Linscheid Library Blog

Student Spotlight: Katie Cowger

Main take-away: There are many pieces involved in making information available online so that it can be easily searched and found, but it is well worth the effort!

To have your research, internship or creative work featured in a blog post, contact Marla at mlobley@ecok.edu (opens a new tab).

Accessibility

Student Spotlight: Katie Cowger, English & Native American Studies

Katie is completing an internship at Linscheid Library using equipment in the Digital Humanities Lab. Her project is to digitize every issue of Originals since 1958. Originals is ECU's student-run journal that publishes student poetry, prose and artwork each year. Her process is to scan & organize the works into files, read each issue to create metadata and create a website to provide access to the archived issues. Metadata is information about a work that lets users find it during a search. ECU student Ray Alkire is building the website that will hold the digitized issues.

Katie is learning how to make a "big idea" into a reality. She is also learning time management and software skills. She says, "I have realized how much time goes into building a link that only takes a second to click. I was inspired by how truly talented, diverse, and amazing our student population is. Even though we are a smaller university in rural Oklahoma, we have wonderful and 'original' ideas to share. I loved ECU before, but working on this project has given me a deeper appreciation for my time spent here!"

Her next steps are to finish the website so that users will be able to read the issues and see shifts in culture and attitude across time. She is excited that ECU alumni whose works were published years ago will have access to the issues. 

Learn more about Originals, ECU history and digital archiving at the library! Visit library.ecok.edu (opens a new tab).