Well we’ve been set back a little in this class due to the snow/ice storm that hit Fredericksburg Sunday, January 25 which put us online for the remainder of the week, but how fitting is that! How cool is it that we’ve been able to develop technology that allows us to still connect and share information virtually when we can’t physically be together, which is one of the aims, I believe, of branching out fields like history into the digital space. With that, let’s take a look at some digital projects and review them according to the five standards of the Journal of American History’s Digital History Project Review criteria: Content, Design, Audience, Digital Media, and Creators.
Website 1: The Spread of U.S. Slavery, 1790-1860
This site appears to be a mapping project that displays the concentration of the enslaved population of the United States in the decades preceding the Civil War. There’s a timeline feature and a drop down as well that allows you to see different ways of presenting the enslaved population, like enslaved persons per square mile, or the free Black population, as well.
In terms of content, it appears that this website does cite its sources, like it gets its census information from the Minnesota Population Center’s National Historical Geographic Information System, and it provides links within the site to those sites and resources. The author also gives some explanation and background information on slavery in the United States, like his explanation of the Three-Fifths Compromise, but I will note his source is from Wikipedia, which I won’t hate on it but it can sometimes not be the most reliable source and for a sake of a serious project I would want to find something a bit more reputable. The content is easy to find and navigate and provides just enough information to understand what the topic is and how to use the tools the author created.
For design, I would say that this site is very simplistic with the only colors really being in the map and the rest of the content is in black and white. The timeline, at least the writing, is pretty small and the feature itself may be a bit small for some users. Other than those functions, I feel the design and formatting of the cite is pretty navigable. There are no weird pop ups or things that prevent me from finding the information I would need, but maybe by the nature of this project just being to show a map the simplicity of it would not present too many issues in terms of navigability, but there may be some issues, again, in terms of accessibility with the map and timeline features.
The audience that this project was made for isn’t quite clear on this, at least it’s not explicitly stated, but assuming by the written content including information about how to use the map and what the map represents, I’d infer the audience is anyone on the internet interested in the topic or history in general.
In terms of digital media, I wouldn’t say that the concept of mapping out the spread of slavery could solely be done by the mapping features on this website, you could present this in other digital formats like a video. With that being said, I do think that by presenting the map and information in this way it is a more interactive experience for the audience because they get to manipulate aspects of the map and timeline to find information they’re interested in, which couldn’t be done on a video beyond rewinding sections of it. I would also say to enhance the engagement of the website and potentially include more depth in terms of content, the site could showcase some photos or pdfs of the original census that the author of the site was pulling from, which would also be utilizing other kinds of digital media.
Lastly, the website is only done by one person, which is indicated by him using the first person and the text in the box above “How to use this map” shows that he’s made other maps for personal projects. I think for one person this site is great, well organized, and clearly cared about. I would argue, however, that having more contributors would help increase the amount and thoroughness of the information on the site by bringing new ideas and skillsets that could make the project that much better.
Website 2: Lost & Found Archive Project
In terms of content, this website gives varied levels of depth and information depending on what you’re viewing, which I really appreciate. The home page has smaller summaries about what’s in that section or what the digital publications are about. The writing and design make this site look professional, and they include information about the authors of the found books they are presenting. The information on the pages in Digital & Book Length Publications link back to book selling or other sites and from a brief glance over the information looks accurate. Overall, I think the content on this site is well presented.
The design of this site is very appealing, the colors are nice to look at and I love the library/book stamp logo that’s used throughout. The text is also great in terms of font, color, and size, so from my perspective this aspect of the site is pretty accessible. I don’t think I’ve seen a site before where the navigation bar leads to different sections of one home page, I feel like typically they lead you to a new page (view the home page here). I thought this was nice since I don’t have to click into a bunch of new tabs to find information, and under each section they showcase some of the things within that item. What I would like to see is that once you click on an item that there would be a return home button because the menu bar at the top goes to the rest of the home site that this project is a branch of, which I think could be confusing to some users.
This project doesn’t explicitly say their audience, but compared to the previous site I looked at (Spread of US Slavery), this project seems to cater to a more niche audience, not so much the general public. Some of the reasons I think this is there is an about blurb so anyone could understand what this project generally is, but when you scroll down there’s sections for upcoming events, workshops, news, and opportunities and grants, which makes me believe this site is designed more so for people interested in archival work, not so much simply learning about a history topic like the slavery project.
The digital media aspects of this project I feel are very fitting for what the purpose is which is more archival work. The home page has lots of images or the physical publications, the authors of those books, the digital publication book covers, and photos from workshops or events. I also really like the image galleries that went along with the published works. Most of the ones from the series just have a bunch of images displayed all together, but I really like the way the images were presented in the scrolling gallery format on Federico García Lorca: From the Archive into the World – An Interview with Laura García-Lorca.
Finally, the creators. Under the people tab you can view editors and fellows which brings you to a page with the pictures, names, and titles of the Archival Research Fellows, faculty, and editors that have worked on this project, and the list is long. Many people have contributed to this project over the years, and I believe this points to the project being very well kept up to date in both content and design. These creators being apart of an institution also provides a level of reputability to the project.
Reviewing these sites with the JAH criteria made me look at these projects with a much closer eye beyond what I like and don’t like. Of course, I want to like the project I eventually put out to the world, but it’s also important to keep in mind that the rest of the world needs to be able to trust and easily use the website or other digital format of my project.
