Lessons from contributing to User Studies for Digital Library Development and why audience research should shape digital collections, services and platforms before technology choices are made.
Category Archives: Public Knowledge & Culture
Work about access, shared knowledge, interpretation, institutions, communities, cultural meaning, and the systems through which knowledge becomes public.
Oral History: The enthusiast’s guide to getting started
A practical introduction to planning, recording and preserving oral-history interviews for family, community and cultural-heritage projects.
Where Technology Meets Interpretation Workshop Resources
Workshop resources on audience research, digital strategy, technology selection and interpretation for museums, gardens and cultural sites.
Augmented reality tactics for heritage interpretation
Practical approaches to using augmented reality to add historical context at heritage sites while keeping visitors attentive to the physical place itself.
Mobile tour platforms for museums and cultural sites
A comparison of mobile-tour platforms for museums and cultural sites seeking more participatory, multimedia and visitor-centered interpretation.
Digital media approaches in gardens and historic landscapes
An overview of digital approaches for interpreting, managing and sharing gardens, cultural landscapes and other living heritage collections.
Crowdsourcing Historical Memory with TellHistory
TellHistory combined crowdsourced video memories with themes, timelines, and maps to place personal stories within larger historical contexts. Founders Alex Whitcomb and Sarah Hayes discuss how they lowered barriers to contribution, built participation, used social media to grow the project, and shaped individual testimony into a shared public resource. The project demonstrates how digital platforms can connect oral history, geographic context, and community contribution without reducing memory to isolated content fragments.
#DigitalHeritage 1-2-3: APIs, Apps & Social Media Preservation
A compact digital-heritage briefing on APIs, mobile apps and the challenge of preserving social-media content while keeping digital collections accessible.
Tips on Creating a Large Family Tree for a Gift (with templates)
Suzie Kolber offers practical advice for turning genealogical research into a family tree designed to be displayed and shared. The piece considers layout, family structure, the amount of information to include, visual presentation, and the sensitivities that can arise when a chart makes gaps or unusual relationships conspicuous. Beneath the craft advice is a larger heritage idea: family history becomes more meaningful when research is translated into something people can actually encounter together.
The Burning of Columbia uses digital media to commemorate history
Historic Columbia used websites, social media, and real-time historical storytelling to mark the 150th anniversary of the Burning of Columbia during the Civil War. Carrie Phillips explains how the organization defined its goals, coordinated platforms, divided responsibilities, and designed an experience that let audiences encounter historical events with greater immediacy. The project shows how digital commemoration can connect place, chronology, archival material, and public participation without treating history as a one-way broadcast.