Digital Archives Project
The Digital Archives Project preserves local history while making it more accessible to the public. Emerging Technologies Librarian Mia Tignor and Professor Michelle Carrigan initiated the project in 2017 when Dr. Carrigan's honors class began to digitize sources within the IRSC Archives. In 2018 the project expanded to include a partnership with Indian River Historical Society. Honor student Parisa Erfani, as part of her 2017 service learning philosophy course with Dr. Joe Palencik, conducted research on possible partnerships with local historical organizations. Her findings led to the partnership between Indian River Historical Society (IRHS) and Indian River State College (IRSC). In the Spring 2018 semester, students in Dr. Carrigan's AMH2020 honors class worked with Indian River Historical Society's Hallstrom House to digitize Hallstrom archival records to preserve the records while also making them easily available to the public. In addition, students digitized articles from the Pioneer Press, the student newspaper of Indian River Junior College. See the digitized collections by clicking on the buttons to the right. |
Click the image below to go to IRSC Digital Archives homepage:
Click on the Hallstrom House button to view the digitized version of a Letter Book contained within the Indian River Historical Society's Hallstrom collection. Click on the Pioneer Press button to view digitize articles and issues from the 1960s and 1970s.
The project provides students with practical experience in the Digital Humanities. At the same time, the students are providing a valuable public service since it allows archival sources to be more readily available to the local population and to researchers. Members of the community, students from other classes, and academics will benefit from the indexed, digitized collection of sources. The readily available indexed sources encourage research on the local history of the Treasure Coast area. Such research will help us to better understand the area and its specific historical roots, while also shedding light on issues central to America and the world including race relations and class dynamics. The Project seeks to be interdisciplinary and welcomes researchers from various fields. The Project plans to expand to include more IRSC classes and community organizations. |
The Project in action...