
Omeka Experience
I have installed, set up, and maintained the following sites using the Omeka platform for content management and web publishing: https://vccc.vassarspaces.net/ https://historicdress.org/omeka2/ http://artoneida.org/ https://omeka.hvvacc.org/ You can also see my work to adapt several existing themes or plugins among my GitHub … Continue reading
Digital Artifacts at Vassar
For this project I developed online access to a research collection of historic clothing and related archival materials, most recently using Omeka. The project began in 2001 as an Excel spreadsheet, then was migrated to a Filemaker database that I … Continue reading
Hamilton DHI
As a Metadata Assistant for the Digital Humanities initiative (DHi) at Hamilton College, I provide metadata entry, authority control, and metadata hygiene services as a contractor on an as-needed basis. I have regularly assisted with author-contributed metadata for the American … Continue reading
Teaching for UTK
In the spring semester I have taught as a Lecturer for the School of Information Sciences at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. For INSC 521: Cataloging and Classification (last taught Spring 2020) I led 2.5 hour live sessions in Zoom once a … Continue reading
CCO Videos
As chair of the sub-committee for Cataloging Cultural Objects (CCO), part of the larger Cataloging and Metadata Standards Committee (CaMS) for the Visual Resource Association (VRA), I led the development of a series of video tutorials about CCO. Our sub-committee … Continue reading
Costume Core
This application profile builds on existing metadata standards to create a specification for cataloging and encoding historic clothing. The project includes a guide to element definitions, a crosswalk between existing standards, an XML schema based on VRA core, XML instance … Continue reading
Skilled Up
We’ve titled our project “Skilled Up,” focused around a stair-step model to build up from a set of basic skills. In our work with adult learners we came to recognize that many adult learners don’t have the foundational digital skills that instructors (and curriculums) may take for granted – and we want to help change that. Continue reading
DressDiscover
Instead of worrying about the right search term, what if we turn to images to represent concepts instead? If we associate images with terms and synonyms in our controlled vocabularies, we can develop visual workflows for both the description process … Continue reading
Design for Learning
As Project Coordinator for this IMLS-funded project, I am simultaneously an instructor, systems administrator, and team leader. I have the honor to work with a wonderful team that has included Dr. David Lankes, Mary-Carol Lindbloom, and Dr. Megan Oakleaf. This project … Continue reading
HVVACC Exhibits
My work for the Hudson Valley Visual Art Collections Consortium (HVVACC) was based around providing functionality to connect the Consortium’s digital collections in ContentDM to exhibits in Omeka. I adapted some Omeka plugins (in PHP) to connect to their ContentDM … Continue reading
ArtOneida
ArtOneida is a celebration of public artwork throughout Oneida County in New York State. As Digital Project Manager, I have worked with Archivist-in-Residence Marc-Anthony Polizzi to research public artwork all across the county for inclusion in an online archive and a commemorative … Continue reading
HistoricDress
For this project I have developed prototypes, using Omeka, Shared Shelf, and ContentDM, for a digital collection of archival materials showing the history of women’s clothing in America. I am part of a working group that has been meeting since … Continue reading
College Women
As a semester-long project for my MSLIS in the spring of 2015, I contributed recommendations for planning, marketing, and outcomes-based assessment for “College Women: The History of Women’s Education Digital Portal.” The course was IST613, “Planning, Marketing, and Assessing Library Services” … Continue reading
CDRS Internship
Over the summer of 2014, I was an intern at the Center for Digital Research and Scholarship (CDRS) at Columbia University. This internship was focused on data recovery for the sciences and humanities, into Columbia’s institutional repository, Academic Commons. As … Continue reading
HILT
In August of 2014 I attended “Introduction to Humanities Programming,” a one-week intensive course at Humanities Intensive Learning and Teaching (HILT). This course focused on Ruby, Rails, Git, and the command line. I was awarded a Sponsored Student Scholarship to be … Continue reading
The Vassar College Costume Collection
I have had a role in managing this research collection of historic clothing since 1991. Working with students and other faculty, I have maintained (and improved) the storage and documentation of this collection of 19th-20th century clothing, housed in the … Continue reading
Inside a Digital Collection: Historic Clothing in Omeka
In July of 2014, I was invited to present a guest lecture for Foundations of Digital Data (IST676) at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies, taught by Angela U. Ramnarine-Rieks. This talk provides an inside look at creating a … Continue reading
Representing Material Culture Online: Historic Clothing in Omeka
In June 2014 I was invited to present at the New York City Digital Humanities (NYCDH) Omeka User’s Group Workshop at the Bard Graduate Center. I spoke about my work with two different collections of historic clothing that are using … Continue reading
Capability Maturity Model for Research Data Management
As a part of my work as a Faculty Research Assistant to Professor Jian Qin at the iSchool at Syracuse University, I edited and maintained a wiki, using XWiki, for documentation of a Capability Maturity Model for Research Data Management … Continue reading
One of Many Small Collections
This was part of a panel at the Costume Society of America National Symposium in Baltimore, MD in May 2014 – “Sharing our Collections Online: Why and How.” From the abstract: “Arden Kirkland will discuss digital projects for the Vassar College … Continue reading
Cataloging: 3D Models and More
This group project explored the issues surrounding MARC cataloging for electronic files of 3D models created as scans of original artwork at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and access to them in a hypothetical integrated library, archive, and museum catalog. Examples … Continue reading
ObjectVRs (3D views)
Since 2009 I have worked with students at Vassar to create ObjectVRs of clothing from the Drama Department’s collection. This process involves mounting the garment on a mannequin, placing it on a large turntable, lighting it, and taking at least … Continue reading
WordPress Experience
I have set up and maintained the following sites, ranging from self-hosted sites I installed myself to sites on multi-user systems installed by others, including Vassar and WordPress.com: http://pages.vassar.edu/vccc/ http://pages.vassar.edu/hcpw http://pages.vassar.edu/artistinresidence/ http://www.ardenkirkland.com/IST558/ http://www.ardenkirkland.com/CulturalHeritagePSI/ http://ardenkirkland.wordpress.com/ . . . not to mention … Continue reading
Lesson Plan: Using Omeka to Make Connections Between Collections
This plan for an information literacy workshop is targeted for undergraduate students at a liberal arts college, and each part of the plan is mapped to the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, developed by the Association of College and Research … Continue reading
Stakeholders in the Orphan Works Debate
This paper explores the perspectives of six of the stakeholders who provided their comments in response to the United States Copyright Office’s 2012 Notice of Inquiry regarding orphan works. These six associations represent the wide range of oppositional viewpoints on … Continue reading
Cultural Heritage PSI: The World Digital Library as a Case Study
This WordPress site examines the World Digital Library as an example of Public Sector Information (PSI) for cultural heritage. This was a group project for our class on Information Policy. From our abstract on that site, “What is cultural heritage, … Continue reading
Strategy Report for MichaelCiccone.com
This proposal outlines strategies to greatly improve the information architecture for an artist’s website, at MichaelCiccone.com. The project included persona development, comparative analysis, blueprints, page description diagrams, wireframes, card-sorting, a content audit, content strategy, accessibility analysis, and a semi-functional prototype. … Continue reading
For Better and For Worse
“For Better and For Worse: Sixteen Decades of Wedding Wear at Vassar,” was held in the spring of 2013. The digital exhibition includes photographs from the exhibition, three-dimensional rotating views of featured objects (objectVRs), personal photographs and stories shared by Vassar community members, a video … Continue reading
Fashioning an Education
At a conference about Women’s History in the Digital World at Bryn Mawr College in March 2013, I presented about an online exhibition at Vassar. This was part of a panel about what online representations of historic dress can reveal … Continue reading
Content Management Website Redesign Project
This group project proposed a new way of structuring content for an existing website (for a local arts organization), using XML to store content and XSL to display content within a WordPress site. You can see the working pages in … Continue reading
Digital Clothing: Building a Research Archive with Undergraduates
I shared this project as a poster at the April 2012 symposium for the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE). From fall 2011 to the summer of 2012, my work on digital access to Vassar’s research collection of … Continue reading
Using Omeka with Students
This series of three screencasts introduces some of the “why” and “how” of using Omeka as a platform for building digital collections with students. It was originally created to introduce other faculty and staff to Omeka, but I have since … Continue reading
Inside-Out and Online
At the Costume Society of America National Symposium in June 2011, I presented this poster. From the abstract: “Digital media, including social media, play an increasingly important role in historic costume collections. However, most digital costume collections up to now have … Continue reading
Artist in Residence Pilot Program
As Interdisciplinary Arts Curator, I planned and promoted events for an Artist in Residence pilot program for the visual and performing arts, at Vassar College. This included collaboration not only with the artists, but also with faculty and … Continue reading
Fashioning an Education
“Fashioning an Education: 150 Years of Vassar Students and What They Wore,” was held in the spring of 2011. To celebrate the college’s 150th anniversary, the Vassar College Costume Collection shared student, faculty, and alumnae research about the complex role that … Continue reading
Teaching with Technology Forum
These posters presented work to provide digital access to Vassar’s research collection of historic clothing, for use in the curriculum. This forum at Vassar College provides an opportunity for faculty to share posters about how they are using technology in their … Continue reading
Digital Clothing Suite
This series of screencasts shows how to use Digital Clothing Suite software to visualize the process of turning a two-dimensional clothing pattern into a three dimensional garment on a moving figure. I created these screencasts as a way of preserving my … Continue reading
Hudson Micro Imaging
As a Digital Preservation Specialist at Hudson Micro Imaging in Port Ewen, NY, I processed images with Photoshop, performed thorough quality control checks of images, entered metadata for diverse projects, and performed workflow tracking using Excel spreadsheets.
Context for costumes
This paper, “Context for costumes: faceted access to historic costumes” was written by Michael Lesk, Allison Steffmann, and myself. Michael Lesk presented it at the Electronic Visualization and the Arts conference in London in 2010. You can read the full paper in … Continue reading
360 Photography Tutorials
This series of 5 videos shares our process for creating objectVRs, otherwise known as 360 photographs, QTVRs, or inverse panoramas, of garments from the Vassar College Costume Collection. These were created by Vassar student Charlie Pane ’10, under my supervision. You … Continue reading
Historic Costume Preservation Workshop
The Vassar College Costume Collection was awarded an NEH Preservation Assistance Grant for Smaller Institutions in the spring of 2010, to host a Historic Costume Preservation Workshop. I was the Principal Investigator for this grant. I supervised labs for 14 student … Continue reading
Costume Design Experience
I worked as a freelance Costume Designer from 1989 to 2009. This included designing and constructing costumes for dance, theatre, and film. Managing my own business, I grew accustomed to working on multiple projects simultaneously. My later work focused on academic … Continue reading
Moodle / Blackboard
From 2005-2009 I set up and maintained a course site for a class at Vassar College. At first this was in the Blackboard Learning Management System (LMS), and then Vassar switched to using Moodle for its LMS. This site provided … Continue reading
Digital Objects in the Classroom
In 2009, my team at Vassar received funding from the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) Instructional Innovation Fund to host a workshop on the subject of “Digital Objects in the Classroom.” As a part of this workshop, … Continue reading