IIIF for Educators

• learn about tags, hashtags, and metadata in the Concepts section below
• view and consider Example of feather, below
• work in your groups and individually to identify key terms in the DFC and phenomena in the Nahau world related to your topic(s) and record in the Google Doc table

• select items and item details you would like to use individually and/or for the group
• crop images with the IIIF Image Cropping Tool (below)
• import into course final scalar project Codex Chapman
• add metadata and #hashtags

• create individual project pages with dummy Lorem Ipsum text and add a few sample media items
• link selected media 
• add annotations
• edit pages for design and layout

The #hashtag is a recent invention. It was modestly proposed by a guy named Chris about 20 years ago. Here's how it started:

"How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]

                                                 -Chris Messina

Tagging didn't start with Chris Messina. It's been around for a long time. And hashmarks have too. But the combination of symbol and character string changed everything. A hashtag is attached to comments and media so readers can find message topics they are interested in. But you don't need us to tell you that. Everyone knows what a hashtag is. And that is its lure: hash-tagging is accessible to everyone. It converts taxonomy (the imposition of categories onto phenomena) into folksonomy (the popularization of taxonomy). In case you were wondering, the term "folksonomy" was coined by a guy named Thomas Vander Wal in 2004. 

Even farther back in time, at the dawn of evolution (the 1850s), tags were used to keep track of dead birds. Collectors of animal specimens from around the world, such as Alfred Russel Wallace, used actual paper tags tied with string to the legs of his taxidermied feathered friends to keep track of taxonomy, as well as date, location of origin and other information. Wallace was "the other Darwin," an adventurer contemporary of the famous evolutionary biologist who actually beat Charles to a theory of evolution by natural selection, but was since relegated to footnote status for most of us in favor of the established scientist.

Hashtags as Hooks

The function of hashtags as hooks into discursive streams also has historical precedent...

So, how did we get from flying fish to fishing fly?

The Feather Thief's account of birds-with-metadata transforming into feathers-with-hooks is really a story about empire and trade. Commodities such as bird feathers derive their monetary, cultural, and/or scientific value from provenance: the tracking system by which people connect an item's current state in presentation to its point of origin.  Like the salmon-fly, the hashtag has a business end (the hashmark), and the featherwork.

To summarize:

• tags connect specimens with metadata
• hashtags snag content and pull it into categories.

As vocabulary in the digital edition, "feather" and one of its Nahuatl translations "ihhuatl" can be searched for either Text or Image returns. Depending upon which you select, nearly all books in the Florentine Codex are represented in the returns, and the variety of content associated with these search terms is astounding. It is easy to see, in this sense, how pervasive feathers are in Nahua history and culture. Here, the profession of feather seller as two types serves as a kind of metaphor for people in general. 

The feather seller

The feather seller is a feature worker, a merchant-the man [with] the basket.

The good feather seller [is] a gentle worker-one who esteems [his wares], who is dedicated. He sells various feathers-precious feathers; he sells fine green feathers, chili-green feathers, this curved at the tip, the feathers of young birds. He sells [feathers of the trogonorous, the troupial, the blue cotinga.

The bad feather worker [is] a [fraudulent] embellisher of feathers, a treater of feathers with glue. He sells old, worn feathers, damaged feathers. He dyes feathers; he dyes those which are faded, dirty, yellow, darkened, smoked.

Explore

Now look for yourself at some of the entries, and follow links to related terms below any image you view:

Books 1-4

https://media.getty.edu/iiif/manifest/ae8c3376-f8d6-447b-90a9-9c67b4cbe4d1

Books 5-9

https://media.getty.edu/iiif/manifest/3fa03fbc-a8c8-489e-83a5-1efc2d55fe5b

Books 10-12

https://media.getty.edu/iiif/manifest/d8a35385-d097-4306-89c0-1a15aa74e6da

Tip: make sure to select Full size before you Copy the URL!

Additionally:

1. For Title: use Nahuatl terms when possible, derived from image labels or accompanying text
2. For Description: use English, Spanish, and Nahuatl to explain or describe what is depicted or represented in the media. Add any relevant #hashtags you decide upon within class and group discussions. 
3. Make sure to click Metadata either when you first import or edit, and add your item metadata to Source as follows:

Getty Research Institute, Digital Florentine Codex, Book [x], folio [x], [image URL]

Think of this not as a traditional research paper that argues a thesis (“In this paper I will argue X…”). Instead, this is a visual research project in which you will explain images from the Florentine Codex in relation to Nahua worldviews and cross-cultural exchange on a particular topic. One way to think of this is to imagine that you are giving a tour of an exhibition of the images you have chosen, and are explaining how your visitors can understand how the images and text work together.  

Tips

• Start by arranging your images in a particular order that makes most sense for your explanation of them.
• Do an in-depth visual analysis of each image. Describe what you see in each image, taking them apart piece by piece in a formal way, with the goal of revealing the multiple dimensions of the images as both image and a form of text.
• After your visual analysis, analyze the textual passages and consider when the various texts might add to your contextualization. Make sure to consider the prompts posted above.
• When possible, focus your attention on the Nahuatl passages first, and then move to the Spanish text. Given that our class is dedicated to thinking about Indigenous forms of knowledge, think carefully about the importance of Nahua worldviews expressed in key terms and ideas in the text.
• Have a conclusion that wraps up the ideas from your discussion of the individual images and texts. 

Note on Annotations

Your annotations can come from your 1500-word text, they don’t necessarily need to be separate texts. Think of a magazine spread or blog post, where images are explained by quotations from the accompanying text. 

Citations

Please include at least 3-5 citations in your 1500-word text. Using Chicago Manual of Style, please use an “author-date” in-text citations as you write and include a list of works cited at the end of the text/ 

Example of in-text citation

 “In thinking about this image, I am considering the Nahua concept of ixiptlah as discussed by Magaloni-Kerpel (Magaloni-Kerpel 2014, 12).”

Example of work cited (reference list) at the end of text

• Magaloni-Kerpel, Diana. 2014. The Colors of the New World: Artists, Materials, and the Creation of the Florentine Codex. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.

If you are drafting text outside of Scalar

• If you are pasting in text, click Source in the upper left corner first (to ensure you don't import unwanted text coding), then click again to edit
• Also, make sure to edit your own page, and not the home page of the Scalar project, when you click the pencil edit icon! 

Remember:

1. .Follow directions for adding media to your own page. Make sure to select Title and Description, and Wrap Text settings.
2. Any annotations you have made will have to be selected to appear on a page (see bottom of this page in User's Guide)