Not the Same Old Archive
CHNM and UNO set out to create a user-friendly website that would act as an open archive for users to browse and as a portal for those affected by Katrina, Rita, or Wilma to contribute first-hand accounts, on-scene photos, blog postings, or podcasts. While similar to an oral history project and a physical archive there are some main differences that capitalize on the advantages of new media. I will use Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig’s criteria from Digital History, capacity, accessibility, flexibility, diversity, manipulability, interactivity, and hypertextuality, to analyze the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (HDMB).
- Capacity: HDMB has an unlimited capacity for storing images, video, audio, and text files in one place. This is so different from a physical archive where storage issues constantly plague archivists and historians who must ensure the proper environment to accommodate a variety of objects in collections. Most recently the Smithsonian Institutions’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum announced that portions of their extensive design archives would relocate from inside the museum in New York City to facilities in Washington, DC that could better handle the volume.
- Accessibility: As soon as stories, images, or audio files are uploaded to HDMB, (after a short vetting process) they are available for the public to browse. Unlike oral histories that need transcribing before they are available to the public, or physical archives which often are only available during very specific hours, HDMB sources are always available online. HDMB was born two months after
Hurricane Katrina hit and was one of the first history-focused hurricane responses available in old or new media. - Flexibility and Interactivity: Flexibility in design allowed HDMB to be customized for our targeted audience: those affected by the hurricanes in some way. After testing the site with a group of University of New Orleans students, we modified the design and wording of questions. Designing in new media gives us flexibility to change the site design, as well as change the way visitors browse through collections as the site expands. The site also may be designed with as much or as little interactivity. Visitors interact with hurricanearchive.org on their own and decide what they want to contribute, the length of their contribution, and how much time they spend on the site. Many oral history projects seek out specific subjects and then historians ask them a set of questions. HDMB allows the contributor to control the direction of the submission. They determine what is most important.
- Manipulability: HDMB provides different ways to find information, by browsing images and stories, keyword searching, or viewing objects related by geography using our Google map. W
e ask contributors to provide the geographic coordinates of either their location before the hurricanes hit or the location that best represents the content of their submission by entering a zip code or street address. By dynamically combining this information and their contribution with Google Maps, we provide a visual way of browsing the archive that enables new kinds of research and connections to be made. Visitors may easily browse the contributions in a specific location (down to a specific street corner), or create a customized map that is populated solely by contributions that contain a certain keyword or type of object. This type of user-determined search is invaluable for those conducting research through thousands of objects, and impossible with a traditional physical archive. - Diversity/Democratic: We designed HDMB to be accessible to the general public as HDMB seeks contributions from anyone with a hurricane story from Katrina, Rita, or Wilma. Those with low-grade browsers even have options to contribute on a special text-only page to ensure that this is accessible to as many people as possible. To be a grassroots effort, HDMB wants a diverse collection of experiences. By inviting everyone in to participate, HDMB also breaks down some artificial barriers between academia and the general public. Numerous efforts, particularly in New Orleans, are planned to reach people through public libraries, presentations, and by bringing laptops to public spaces with free internet access asking people to add their story to the archive. During Mardi Gras season, we distributed plastic cups with HDMB’s URL to reach those in Louisiana and Southeast Texas.
- Hypertextuality: Browsers may jump in asynchronous patterns via the map or through other sections of the site. Each section stands on its own and visitors decide on how to navigate through the site. The map offers the best example of hypertextuality because the map is alive with the collection. Refreshing the webpage shuffles the pins and produces a different selection each visit.
