As I began this research project I expected some of the challenges I came across but not all of them. My goal with this project was to make the Fenn Archive at Wesleyan more accessible so I chose to make a digital exhibit. As I began my research I learned that a majority of the archive was related directly to Henry C. Fenn so I decided to create a timeline of his life as my exhibit. I selected to use WordPress, a format I was previously familiar with. I originally thought I had enough experience with WordPress to confidently make my own website but as I began building the site I soon learned I was wrong. I ran into many technological problems, some of which I was able to figure out on my own through either research or trial and error. But some of the problems caused more time consuming issues, such as the site not loading on many occasions, meaning I could not access it for hours at a time. The technological challenges with this project were certainly the most difficult to overcome.
My research into the Fenn Archive was extremely influential in the outcome of my project. At the beginning of my time researching I quickly found a timeline created by Henry of his life. This gave me a very concrete starting point to jump off from. From there I was able to look for details on specific events in Henry’s life, either in the archive or online. Much of the archive is organized by Henry himself into binders and thus it was very straightforward to locate many of the materials needed. The materials not organized into binders are mostly photo albums and books and thus were also straightforward to navigate.
I used online research to supplement the materials in the archive. Having learned that Henry worked at Yale and through some online research I found information that implied that Yale had items related to Henry in their collections. But after searching on their special collections site I found nothing. I emailed their library hoping that maybe they had information, but all they were able to send me were a few grainy photos of a small exhibit put on at Yale at an unknown time with no information about what was actually in the exhibit. It seems that there were books and other objects but Yale now has no idea what those objects are or where they are. They did have a powerpoint from a presentation done on Henry, but again they did not know when, where, or who gave the presentation.
One of my biggest takeaways from my research is that the balance between finding every little detail and keeping the bigger picture of the project in mind is vital. There are times in which a small insignificant seeming piece of information can actually lead to large realizations but at the same time it is not possible to find every single fact about someone. Another thing I learned during my research was the importance of research organization. The need to go back to sources time and time again means it is incredibly important to keep track of where every piece of information came from. Overall, I learned a lot about how to research using both archival and digital sources and how to turn researched information into a presentable project.