About
The Glassboro Memory Mapping (GMM) Project began Spring 2018 as an innovative community partnership between Rowan University’s Honors Cultural Geography course, the Rowan University Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Center, the Glassboro Historical Society, and the Heritage Glass Museum. This ongoing project endeavors to:
- Centralize, preserve, and digitize Glassboro’s endangered historical material for future generations
- To create a publicly accessible online digital archive related to the history and development of Glassboro, NJ
- Provide students with a unique experiential learning opportunity through working with a diverse, multigenerational community to document memories and preserve (and potentially conserve) endangered historical material and information directly related to the founding and economic development of Glassboro, NJ and the United States.
- To increase student and community emotional attachment to, intellectual curiosity about, and appreciation for the diverse and dynamic heritage of Glassboro.
- To use digital scholarship and digital archives to enhance place-based knowledge and experience in the present.
The Glassboro Memory Mapping Project creates a publicly accessible online digital archive containing a wide variety of material related to the history and development of Glassboro, NJ. This material includes historical photographs, video, audio recordings, documents, maps, oral histories, digitized books, student projects, and a comprehensive resource list. The development of this project provides students in the Honors Cultural Geography course and the GMM internship program with relevant, real-world experience including fieldwork, research methods and writing, interview skills, critical and spatial thinking, creative and design thinking, GIS, metadata, handling archival material, and digital media development.
Through both traditional face-to-face class meetings, blended and experiential learning, and exploring historical societies, museums, archives, and public libraries, students learn to research historical buildings, people, and events related to Glassboro, NJ and to situate local history within a global context. Students are provided opportunities to autonomously investigate a wide range of issues and explore research methods within the fields of geography, public history, and museum and archival studies. Students are involved in digitizing materials, writing digital archive records and developing an interactive online multimedia Scalar project related to their scholarly interest. This ongoing public geography project aims to serve as an educational and research resource to deepen and expand a sense of place in Glassboro.
Project Team
Principal Investigators:
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Mike Benson, Coordinator, Rowan University Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Center
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Jennifer Kitson, Assistant Professor, Departments of Art and Geography, Planning, & Sustainability
Advisory and Technical Support:
- Timothy Dewysockie, Library Application Support Technologist; Application and metadata support
- John Jiras, Technical Services Librarian; Server, domain, site security, and advisory support
- Scott Muir, Associate Provost, Rowan University Libraries; Project supervision, general support for resources, logistics
- Shilpa Rele, Scholarly Communications Librarian; Metadata training and assistance, general library support
Student support and course project assistance:
- Sarah Borden, Archivist; Assisted students with researching University Archive materials (Rowan University Archive and Special Collections)
- Denise Brush, Librarian; Assisted students with general research
- Phyllis Meredith, Librarian; Assisted students with general research
Student Contributors:
Digital Scholarship Center Interns
- Carly Shaffer, Internship, Summer 2018
- Victoria Marin, Internship, Summer 2018
- Errin Edwards, Internship, Spring 2019
Digital Scholarship Center Student Staff
- Anwar Hussein, Digital Scholarship Center
- James Craig, Digital Scholarship Center
- Elijah Mitchell, Digital Scholarship Center
- Nah'Ja Washington, Digital Scholarship Center
- Molly Dente, Digital Scholarship Center
- Trey Jaworski, Digital Scholarship Center
- Maria Morales, Digital Scholarship Center
- Jim Murphy, Digital Scholarship Center
- Emily Regan; Geography graduate assistant
- Mackenna Smith, Digital Scholarship Center
Cultural Geography Honors Course, Spring 2019 Students
- Neil Amin; Spring 2019
- Erica Briggs; Spring 2019
- Adrienne Brookstein; Spring 2019
- Paul Buzzi; Spring 2019
- Alex Carraro; Spring 2019
- Briana Carrubba; Spring 2019
- Jacelynn Duranceau; Spring 2019
- Nadine El Maalem; Spring 2019
- Cenzo Ferriola; Spring 2019
- Joe Gramigna; Spring 2019
- Kirsten Hatch; Spring 2019
- Janki Khadela; Spring 2019
- Alex Konchak; Spring 2019
- Caitlin McElwee; Spring 2019
- Erin Moles; Spring 2019
- Dianna Rahmey; Spring 2019
- Erica Robb; Spring 2019
- Joe Tagliaferro; Spring 2019
Cultural Geography Honors Course, Fall 2018 Students
- Amy Debenedictis; Fall 2018
- Rose Dickman; Fall 2018
- Julia Gibbins; Fall 2018
- James Glynn; Fall 2018
- Steven Samuel; Fall 2018
- Allie Short; Fall 2018
- Mike Mackley; Fall 2018
- Austin Ogren; Fall 2018
- Olivia Wright; Fall 2018
- Allison Short; Fall 2018
- Megan Jacobi; Fall 2018
- Ronak Desai; Fall 2018
- David Dlug; Fall 2018
- Sarah McClure; Fall 2018
- Leo Thottumari; Fall 2018
- Sierra Nasoff; 2018, Fall 2018
- Elizabeth McFadden; Fall 2018
- Victoria Brady; Fall 2018
- Seun Dairo; Fall 2018
- Matthew Ungere; Fall 2018
Community Contributors:
- George Armstrong, Local historian and collector
- June Armstrong, Heritage Glass Museum Trustee
- Dolores Carey, Glassboro resident
- Darla Cassidy, former president of Greater Glassboro Group, Heritage Glass Museum Trustee
- Linda Cossabone, Glassboro resident, Glassboro Historical Society
- Esther DeEugenio, local historian and author
- Howard Gant, former president of Glassboro VFW, local historian
- Rich Drobil, Glassboro Historical Society, South Jersey Train historian
- Rick Grenda, Heritage Glass Museum Trustee, glass historian
- Andrew Halter, Glassboro resident, Creative Glassboro, Glassboro City Council
- Debra Ihunnah, Glassboro Historical Society, Glassboro resident
- Marie Lockwood, Glassboro resident, Glassboro Historical Society
- Ida Miller, Lifelong Glassboro resident
- Ken Miller, Glassboro resident and business owner
- Nick Mitcho, Retired Glassboro Schools superintendent
- Maureen St. John, Glassboro resident retired teacher, artists
- Marilyn Plasket, Retired teacher, Founder of the Heritage Glass Museum, local historian, Whitney Glass collector (deceased)
- Daniele Spence, President of the Glassboro Historical Society, Chair of Glassboro Historical Commission, Glassboro City Council
- Jacki Taraglione, Glassboro Historical Society, business owner, retired teacher
- Carmen Trifiletti, Retired Gloucester County administrator
- Robert P. Tucker, Co-chair of Glassboro's Planning Board, former teacher and superintendent, historian, author