I began my research as I usually do, with a computer and a notepad.  I did several searches with the key words of my topic and subtopics and bookmarked the sites I thought had potential.  After about an hour, I had a diverse range of sites to peruse.  The first filter I applied was practical; I checked the apparent reputability of the sites and their parent organizations.  This technique eliminated a few sites.  Next, I arranged them according to subtopic.   I kept the two or three best sites pertaining to each subtopic and discarded the rest.  A few of the sites I printed to have close at hand and read fully; others I kept in a digital file to return to later.  Once I was confident that I had collected a good amount of web sources, I made plans to visit the library.

            One early afternoon, I walked into the Georgia Tech library without the slightest idea of how I would begin my research.  Luckily for me, I found a number of friendly and helpful librarians ready to help me get acquainted with the process.  After a few short conversations, I was in the stacks for hours with my computer (library catalog open in several windows) and a slip of paper to jot down call numbers.  I enjoyed this the most—being surrounded by books, the smell of paper and coffee, and the whispers of other library foragers.  I finally found about twenty books that I thought might be pertinent.  Upon closer review, I deemed five of them to be worth reading/browsing.  Each of these books was on a subtopic that wasn’t easily found online, making them ideal additions to my collection.  I was upset to discover that the book I most wanted had left the library with some other student, but found a way to recall it online.   Sadly, it would never be returned in time for me to receive it.  Nevertheless, I’m happy with the books I discovered.  I successfully checked them out at the circulation desk downstairs and exited into a surprisingly dark sky.

            I wasn’t sure what I would use for my visual component, since I’d found only a few images online that I thought both worthy and relevant.  It was a wonderfully serendipitous moment to find a variety of nineteenth century engravings in the back of two of my books.  In a third book, I found a number of graphs and charts that I thought interesting and highly related to my topic.  With these fortunate finds and those from the Internet, I had plenty of images from which to choose.  I selected those that I thought would most afford clarity and diversity and that had something interesting to offer.  I especially liked the articles featuring Charles Dickens.  Something about them really caught my attention, perhaps because I had just finished reading one of his novels dealing with poverty, Oliver Twist, which inspired me to choose my topic in the first place.

            Finding articles, books, and hardcopy images that I thought were significant was surprisingly simple and enjoyable.  What was less so, however, was the process of actually procuring those particular books or articles.  I ordered a few books through the library recall system (GIL wasn’t necessary after all), but they never came, or perhaps I incorrectly requested them.  Either way, I was highly disappointed not to have them.  It was frustrating to try to replace them adequately, but I think I found a number of comparable things.  Besides that issue, the library was a successful source of information and hardcopy sources.  The process of attempting to find books, sometimes with triumph and sometimes without, certainly taught me a great deal about researching in general and about the Georgia Tech library in particular.

            Constructing my website was easier done than said.  I was highly hesitant to even attempt such a thing given my ineptitude with all things electronic. After a visit with my professor, though, I decided I would make an effort with a website she recommended.  I was so thrilled to find that the site was both navigable and conducive to what I had envisioned!  It only took a few hours to input and format everything I had collected and written into the website.  It was in the rough draft workshop the next week that I discovered the only great obstacle that I faced throughout the project.  The formatting which looked flawless on my 13” MacBook screen was horribly disfigured on my friend’s 15” PC screen.  Apparently, the website I had used to construct my portfolio did not standardize the size of its page elements.  That is, if I formatted my bibliography to fit my size screen, the size of the paragraph box would change once viewed on a different computer and cause that formatting to look ridiculous.  I worked on this issue on several occasions, many times thinking that I had solved it with clever insertions or formatting tricks.  Alas, never did I actually find a solution.  After a fit of aggravation, I finally redesigned the cover page to be center-aligned and aligned the bibliography to the left.  I’m disappointed that I couldn’t find a proper solution, but feel that the portfolio remains hardly changed in aesthetical terms nevertheless.

            Upon completion, I feel that my portfolio has turned out to be much better than what I thought I could produce.  It was a frustrating battle at times, but I feel that I did learn a good deal about the process of researching properly and even a bit about building a website.  While there are a few things I wish I were able to change about the final product, it’s much beyond what I thought it would be.  I’d certainly say that I feel personally accomplished in this endeavor.