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By Kurt Vidmer

As I walked into my Data Culture class with Dr. Sample, I knew that we were having a guest speaker for this given class period. When the guest speaker walked in, the first thing I noticed was his incredible resemblance to a member of the class. However, what I did not know about this particular speaker was that he was one of the founding programmers for both Neatline and Omeka.

As it appeared in the class, I was one of very few students who had any previous exposure to either of these programs. We have previously done class work with these programs, so any of us would have found this very intriguing. However, this resonated particularly with me because my final project is taking form in Neatline, a function of Omeka.

My project is dealing with early American trading posts and routes. It analyzes the various products, people, and tendencies about these posts and routes, which necessitates a way to present this information in a descriptive form. Neatline provides me with a perfect way to present this, as it allows me to plot points on a map, and add descriptive texts to analyze and assess the specific characteristics about these posts.

After listening to the presentation from the guest speaker, it became apparent to me that he programmed and created this resource for projects exactly like mine. To provide a resource where geographic locations can be paired with normative and descriptive content truly is the goal that Neatline aims to provide to its users. As described in admins post, programming is a specific art with a clear purpose. To be able to hear first hand from the programmer who is largely responsible for creating the program that will display my final project was a very eye opening and surreal experience.