Virtual Virtues: What works and does not work for presenting manuscript material online

Posted on April 21, 2015 by James Cusick

This is an open discussion about what makes the contents of a digital archive (letters, papers, diaries, etc.), either easy to use or frustrating to use. I thought we might look at the Bexar Archives (UT-Austin), Free People of Color in Louisiana (LSU), the Papers of Andrew Jackson (UTenn-Knoxville), and UFDC’s own Pioneer Days in Florida.

Bexar Archives: www.cah.utexas.edu/projects/bexar/index.php

Free People of Color: cdm16313.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/p16313coll51

Jackson: thepapersofandrewjackson.utk.edu/

Pioneer Days: ufdc.ufl.edu/pioneerdays

James Cusick
Curator, P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History, UF

Categories: Archives, Research Methods, Session: Talk, Teaching, Text Mining |

About James Cusick

I am the curator for the P.K. Yonge Library of Florida History at UF and have a background in historical archaeology (colonial period) and history. I am just starting my 17th year as curator and now spend a good deal of time working with the digital component of our collections--both traditional items that we have scanned and new audiovisual materials coming in to us.

2 Responses to Virtual Virtues: What works and does not work for presenting manuscript material online

  1. Sophia K. Acord says:
    April 22, 2015 at 12:44 PM

    Thanks, Jim, for this session proposal. If ‘the medium is the message’, it’s always interested me how the digital presence of archives mediates their use. I look forward to others’ thoughts on this topic in this session! I wonder if there is a way to combine this with the digital newspaper session that was also proposed by UF?

  2. Dhanashree Thorat says:
    April 23, 2015 at 4:14 PM

    James, I was wondering if you were also going to look at digital archives which deliberately thwart user access/experience? (For instance, indigenous digital archives that have different access levels for elders of the community, for that community, and for general users, etc). I am interested in digital archives that are experiential and try to give users not only information about a subject, but try to immerse them in it.

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