About Keeping Watch
Keeping Watch is a geo-spatial narrative project that embeds oral history testimonies by former and current fire lookouts on a GIS interface. These stories were collected by Jack Kredell, Chris Lamb, and Michael Decker in the Summer of 2021 across the state of Idaho.
The goal of this project is twofold: to create an online archive for this vital yet disappearing component of Idaho history and to reconceptualize the space these firetowers define via the juxtaposition of the map’s inherent grid and GIS structure, and the subjective experience of those who have, are, and will experience these places.
The towers are open ended in how they are active technology and ruin. They are essential and symbolic. They are already-happened and yet-to-be, their futures uncertain as the landscapes they watch over.
Funding and Supported
Keeping Watch was funded by a University of Library Seed Grant and its development was supported by the faculty and staff of the Center for Digtial Inquiry and Learning (CDIL).
Team
Michael Decker, Project Director, is the Directory of Graduate Student Support in the College of Graduate Studies. Decker was a former graduate fellow in the CD?L.
Jack Kredell, Project Co-Director, is a Doctoral Candidate in Environmental Science at the University of Idaho. Kredell is a former CDIL Graduate Fellow and Project Director for Storying Extinction.
Christopher Lamb, Project Co-Director, is a Doctoral Candidate in Geography at Clark University. Clark is a former CDIL Graduate Fellow and Project Director for Storying Extinction.
Devin Becker, Designer and Developer, is the Co-Director of the CDIL and Associate Dean for Research and Instruction at the University of Idaho Library.
The website was designed by in collaboration with English Professor and Confluence Lab Director Jenn Ladino, as part of her CD?L Development Fellowship, and with the input of University of Idaho GIS Librarian Bruce Godfrey.
A personal note from the project director: This project is the result of a summer spent in the woods and mountains, and alongside some of the best fishing streams in the world. As important as this history is to tell, our time working on this project was undeniably fun. We spent the summer of 2021 hiking to towers, catching cutthroat and rainbow trout, and even running away from a wildfire. It was one of the best summers of my life, and I felt as if I, like the tower itself, became part of history–a small piece.
Technical Credits - CollectionBuilder
This digital collection is built with CollectionBuilder, an open source framework for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that is developed by faculty librarians at the University of Idaho Library following the Lib-Static methodology.
Using the CollectionBuilder-CSV template and the static website generator Jekyll, this project creates an engaging interface to explore driven by metadata.