Neatline is a “geotemporal exhibit-builder” produced by the Scholars’ Lab at the University of Virginia Library. It is a collection of plugins that can be used through Omeka to create visual interactive historical narratives. Designed to be simple yet sophisticated, Neatline is meant to be easy to use while still producing quality exhibits. There are two types of exhibits you can create with Neatline: map-based and image-based. The former builds exhibits over geospatial layers and the latter builds exhibits over a static image.

One strength of Neatline is that it allows readers to better visualize and interact with historical data. Analyzing historical data presented in other forms, like PDFs of journal articles, can be tedious. When reading a book or a journal article to get information, a person often has to slog through pages upon pages of seemingly trivial ramblings and polysyllabic terminology in order to find a tidbit of information which is even remotely relevant to their topic of interest. After a reader has managed to decipher their collected information, they must then also take on the task of situating the data in time and space. A website which uses Neatline makes this process of gathering data more accessible and less headache-inducing. A reader of such a website can simply peruse a map with historical data linked to certain geographic points.

One digital history project that uses Neatline is Mapping the Martyrs, a website that presents data about martyrdom and persecution in early Christianity. This website features a timeline at the bottom of its page which presents accounts of martyrdom in blue and periods of persecution in orange. The timeline presents data from 34 CE to 650 CE. The column on the leftmost side of the page gives users a brief introduction to the site and how to use it. The main portion of the website maps the individuals or groups of martyrs using round blue icons. These martyrs are subdivided into apostles and female martyrs. Clicking on one of these round blue icons will bring up some basic information about the martyr (their name, date, location, type of persecution, and nature of conflict), as well as some blurbs on the historical context and significance of the martyrdom and a brief bibliography.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A digital history project which uses Neatline in a different way is The <Digital /> Declaration of Independence, a website that presents the Declaration of Independence with a painting of its signing, as well as a map of the Eastern Seaboard. The site opens on the painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, with its text in a scrollable column on the left. Clicking on a face in the painting will direct you to their name in the left column. From here, you can choose to view their signature on the Declaration of Independence by clicking on their name. Each name in the left column has two icons next to it: a person and a globe. Clicking on the icon of the person will lead you to the respective person’s depiction in the painting, and clicking on the globe icon will lead you to their spot on the map. Clicking on any person, whether it be on the map, painting, or Declaration of Independence, will cause their name to pop up at the top of the page by the “Text” button. Clicking on a person’s name here will lead you to the person’s picture and biography. I think this website is the most interesting use of Neatline because it provides both map-based and image-based exhibits.

One weakness of Neatline is that the user needs to sift through a lot of information before they can even start to fiddle with the tool. The user needs to know how to set up an Omeka site, install the Neatline plugins and Geoserver, and how to create an Omeka exhibit before they can even begin to get into the specific Neatline features. While Neatline does seem like a very helpful tool to use when presenting historical data, a person would need to take a couple of days to read through the documentation in order to truly understand how to utilize the tool.

As a user of historical websites, I think Neatline is an especially helpful tool to present and contextualize historical data. Navigating a website that uses Neatline is much easier than navigating a dense text. These websites highlight key information and historical figures and make it fun to explore different historical events and topics. However, as a potential creator of historical websites, Neatline seems slightly complicated to use. While Neatline does provide documentation on how to use its tool, as well as provide links to community resources, I fear learning how to use the tool might prove to be quite difficult for a novice such as myself. Ultimately, I think the websites created using Neatline are quite helpful and interesting, even if I might not be up to the task of using the tool myself.