Omeka Digital Project

When choosing my focus for our Norbertine digital project, I couldn’t think of anything more interesting and essential to St. Norbert College, the only college in the United States dedicated to Saint Norbert of Xanten, than Abbot Pennings. Therefore, I used Omeka, a web publishing platform, to archive and document Abbot Pennings prominent time at St. Norbert College. I found that a link from the Center of Norbertine Studies page on St. Norbert College website was most helpful with photos of Abbot Pennings. The photos I found through the Center of Norbertine studies page was provided the photos through Wisconsin Heritage Online which already provided much of the metadata needed to complete the Dublin Core requirement of the Omeka process. Dublin Core is an attempt by scholars to help standardize metadata of photos, works, and videos so the information about an item will be easier to understand and rely upon when searching it and inspecting it.

As for the text included in the project, I found most of it by resourcing Benard Hernry Pennings (1861-1955) Founder of the Norbertine Order in the United States of America. This book, by Dr. Jean van Stratum, was recently published in 2010 and provides a rich, in-depth look to Abbot Pennings life. Abbot Pennings whole life was covered extensively in the book but I only used the parts relevant to his time at St. Norbert College and the De Pere area. On a side note, if this project is assigned in subsequent semesters, Abbot Pennings’ life away from St. Norbert College and the De Pere area would be a great extension to the project.  That extension would generate a more holistic and higher scholarly importance to the project, perhaps helping it become worthy enough to be linked on the Center for Norbertine Studies page.