Project Description

In this project, we are a small archive creating a local history project for seventh grade students. We are scanning a collection of photos of local landmarks and putting them on the site Historypin, which integrates them with the modern view. The students will be able to see the locations on a map and "walk" down the street. They can see the overlayed old photos fade into the modern images (courtesy of Google Street View), giving them a clear idea of how the town has changed over time.

Collection

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A description of our collection considerations and an explanation of our choice of Historypin.

The archive has a collection of photographs from a local photographer of local places including buildings and parks from the year 1900. The archive has good information about the photographs (who took them and what kind of camera was used) and the subjects of the photos to add descriptions into Historypin. The archive has the intellectual property rights to the photographs.

Through this grant the archives will digitize the photographs and upload them to Historypin. We need to consider what scanners, software, and server space are available. We also need to consider staff time to select and upload photographs and input the information. It would be best to select photographs that will line up with the Google street views.

Historypin is a partnership between the non profit group We Are What We Do and Google. It is a platform for individuals and organizations to share photographs, video, and audio by pinning them to a location and giving descriptions, making comments, and providing tags.

We suggest using Historypin because it gives us the ability to create a tour the students can navigate through by using the map or clicking though pictures. This tour will simulate walking through the town.  Historypin also offers other access points. Historypin provides a platform for uploading and describing the photos and creating tours and collections.

The fade feature allows for analysis of change over time, which is a goal of the project and is just plain cool. It works by overlaying the photograph over Google street view and then sliding the bar to make it fade.

We will also create a “Channel” page, which will include a map of our pinned photographs, our tour, our collection, information about our organization, and stories other people have added to our content. Collections are groups of photos about a topic or theme, which we will create with our photos.

Historypin will allow us to track traffic on our Channel and create a Historypin link from our institutional website.


 References:
1) “Historypin.” Historypin. We Are What We Do, n.d. http://www.historypin.com/
2) Lausch, Shannon and Chad Garrett. "Archives on the Map: Using Historypin to Illustrate the Past and Engage the Public." Archival Outlook (July/August 2012): 4-5, 26.
3) "Libraries, Archives and Museums homepage." Historypin. We Are What We Do, n.d. http://www.historypin.com/community/lams
4) Reilly, Elizabeth E. "Expanding Access to Archive Photographs through Historypin." MAC Newsletter 40.2 (October 2012).

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