History Commons^™

Toporadio: Mapping Research On Spanish-Languageradio In The United States, Eric Silberberg

Publications and Research

This article analyzes the construction of TopoRadio (toporadio.org), an interactive map that showcases publications and archives about Spanish-language radio in the U.S. The map aims to promote a more inclusive and comprehensive representation of U.S. radio history by improving the visibility of contributions from Latinx broadcasters. The article addresses how map-making historically suppressed Spanish-language radio programs and proposes using critical cartography as a framework for mapping back this history. The technical elements of TopoRadio, including publication selection criteria, metadata design, geocoding process, and the appraisal of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, are described to provide scholars with a reproducible method …

Women's Stories, W. E. B. Du Bois Papers Data, Blake Spitz

University Libraries Presentations Series

The UMass Amherst department of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) collects original materials that document the histories and experiences of social change in America and the organizational, intellectual, and individual ties that unite disparate struggles for social justice, human dignity, and equality. SCUA’s decision to adopt social change as a collecting focus emerged from our holding of the W.E.B. Du Bois Papers, and one of Du Bois’s most profound insights: that the most fundamental issues in social justice are so deeply interconnected that no movement — and no solution to social ills — can succeed in isolation. I …

From The Trenches: Cross-Campus Digital History Collaboration, Amy E. Lucadamo, Ian A. Isherwood, R.C. Miessler, Jenna Fleming, Meghan E. O'Donnell

R.C. Miessler

In September 2015, our team launched The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs (www.jackpeirs.org), a digital history initiative built on collaboration between faculty, students, and library staff. The project is founded on amazing primary source material, but with limited financial support and little dedicated staff time. We leveraged the creativity and hard work of our team members to build a website that is maintained by students and enhanced whenever possible with features and commentary from faculty and staff. Members of #TeamPeirs discussed the evolution of the project, the nature of our collaboration, and the intersection of audiences …

From The Trenches: Cross-Campus Digital History Collaboration, Amy E. Lucadamo, Ian A. Isherwood, R.C. Miessler, Jenna Fleming, Meghan E. O'Donnell

All Musselman Library Staff Works

In September 2015, our team launched The First World War Letters of H.J.C. Peirs (www.jackpeirs.org), a digital history initiative built on collaboration between faculty, students, and library staff. The project is founded on amazing primary source material, but with limited financial support and little dedicated staff time. We leveraged the creativity and hard work of our team members to build a website that is maintained by students and enhanced whenever possible with features and commentary from faculty and staff. Members of #TeamPeirs discussed the evolution of the project, the nature of our collaboration, and the intersection of audiences …

Mapping The Oratory Of Frederick Douglass, Olivia Macisaac, Peter Harrah, David Lewis, Lynette Taylor, Leann West, Matthew Young

Olivia MacIsaac

This project is a multidisciplinary study of Douglass’s speaking tours throughout his long public career as an abolitionist, human rights advocate, and politician. For this initial phase, our primary aim was data collection for which our research team sampled a single year from each of the six decades from the 1840s to the 1890s. This was the time period in which well-known runaway slave and civil rights leader Frederick Douglass toured the United States and Europe. The purpose of this study is to develop a spatial representation of the itinerary of Douglass’s speaking-related travels. This will not only enable us …

A Call To Redefine Historical Scholarship In The Digital Turn, Jason A. Heppler, Douglas Seefeldt, Alex Galarza

Jason Heppler

This is a collaboratively-written call for the American Historical Association to appoint a task force to survey the profession as to the place of digital historical scholarship in promotion and tenure and graduate student training and to recommend standards and guidelines for the profession to follow. This document is a product of many of the exciting changes discussed below. It began at a session atTHATCamp AHA 2012 that included graduate students, tenured and non-tenured faculty, and librarians. These participants and others continued their conversations at the physical conference and afterwards on the web. Additional signatures and edits in the …

Questioning The Past And Possible Futures: Digital Historiography And Critical Librarianship, Heidi Jacobs, Calin Murgu

Heidi LM Jacobs

The role of history as a discipline is, as Burton and Sweeny claim, not only to transform our understanding of the past and the present but also to shape possible futures. Digital historical projects are transformative endeavors that attempt to negotiate and navigate the past and articulate these possible futures. Drawing on the foundational ideas of critical librarianship to “intervene in and disrupt” structural inequities and on examples from digital historiography, we argue for a more robust role for librarians within these transformative endeavors. In so doing, librarians can use conscious, deliberate, reflexive actions to work toward animating values central …

Questioning The Past And Possible Futures: Digital Historiography And Critical Librarianship, Heidi Jacobs, Calin Murgu

Leddy Library Publications

The role of history as a discipline is, as Burton and Sweeny claim, not only to transform our understanding of the past and the present but also to shape possible futures. Digital historical projects are transformative endeavors that attempt to negotiate and navigate the past and articulate these possible futures. Drawing on the foundational ideas of critical librarianship to “intervene in and disrupt” structural inequities and on examples from digital historiography, we argue for a more robust role for librarians within these transformative endeavors. In so doing, librarians can use conscious, deliberate, reflexive actions to work toward animating values central …

The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project And The National Digital Newspaper Program: Cooperative Efforts In Long-Term Digital Newspaper Access And Preservation, Tom Mcmurdo, Birdie Maclennan

University Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

The Vermont Digital Newspaper Project (VTDNP) is a state partner in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Developed by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Library of Congress (LC), the NDNP is a long-term, national effort to build a freely accessible, searchable Internet database of historical US newspapers. NEH provides funding to state projects to select and digitize historic newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. LC provides the technical support and framework for preservation digitization. Digitized newspapers are archived by LC and made freely available through the website Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Vermont joined the NDNP …

Mass. Memories Road Show: Your Place In Massachusetts History, Andrew Elder, Carolyn M. Goldstein, Joanne Riley, University Archives & Special Collections, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Mass. Memories Road Show is an event-based public history project that digitizes family photographs and stories shared by the people of Massachusetts. We work with local communities to organize free public events where everyone is invited to bring photographs to be scanned and included in the archives at UMass Boston.

To date, the Mass. Memories Road Show has digitized more than 5,000 photographs and stories from across the state, creating an educational resource of primary sources for future generations. Over time, we plan to visit each of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.

A Call To Redefine Historical Scholarship In The Digital Turn, Jason A. Heppler, Douglas Seefeldt, Alex Galarza

Criss Library Faculty Publications

This is a collaboratively-written call for the American Historical Association to appoint a task force to survey the profession as to the place of digital historical scholarship in promotion and tenure and graduate student training and to recommend standards and guidelines for the profession to follow. This document is a product of many of the exciting changes discussed below. It began at a session atTHATCamp AHA 2012 that included graduate students, tenured and non-tenured faculty, and librarians. These participants and others continued their conversations at the physical conference and afterwards on the web. Additional signatures and edits in the …

Mass. Memories Road Show, Heather Cole, Joanne M. Riley, Andrew Elder, Joseph P. Healey Library, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Mass. Memories Road Show is an event-based public history project that digitizes family photos and stories shared by the people of Massachusetts. We work with local communities to organize free public events where residents are invited to bring family photos to be scanned and included in the archives at UMass Boston.

The September 11 Digital Archive, Stephen Brier, Joshua Brown

Publications and Research

This article focuses on the creation and subsequent development of the September 11 Digital Archive (www.911digitalarchive.org), currently one of the largest digital repositories of historical materials on the September 11 attacks. The article reflects on archival and methodological questions and on issues raised by the efforts of staff members at the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and at the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (ASHP) at the City University of New York Graduate Center to preserve and present via the Internet digital resources related to the epochal events of …