Hurricane Digital Memory Bank and Online Collections

As history goes digital museums, academic institutions, non-profits, and other organizations are taking their collections digital too.  This has a huge impact not only on how historians view history, but also how the world views history.

As history collections become available online more and more people can view objects, photos, and documents that were previously only available to paying visitors of museums or scholars in academic libraries.  It also, interestingly, often means that photos and artifacts kept in private homes are also sometimes available for public viewing on the internet.

The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank is an online collection that documents the stories and artifacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  The online collections include photos, oral histories, videos, and even artwork drawn by children affected by Katrina.  Many of the photographs are captioned with personal stories, stories which really bring the horror and heartbreak of these hurricanes to life.

This image, for instance, highlights the story of a college freshman stranded in her flooded dorm.

As I read the story I remembered how scary it was to be a freshman anyway, and I could really empathize with Khalefa King's fear.  I think one of the important jobs someone putting together any exhibit has is not only to teach their audience something new, but also to try to find a way for their audience to connect to the artifacts being shown.  If you can evoke emotion, then that's even better (and even harder to do).  So the people who worked so hard on the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank did a really great job because I could not only connect to what I was being shown, what I was being shown made me feel something too.

The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank is a partnership of several history and academic institutions including the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, the University of New Orleans, and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.  Even digital history, then, often requires group work and works best when a lot of people (and therefore a lot of ideas) come together for something bigger than they are.