Signed to the Label: Our Charlotte Music Exhibit Group Contract

One of the assignments for the Digital History class is to create an online exhibit on a given topic within Charlotte history. My group is doing the history of Charlotte's music venues and the types of music that were showcased throughout the years, from approximately the 1930s up through the 1990s. Even though this sounds quite broad, it really is very narrow compared to what we started with. The Mission Statement was not too much of a challenge since the goals were quite clear, but we also had to consider what the specific goals were, not just teaching visitors about Charlotte music venues and their heritage.

Scope and depth were two of our main challenges, since there is so much interesting and compelling material to work with. The Carolina Room at the Uptown Library (http://www.cmlibrary.org/locations/maincarolina.asp) has a fantastic array of music resources, from books to original vinyl records. The only downside to all of these resources is narrowing them down. At first, we were going to organize the exhibit by era or decade. The trouble with that is that so many styles fit into each era and there would be too much cramped into each section. Eventually, we decided to organize it by venue so that visitors would be able to consider each venue its own time.

The milestones were also a challenge but it was not one that was an inconvenience. If anything, it helped us focus and really think about where we wanted our exhibit to go and the order in which to accomplish that. Certainly, more things take more time than others, but some things have to be done in order to move on to the next step. For example, each venue needs to be identified before the search for pictures can commence.

In conclusion, designing an online exhibit, both in terms of content and organization, is extraordinarily difficult. Trying to make sure that our group had covered everything necessary to ensure that the contract will indeed be useful. However, I do think that our hard work will be worth it since our topic is interesting to the whole group and there are tons of resources!