Before writing anything, I examined seven online archival collections: Hurricane Digital Memory Bank; The September 11 Digital Archive; fold3.com; JStor; Internet Archive; digitalhistory.uh.edu; and an article from The New Yorker discussing the shaping of digital collections. The links will be provided below!
Before visiting these websites, I had a very limited idea about what to expect in terms of format and content. However, each one shared a common purpose: keep the historical memory alive. This is, after all, the entire point of historical scholarship! These collections were designed for viewing by the general public, since it is the public memory that is being preserved. Enough talk, let's get into the analysis:
Hurricane Digital Memory Bank
http://www.hurricanearchive.org/
The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank is dedicated to preserving the stories of those who experienced and survived Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank contributes to the ongoing efforts by historians and archivists to preserve the human and environmental records of these storms by collecting first-hand accounts, images, videos, blog posts, and podcasts. These are the sorts of items that are included in this collection that reflect the impact of these storms, both immediately after they happened (the effort began in 2005) and further into the future as people rebuild their lives. These collections are very powerful, especially the written first-hand accounts. While I cannot see why we would WANT to remember these storms and their effects, I can see why we NEED such a collection in order to leave an ultimately positive legacy.
The September 11 Digital Archive
http://911digitalarchive.org/
The September 11 Digital Archive uses an online archive to collect, preserve, and present to the public the events of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath across the country. The Archive contains digital items, a tally of emails and other electronic communications, first-hand stories, and digital images. This collection is quite large, with each section containing more than 10,000 items. This effort was started in September 2003, making it one of the first digital collections by the Library of Congress. Users can explore the collection and examine stories, images, emails, documents, and videos having to do with September 11. These collections were created to preserve the memory of a key event in America's history, one that extraordinarily monumental. The raw nature and sheer number of the the items in the collection make it especially striking and worth examining.
fold3.com
http://www.fold3.com/
Fold3 is the most comprehensive military record archive on the internet. The records here date all the way back to the American Revolution and go up to the Vietnam War. This collection contains both search-enabled records and memorial pages. Many of the pages contained here represent major moments in U. S. and World history, which is part of the reason for why this collection is significant. It also contains non-military records, many of which contain information about the spouses of soldiers killed during these conflicts. Records add a personal touch to the study of war and helps both scholars and the casual searcher learn about the kinds of people that served in the military and the stories that they had. Americans are fascinated by war and are keen on preserving its memory, and this collection brings the personal touch that war stories need to really hit them home.
JSTOR
http://www.jstor.org/
JSTOR is an academic archive containing articles, letters, and other primary and secondary sources for an enormous array of subjects. This digital collection contains more than a thousand academic journals and over 1 million images, letters, and other primary sources. They provide resources for publishers, individuals, and librarians, making it clear that these sources are aimed at an academic audience. That is, the collection is not aimed at the casual archival browser, although it could certainly lend itself to that purpose. This collection is unique in that users must register, either with an institution or individually. Due to the scope and size of this collection, it can reach a very broad audience in various disciplines in every country. This collection is nothing if not a an international collaboration of learners from all areas, making it invaluable to scholars all over the world.
Internet Archive
http://archive.org/index.php
The Internet Archive is a non-profit that was founded to build an online library available to the public. Its primary purposes include offering access for researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public to historical collections that exist in digital format. The basic idea is: without cultural artifacts preserved in some form, civilizations will have no memory and no mechanism to learn from their successes and failures. This archive contains both text documents, images, and videos, as well as the Wayback Machine (http://archive.org/web/web.php) that allows users to examine the evolution of thousands of websites from their earliest dates to the present. This effort comes from a need and want to preserve knowledge and materials for future generations, and the belief that all people have the right to know and the right to remember, creating a dialogue for a collective history.
digitalhistory.uh.edu
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/
This effort combines resources on eras and topics throughout American history, as well as special exhibitions on specific topics. The collection utilizes a variety of resources, including timelines, primary sources, videos, interviews, and a variety of references. There is also a section on "Active Learning", which shows that that the effort is not meant to encourage passive scholarship on the part of its broad audience. This collection is comprehensive, presenting a story of America that is examined from multiple sides, which is what makes it a valuable resource for scholars on all levels.
The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/11/05/071105on_onlineonly_grafton?currentPage=1
This article, written by Anthony Grafton, discusses the roles that libraries and collections played in the past, and how those roles compare to the roles that online libraries and collections play in our society today.
Historical documents are also crowding onto digital collections as the internet becomes more and more a part of our everyday lives. Now, anyone can create his or her own archive and many libraries and archives encourage users do so. This is not so much a collection, but a discussion of how the historical profession is changing and how crucial it is that people keep up with the ever-changing field.
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