My current plan for my project involves exhibits based on time periods that users can select in order to learn about spies that they might not have learned about previously or that they had heard of and want to learn more about. This way, I hope to facilitate an informative experience for both people with little free time and people with a lot of free time while using a chronological order to emphasize some of my themes.
Part of what I want to accomplish with my infrastructure is informing users while letting them decide how deep to go or how much time to spend. For this, I intend to start different portions of my site with summaries or overviews. This way, someone who may not have a lot of time on their hands but still has an interest to learn can quickly access information and pick up on the humanities themes of my project. On the other hand, I will also provide greater detail and more viewable items for someone who has the time to learn more. This will allow for exploration and greater understanding of themes and historical figures while not being a mandatory part of the experience.
The structure of this site will include exhibits focusing on different conflicts and time periods, within which one can find specific spies. Part of why I chose this is to allow the user to start out with something familiar. For example, they might not have heard of Rose Greenhow, but if they were raised in the United States they have certainly heard of the Civil War. With the structure I have been using, a user will be able to click through Civil War and find Rose Greenhow from there.
These conflicts will be listed in chronological order. Part of this, as previously mentioned, is to give users something familiar to start with, but this is also to emphasize some humanities themes. For one thing, I want to show the way the structures of spy networks changed over time and how that affected these spies. I also want to show how changing societal attitudes shaped the options of minorities who were involved in espionage. While change is important, consistency over time is also important. After all, methods for gathering intelligence and committing sabotage may have changed, as might the treatment of minorities, but they were still there. I want to show how minorities were actively involved in history and were not totally immobilized by the discrimination or oppression they faced.
My current structural plan is intended to make content and themes accessible to my target audience using features in Omeka Classic. While I am still experimenting with the features of Omeka, I think it is particularly suitable for the structure I have in mind. Hopefully, my current structure serves these needs and contributes to other themes that I have listed in my proposal.
