February 3rd –
This week we were instructed to choose two projects and use the five JAH Digital History Project Reviews criteria (Content, Design, Audience, Digital Media, and Creators). For mine I chose the “September 11 Digital Archive” and JSTOR.
First, I’ll start with “September 11 Digital Archive”.1
Content: The site is decently up to date. They have a plethora of information, pictures, audio, etc. for viewers to interact with. I did go to their about page and it mentioned that they moved the digital archive to a different system/site which changed their links and other things pertaining to the interaction quality of the site. So for this site in particular, it is as up to date as it can be for 2014. After that it doesn’t seem like this site has been updated or checked up on much. As per their introduction their site is to “use electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath”. It has a clear purpose and their content proves that.
Design: The layout makes it pretty clear for someone visiting their site as to what they have content wise. Though once you click on one of the titles in their navigation bar it becomes a bit disorganized. For example, I clicked on “Items” and it brought me to a page where a can scroll through about twenty items/artifacts. It brought me to page 1 out of 3,518. Each item was vaguely named and often without a clear image representing what it was before you clicked it. As they said in the “About” tab some of the links might not work and I did encounter quite a bit that didn’t. I would definitely say that this site would be pretty difficult to navigate on a smaller screen since there are so many items and artifacts to scroll through. It could also be better at making everything more accessible for people with disabilities. The first that comes to my head in the color choices from some of the font and when you click on an artifact the page that it takes you to has a pretty small font that may be difficult to read.
Audience: I wouldn’t say that this site is targeted towards any specific person or group. It is for anyone researchers, students, educators, and the general public to access the information. It is pretty broad in this category and I think that is a good thing.
Digital Media: I think the site absolutely has an effective use of digital media. It provides so many artifacts, testimonies, stories, etc. that simply could not be grouped into one book. Even if you had all the books ever about what happened on September 11, I don’t think that it would provide these kind of unique perspectives. It holds more than simply of the history of what happened that day but it provides pictures, audio, video, letters, emails, and so much more.
Creators: The site is produced by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media and American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning. It had many partners such as the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, American Red Cross, Sonic Memorial, and more which all helped them collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11.
Finally, I will review JSTOR2.
Content: The content and information provided on this site is very up to date and it kept up with regularly. The site is as a digital library and archive to be used for academic purposes.
Design: Overall, the site is pretty easy to navigate around. At first it can be a little daunting as it is more of a research based site so people often use it with a specific thing in mind that they want to research. But for someone that just wants to explore it also has an assortment of featured sources for people to explore. Just like the last site, once you search something it takes you to an incredibly long list of sources but here is provides the viewer with different check boxes to narrow down their research to help them sort through the database which is really helpful. In terms of helping with disabilities, I think this site did a really good job at labeling specifically what someone were to click on before the do so which would help if someone was using screen reader. I also though the fonts and color we appropriate as well.
Audience: The site has a very clear projected audience as it is directed towards researchers, students, librarians, and the academics as a whole. It addresses their need very well as it allows the person interacting with the site to research whatever topic they want to research and it will provide all of the information they have relevant to it.
Digital Media: This site makes a great use of digital media. It takes a plethora of information and provides it in an instant, relevant to your topic. It also allows you to sort through exactly what you are looking for such as journals, images, book chapters etc. which in a library it would take hours, days, weeks, or a lot longer to sort through all of the information the site provides.
Creators: The site is created by a wide range of philanthropic foundations, academic libraries, publishers, and more.
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