Gabby Freshly, a student research assistant in Heritage Hall, took a course from Professor Darrell Rohl in Digital Humanities. This course prepared her for the work she does now in Heritage Hall. Professor Rohl's class began the work of scanning and digitizing nearly 2,000 postcards that are part of the Conrad and Dee Bult Collection, acquired by Hekman Library in 2019. The class began the work that Gabby now continues.

She writes: "A few months after the Digital Humanities course ended, I found myself thinking about the postcards and how I wanted to be involved in the work that still needed to be done...There needed to be transcriptions of the postcards...and a tagging system put in place for easier searching and access. This 'tagging' meant cataloging the subject, date, location, and any other relevant data about the postcard." The postcards came from all around the world. One can be seen on the right, described in the collection as Tulip Time in Pella, IA.

Gabby is excited by her work, and the library appreciates the effort she's put into it! She muses: "In a world that focuses more and more on technology, it can seem like history and the humanities are getting left behind. Digital projects like the Conrad and Dee Bult postcard collection and the research project I am working on allow for more public engagement with firsthand accounts of history."

Link to her full story in Origins Online.