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ALA Annual 2007 Review – Sunday, June 24, 2007 – All History is Local in a Digital World / RUSA

Versión en español
This program was divided into three parts, each a presentation of a specific digitization project in the field of local history:
Nancy Allen of Penrose Library at the University of Denver, presented the “Collaborative Digitization Program” (CDP) first. The CDP is a consortium of partners across the western United Status that is working to develop shared infrastructure for the digitization of cultural resources. They have received grants from several organizations for these ends (IMLS, NEH, LSTA, etc.) Their associates include museums, libraries, archives and historical societies. As a result of this collaboration, these multimedia local history collections and curated exhibits are web accessible and searchable form the CDP website, as well as from library and museum websites. Allen did a wonderful job of illustrating how these collections help users make sense of history in a personal way. This project also increased capacity and visibility for smaller institutions.

Allen also addressed the most important myth of digitization projects “all you need is a scanner and a web designer”. As someone who has had to fight for managers who don’t understand that digitization projects are not merely mechanical endeavors, I know what an uphill battle it can be to explain that digitization requires serious attention to:

1. Project Management
2. Metadata
3. Standards
4. Rights
5. Institutional expertise and knowledge

Allen also busted other myths of digitization (“You need a dedicated staff”, “Only large institutions can do a good job.” etc.) and shared how the CDP had overcome all of them.
After Allen’s presentation, Judy Graves from the Library of Congress introduced “The American Memory and the National Digital Newspaper Project.” The main thrust of Graves’ presentation was to demonstrate how local history resources can come together to illuminate and personalize historical facts. For this purpose, she followed one of her ancestors’ personal history through media: photographs of immigrants from his time period, maps of where he lived, songs about people of his ethnic background, paintings of life in the era. By pulling together all these disparate elements into a single narrative, Graves was able to perfectly illustrate the purpose and potential of digital local history collections. It’s unfortunate that her slides are not available online.
Erich Kesse of the University of Florida presented the issues faced by “Using the Map Interface as a Visual Layer for Research in Local History.” Kesse also addressed the importance of going beyond dead white guys and mythical events when creating historical collections. His presentation mostly focused on the Ephemeral Cities project. This is an integrated collection of maps, documents, museum objects, photographs, and ephemera from three major cities in Florida: Gainesville, Tampa and Key West. What is perhaps most interesting about this project is that the interface is built upon the maps rendered by the Sanborn National Insurance Diagram Bureau from 1884-1903. Because these maps included every insurable property in any given location, over time, these diagrams can be used to determine the changes in structures and their uses over time (what was once a wooden barber shop becomes a brick pharmacy, for example). Even further, the project overlays these maps to current Google Earth and Google Maps imagery, so you can get a visual sense of change over time. They are also working on geo-tagging and integrating other data, such as personal names into the map interfaces.

Kesse also brought up a point that I would hear repeated later in other programs: the difficulties pertaining to geographic data: the volume/size is staggering, there are no standard formats, and there are also no open source formats and this time. All of these factors make managing geographic data difficult and expensive, and puts its long term survival in jeopardy. One of the Q&A session questions that really drove the point home: Is anyone archiving satellite and aerial images produced by services like Google Earth? Because the focus of applications like Google Earth is on the most recent information, tons of potentially valuable data is constantly destroyed. But who has the means to store it? And, if it is stored, how will we organize and retrieve it in the future?

Other reviews: Dewey and Main