Resources & Requirements

Table of contents

  1. CCP’s List of Data Viz Tools
  2. CCP Editorial Manual
  3. Copyright & Permissions
  4. Image Captions
  5. File Names

A note of caution about data viz & Black lives

We are excited to experiment with maps, graphs, and other kinds of data visualization. How can these visual forms of communication help provide broader access to our research on the Colored Conventions?

Yet, we are also mindful of the long, ugly history of data. Data and data visualization are information technologies that have been developed in service of global and racial capitalism. We still need to unpack those legacies in our work. For centuries, the conversion of Black lives into data has been a proxy for the virtual and visceral destruction of Black life and communal identity. Such acts strip away the historical contexts of power relations, along with basic human and civil rights, in favor of the transportability of commodified bodies, memories, and connections.

We seek to avoid exploiting data absent its multiple and historical contexts. We seek to identify every person and #SayHerName. We remind ourselves that all data and datasets are shaped by decisions about what is recorded, remembered, and valued. We strongly suggest that anyone using these tools become acquainted with some of the readings below.

Suggested Readings and Resources

Drucker, Johanna. “Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display” 5, no. 1 (2011). http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/5/1/000091/000091.html.

Gallon, Kim. “Making a Case for the Black Digital Humanities.” In Debates in the Digital Humanities. University of Minnesota Press, 2016. http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/55.

Johnson, Jessica Marie. “Markup Bodies: Black [Life] Studies and Slavery [Death] Studies at the Digital Crossroads.” Social Text 36, no. 4 (137) (December 1, 2018): 57–79. https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-7145658.

McKittrick, Katherine. “Mathematics Black Life.” The Black Scholar 44, no. 2 (June 1, 2014): 16–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00064246.2014.11413684.

Posner, Miriam. “What’s Next: The Radical, Unrealized Potential of Digital Humanities.” Miriam Posner’s Blog (blog), July 27, 2015. http://miriamposner.com/blog/whats-next-the-radical-unrealized-potenti

CCP’s List of Data Viz Tools

The data viz tools listed below are pre-approved for use on the CCP website. We selected these tools because: 

  1. We know they work.
  2. They are relatively friendly to learn.
  3. They come with reliable tutorials.
  4. They can be embedded on the CCP website.
  5. We believe the output of the tools will be maintainable for the longer-term future.

If you want to use another tool not on this list, please check with the CCP Exhibits Team first. We’re open to new ideas, but want to ensure that these criteria have been met for any new additions. 

Timelines

Maps

Story Maps 

Text Analysis

Graphs and Charts

Social Network Analysis

Refining data

Convert a list of places into GPS (lat/long)

CCP Editorial Manual

Contributors to the Colored Conventions Project (CCP) should consult the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, the CMS Web Style Guide (WSG), or the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (MWCD). All of these resources are available online. Please consult with your local library for access.

Additionally, in alignment with our principles, the CCP has established a set of local rules for grammar and usage. These rules appear below. When available, a reference to the Chicago Manual of Style appears in parentheses.

Please also see the Short Guide to Writing or Teaching About Slavery.

Abbreviations

AME rather than A.M.E. (10.4)

Delaware and DE (10.4, 10.28)

e.g., exempli gratia, for example (place comma after, 10.43)

i.e., id est, that is (place comma after, 10.43)

Ontario and ON (10.29)

PhD (10.4)

US rather than U.S. (10.4)

Capitalization

African Americans (8.37)

Black, Blacks (8.39)

Black people

Black Lives Matter, Black Lives Matter movement, #BlackLivesMatter; do not use BLM

chair (8.27)

Colored

“Colored Conventions” within quotation marks as quoted moniker; use only on landing pages

Colored Convention, Colored Conventions, local Colored Convention, state Colored Convention, national Colored Convention

Colored Conventions movement; do not use Colored Convention movement
the convention, conventions (8.74)

The Colored Conventions Project (CCP), the project (8.69) ColoredConventions.org

HTML (10.52)

HTTP when not part of URL (10.52, 14.11)

Internet (7.76)

nineteenth century (centuries are spelled out and lowercased, 9.33)

northeastern (8.46)

PDF (7.76, 10.52)

people of color (8.39)

teaching partners

web (7.76)

Hyphenated Words and Phrases

African American, African Americans, African American culture (do not hyphenate, 8.42)

ebook (do not hyphenate)

email (do not hyphenate)

log in (do not hyphenate when a verb)

nineteenth-century as a compound adjective (7.81)

out-of-print volumes (5.91)

web-based project (7.81)

web page (do not hyphenate, 7.76)

Language

Citations (never begin a sentence with a citation)

Data (use in the vernacular, can be used as singular or plural depending on context)

Numbers

1850-1900 (use a dash rather than an en dash and no spaces)

nine, sixty-four (spell out whole numbers from zero through one hundred and certain round multiples of those numbers; exceptions may be numbers in captions attached to graphs, 9.2,9.3)

nineteenth century and nineteenth-century rather than 19th century and 19th-century (9.33)

One Word

login (when a noun, Chicago Q&A)

website (7.76)

Punctuation

his/her (no spaces before and after slash, 6.104)

e.g., exempli gratia, for example (comma after, 10.43)

i.e., id est, that is (comma after, 10.43)

periods (at the end of a sentence go inside quotation marks, 6.9)

serial comma (place comma before the and, e.g., the circulation of ideas, news, and events connected to conventions, 6.18)

Spelling

materials

publicly (MWCD)

traveled (MWCD)

Web/Internet Terms

ebook (do not hyphenate)

email (do not hyphenate)

HTML (10.52)

HTTP (when not part of URL, 10.52, 14.11)

Internet (7.76)

log in (do not hyphenate when a verb, Chicago Q&A)

login (when a noun, Chicago Q&A)

web-based project (7.81)

web page (do not hyphenate, 7.76)

website (7.76)

Copyright & Permissions

All digital files uploaded to the CCP website must meet one of these conditions:

1. The file is in the public domain.

An object is in the public domain if:

  • The provider grants a license (see below).
  • The work was published or created in 1923 or earlier.

Want to learn more about public domain issues?

Public domain materials are creative works that are open to the general public for (re)use. Such materials are not held by an individual, organization or other entity from property rights, including copyright, trademark or patents. An entity need not request permission to use public domain content. Content may have been made available as public domain materials or an existing copyright may have expired or failed to have been renewed. However, published collections of public domain materials may be protected under a license such as copyright. Individual works from a collection may be repurposed for individual or public use (under the “fair use” doctrine) but an entire collection of materials on a website or in a book may very well infringe upon “collective works” copyright.

For more information about historical documents in the public domain, consider reading Colored Conventions Project librarian Carol Rudisell’s essay, “Liberating History: Reflections on Rights, Rituals and the Colored Conventions Project”—featured in Common-place (16.1). We also recognize that the public domain is indebted to a legacy of colonialism and is antagonistic towards many indigenous people, cultures, and knowledge systems. We refer to Kimberly Christen’s essay, “Does Information Really Want to be Free? Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Question of Openness.”

2. The provider of the file(s) has granted permission.

Provider: most universities, libraries, or archives

Many digital collection websites include license statements that allow free reuse with attribution. For example, see the New York Public Library’s announcement. Because many individual collections have specific policies, please do not assume that all of an educational institution’s materials are immediately available for free use.

If you think that we should ask for permission from one of these providers, please contact the CCP Exhibits Team at coloredconventions@udel.edu. 

Provider: private companies

Be careful with digital collections published by organizations other than non-profit universities, libraries, or archives. Getty, AP, and other photo publishing services are not eligible. Some commercial platforms will allow users to post images under a variety of licenses. For example, Flickr allows its users to post photos under a series of different licenses. If the image is shared with a Creative Commons license, then it’s fine to use. Please note that some CC licenses allow for reuse but not alteration. For more info, please consult this page: https://creativecommons.org/licenses.

Provider: other historical websites & personal websites

Be very careful with historical websites. Many sites have clear language about the sources and reuse of their materials. But just as often, we find that personal websites did not obtain permission in the first place. That means they do not have any ability to grant us permission for further reuse. In those cases, we need to locate the original source to ask for permission. A reverse Google image search can sometimes help locate that original source.

3. The file comes from Accessible Archives or Gale’s 19th Century U.S. Newspapers

The CCP has obtained special permission to reuse any content found in Accessible Archives or Gale’s 19th Century U.S. Newspapers. This agreement is thanks to the UD Library and their work with Accessible Archives and Gale, part of Cengage Learning.

The CCP is required to provide attribution in at least two places for any exhibits that host newspaper content from these databases: 1) on all exhibit landing pages (in the “Credits” section) and 2) on any subsequent exhibit page or other page where content from the databases appears. Attribution should conform to these guidelines:

For Accessible Archives:

This line must appear on the first landing page or section of the exhibit and on each page or section that contains an individual image or document derived from the Accessible Archives databases.

Accessible Archives [Name of Collection]. Reproduced by permission. www.accessible-archives.com/

An example:

Accessible Archives. African American Newspapers: The 19th Century. Reproduced by permission. www.accessible-archives.com/

For 19th Century U.S. Newspapers:

This line must appear on the first landing page or section of the exhibit and on each page or section that contains an individual image or document derived from the Gale databases.

From Gale. 19th Century U.S. Newspapers. ©2008 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission. www.cengage.com/permissions.

For more information about historical documents & images in the public domain, see Carol Rudisell’s essay, “Liberating History: Reflections on Rights, Rituals and the Colored Conventions Project”, Common-place (16.1).

Image captions & accessibility

Captions should describe the source and the content of all media files embedded in pages of an exhibit. Captions play an important role in helping viewers see and interpret historical objects. These captions are important because they help ensure that CCP materials comply with ADA regulations. All CCP materials should be accessible. Here are two examples of useful captions.

Example 1:

Image of the exterior of Prudence Crandall School for Negro Girls (1833) formerly known as the Elisha Payne House. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Example 2:

Image created by James U. Stead. “Henry Highland Garnet.” 1881. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, London. National Portrait Gallery Digital Collection.

File Names

Proper file naming habits are surprisingly important!

File names help CCP plan for the long-term preservation of our exhibits and digital materials. File names ensure that people will be able to engage with the exhibits for many years to come.

A file name should be unique, descriptive, and human-readable. Avoid spaces or punctuation in your file names, except for hyphens – and underscores _. Keep it short, but meaningful.

Please name each file with this pattern

  1. The subject or main topic of the file (e.g. Philadelphia-Bakeries)
  2. Any relevant dates as YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 1855-09-22). If a span, use only years.
  3. The type of file (e.g. letter, diary, map, chart, etc)
  4. Page number (if applicable, using at least two digits)
  5. If you created the documents or image, add a two-digit version number (e.g. 01)

Generic file name

Subject-Dates-Type-Pages-VersionNumber

 

Examples of good file names

  • Philadelphia-1855-Bakeries-Map-01
  • Emigration-1864-1872-Network-Graph-01
    • Note: a revised version would be Emigration-1864-1872-Network-Graph-02
  • William-Still-Diary-122
  • Loguen-1843-Letter-01