Happy February! We hope everyone is doing well. Keep reading to learn about digital history projects and opportunities.
From the Rock Wall |
| Looking to help out some history organizations? The Marian Cheek Jackson Center is looking for volunteers to transcribe oral histories for their From the Rock Wall oral history project. Some are as short as two minutes. |
| Contact kathryn@jacksoncenter.info for more information. |
NULab Spring Conference 2025: Social Justice |
| “On April 25th, the NULab will be hosting its seventh annual spring conference, “Social Justice,” showcasing the work of faculty, students, and research collaborators. |
| The keynote address will be delivered by Catherine Knight Steele, Associate Professor of Communications at the University of Maryland. |
| This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required; please RSVP here. Zoom information will be emailed upon registration. |
| The conference will be hybrid. We will gather in person at the Centers for Digital Scholarship in Snell Library, and virtually on Zoom. All are welcome to join!” |
NMAAHC – St. Louis Digital History Preservation |
| Last fall, the National Museum of African American History and Culture took its Community Curation Program to St. Louis to create a digital collection on local history. |
| “The Community Curation Program is an innovative, digital-first initiative bridging the generational digital divide,” says Doretha Williams, NMAAHC’s director of the Robert F. Smith Center for the Digitization and Curation of African American History. “By bringing the Museum’s digitization services to diverse communities across the country and creating a unique online platform [communitycuration.org], the program supports the preservation and sharing of community history and culture.” |
You Are in Native Space |
| “Imagine coming upon a colorful, round medallion on the sidewalk of your neighborhood park. The marker announces “You are in Native Space.” You use your phone to scan the QR code in the center of the medallion’s sun-like symbol and load a location-aware web app inviting you to “listen.” You put on your headphones and move through the park, immersed in an ever-changing tapestry of sounds that respond to your location: field recordings of human and more-than-human life, powwow drums and music, and a collage of voices describing diverse experiences with and visions of this place over the last 10,000 years. |
| Initiated by Massachusett elder Elizabeth Solomon and Boston-based artist Sarah Kanouse, “Native Spaces” is a digital platform for sharing artful, place-based audio narratives of Indigenous survival, resistance, and resurgence in Eastern Massachusetts. Salem is the location of the project’s first chapter and showcases varied perspectives – both Indigenous and non-Native – on the historic “deed” that legitimized, under colonial law, the transfer of the Massachusett village of Naumkeag to the English colonists. The pilot iteration launched October 11, 2024 and will be expanded in the coming years.” |
| Make sure to contact the LAUNCH if there are any skills you want to learn, need support with your own digital history projects, or are interested in our podcast! |
| Thanks for reading, |
| The LAUNCH Team (Cameron, Ha Lien, Dani, & Nicholas) |