Tuesday night I went to a meeting at the Women’s History Park in Seneca Falls, NY. The purpose of the meeting was to share with potential stakeholders the details of recent legislation that invites the National Parks Service to create a Votes for Women History Trail. As the legislation states, this trail seeks “to link properties in the State [NY] that are historically and thematically associated with the struggle for women’s suffrage in the United States”.
The project manager, Ellen Carlson shared that this process has three main components:
1. To develop the criteria for site to be included in the trail.
2. To add the chosen sites to the National Registry of Historic Sites.
3. To develop a network, which encourages non-public sites (such as archives) to add their resources to the trail.
Of course, as an archivist, my ears perked up when I heard about #3. I was the only archivist at the meeting. Other folks were from historical societies, Friends of the Park organizations and county historians. The comments generated seemed to lean toward developing a digital component to the trail. As the curator for the Susan B. Anthony Papers at the University of Rochester, I would love to participate in the trail through the digitization of all or part of the manuscript collection. Some of the items in that collection were digitized in 2006 as part of an exhibit commemorating Anthony’s life. The on-line exhibit acted as a digital mirror to the physical exhibit. Contributing content to the trail would continue and build upon that earlier work.
My initial idea was to suggest that signs on the trail include QR codes to direct visitors to on-line content. For example, if the Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester became a site on the trail, the sign outside the house indicating its participation could include a code for digitized content housed at the University or content from the House. However, the idea behind creating a trail is to connect sites and resources for more than lets say 5-10 years. No one can guarantee that QR codes will be around in 2 years let along 10. Someone at the meeting suggested taking advantage of Wikis and allowing the public to add their stories to the trail. By introducing wiki technology or technology with a comment feature, we could encourage those historical figures not represented with a physical site the possibility of connecting with the public through the on-line environment. However, while Wikipedia may be around in 5 years, the technology driving wikis is constantly changing.
So how can I as an archivist participate in the trail, while ensuring that the content I share will be available for at least a decade or two? Assuming the trail will have a central website, I could link my content to that, which would then direct people to my institution’s site and digital repository. There could be some kind of app created for the trail that visitors could download (again linking to my repository). Or maybe it’s fair to say that as long as the physical sites remain open and viable, having more transient and fleeting digital resources is okay.
The next meeting to discuss the trail is August 22nd. I’m excited to hear what the project team has come up with and to share my thoughts with group.