As this webpage had not been updated for over five years, the project was to complete a revision. This was done by looking for recent cases to include as well as creating a new map corresponding to the cases. I also looked for dead links in the resources.
In this project, I was able to have more content management system experience using Drupal, which is one of my interest areas. I also developed new software skills because the map required using a Geographic Information System software called ArcGIS. The original map on the webpage was created using an old Google map software. That map was not able to be edited and was also owned by the original creator of the web page who was no longer affiliated with the project. Thus, we needed to create a new map from scratch. I contacted the GIS liaison librarian and set up a meeting with her. With her help, I was able to learn how excel sheets needed to be formatted in order to enter the data into the ArcGIS software. Any experience learning new software will be useful in my future career endeavours, especially since my next co-op position involves using database software.
This project also gave me the opportunity to familiarize myself with the legal database CanLII, which I had never worked with before. It was a good experience to see how different data was formatted on this database compared to other subject area databases that I worked with often such as PscyINFO and PubMed.
While I enjoyed this project and found it a very valuable experience, I think next time I would meet with a law/legal subject librarian prior to beginning the project in order to learn more about the CanLII database before starting the project. My manager had let me know about the project consultant with legal database experience and I felt I could have utilized her expertise much more.
In regard to the content I was updating on the website, I was researching cases involving Indigenous communities. Information I was looking into included preferred names of bands and nations, and cases with affiliations to topics such as land title, taxation, and treaty rights. I learned about how numerous the cases were, how names of bands and nations can differ from their preferred names in comparison to on legal documents, and complexity of historical documentation in many of the cases, among other things. It was truly a humbling and important learning experience for me to read about these difficult cases.
Although this is a co-op project that I could submit and forget about, this project is something I will continue to remember and reflect on for its content. As I continue to work on it until the end of my co-op term, I will think of ways to make it easier for the next person to update the page to be able to make changes more easily, especially in regard to working with the map.