Black Death Database

The Black Death Database is a centralized reference database built in Omeka S for sources on the Black Death. Created by Professor William North, the website serves as a research guide for teachers and students looking to learn more about the Black Death. Throughout the winter and spring of 2021, I built the site in Omeka S and helped establish metadata guidelines for the sources.

I began the project by building the data dictionary for the database. The site contains four different classes of entry types: primary sources, primary authors, secondary sources, and secondary authors. I identified Dublin Core metadata fields for each class and wrote rules on how metadata should be entered to standardize the entries. After initializing the metadata, I built the website in Omeka S and imported the sources that Professor North had compiled in a spreadsheet. 

Although the website is still a work in progress, it shows the ability of digital tools to make academic content more accessible to a general audience. In the future, Professor North and I hope that many educators will take advantage of the Black Death Database to locate primary sources and create lesson plans for their students.