The Early Seattle Theatre History Project (ESTHP) is a digital history project launching its website later this year. The website’s mission is to help enrich the research of scholars, students, and subject enthusiasts. The ESTHP team hopes to do this by supplying the researcher with access to a plethora of primary resources. However, while the team began to familiarize themselves with the materials, the necessity of contextualizing some aspects of the theatre and theatre history arose. For my project I created a prototype digital exhibit for ESTHP focused on Seattle theatre during World War I. The digital exhibits contain essays and digital objects that focus on explaining certain themes brought up by the collection materials. The exhibits hope to illuminate subjects that might be missed by viewing the collection materials on their own. When the website launches other exhibits will be available to help guide researchers in understanding the collection.

My capstone focused on the preservation, arrangement, and description of photographs made by Dolores Varela Phillips, documenting the 1970 conflict between two tribes, Nisqually and Puyallup, and Washington state law enforcement. Results include EAD finding aid and digital access to the collection. These images shed light on a critical period of national and local civil-rights history. Phillips’ collection is comprised of negatives she hid in her purse lining to prevent confiscation by the police. The photographs capture an important event that was the catalyst to a revision in Washington state  laws. Negative collections are distinctive and a time-consuming variation from standard processing. This often hinders valuable materials from reaching the public; a mounting information problem archives face. Raising awareness about the significance of this rare collection is paramount as 2014 marked the 40th anniversary of the new law passing. Already, these images have received user-requests for a Smithsonian exhibit. 

The United States Forest Service has a long history of caring for the land and serving people. A significant part of that history are the foresters themselves: their memories, experiences, and stories. Every National Forest has a Heritage Program and for decades, volunteers and foresters have been collecting oral histories from retirees, volunteers, and their families. Some interviews were written down, others recorded in a variety of formats. The challenge: How to approach the preparation of these materials for storage and public access at the National Museum of Forest Service History. We worked with the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and the Museum to assess current resources and develop a sustainable process for digitization, storage, and public access. In addition to the immediate needs of the collection, we also wrote internship and volunteer handbooks and developed the business case to help sustain ongoing work at both the local and Museum levels.

The Paul and Mildred Brownell Photograph Collection is a large unprocessed collection composed of photos, film, and ephemera from the mid-twentieth century of the Brownells’ experiences as UW Alumni, Seattle Public School teachers, and their travels in America and abroad. These items span almost 5 decades and are a valuable experience of living in the Pacific Northwest as UW alumni. The collection has been organized into specific series with regards to intellectual order which facilitates curatorial use of the collection and some public access for general research, which is imperative to keeping UW history alive. Special attention has been paid to the context in which the items were created and in preserving these items. A preliminary Encoded Archival Description (EAD) finding aid has been created to enrich Special Collection’s growing EAD database and will allow others to share in Paul’s experiences.

Have you ever held a musket ball or a three-foot long walrus tusk? Ever wondered what a sad iron is, and how it was used? Artifacts like these are just a few of the more than 600 items the Museum of History and Industry uses in support of its programming for children and families. With curriculum covering everything from the Coast Salish Tribes of Puget Sound to Century 21, the Seattle World's Fair, MOHAI's programming brings local history to schools throughout Puget Sound. With the museum's move to their new location this collection is now at a storage facility in Georgetown, across town from South Lake Union where Education staff have their offices. Using CollectiveAccess, a customizable open-source collections management database, we have described and organized this collection so the Education Department staff can continue to access and share this valuable collection.

Fighting Words is a collaboration with students and faculty from the Theater, and Film and Media Arts departments at the University of Utah. Actors performed dramatic readings of quotes from American Revolutionary War pamphlets printed on both sides of the Atlantic. This project brought students into the library where they experienced rare books through their own disciplines. Videos of the dramatic readings accompany text and images from the original books on a multimedia website, www.fightingwordsonline.org. Viewers are guided through the exhibition in chronological order, learning about the origins, conflicts, and ultimate conclusions of the American Revolution from the words of the people who lived it. A dynamic website connects users to material and facilitates experiences with rare books outside the library.

The Seattle Interactive Media Museum (SIMM) is a non-profit corporation dedicated to being the leading reference institution in archiving and exhibiting the ever-evolving world of digital interactivity to the public. Designed for curious amateurs as well as industry professionals and academics, the SIMM has several goals: 1) housing interactive exhibits that showcase both the history and future of interactive media, including a walk-through history of video gaming, 2) developing and maintaining the world’s largest physical and online collection of artifacts from the interactive media realm and 3) providing a comprehensive and publicly available online library of interactive artifacts.  These goals are backed by a state-of-the-art cataloging and collection system co-developed by the SIMM and a graduate studies program at the UW’s iSchool.

UW Libraries’ Special Collections houses numerous rare collections, including a one-of-a-kind photo album detailing the construction of Seattle’s iconic Smith Tower. However, many students and researchers know nothing of the valuable resources in Special Collections. To raise awareness and spark the community’s interest in its unique offerings, Special Collections enlisted our help. Knowing the power of advertising’s most multi-sensory medium, we chose a novel approach to solve Special Collections’ marketing need. We wrote a documentary script about the facts, myths, and stories surrounding the Smith Tower. The script, which has been delivered to KCTS (Seattle’s local Public Broadcasting Station) for potential production, incorporates images and video from Special Collections. The planned documentary will highlight the rare photographs, footage, and ephemera available in Special Collections, bringing increased visibility to Special Collections and the University of Washington.

In 1997 the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, acquired the private library of the institution’s founder, Dominique de Menil. Since then the library has been housed in an offsite location which makes staff access to it inconvenient and public access impossible. Consisting of about 1,500 items, the library had no formal list or inventory nor was the library publicized. Working with the Menil Collection Library I increased the usability and accessibility of the private library by conducting an inventory and creating searchable finding aid. Now Menil staff, scholars, and visitors will be able to discover what is in the founder’s library including many items found nowhere else in the U.S. This finding aid will also help the librarian manage the special collection.

LOCAL COLOR is a retrospective exhibit of watercolor paintings by Parker McAllister currently housed in the Seattle Public Library's Special Collections. My project is a comprehensive exhibit plan and handbook containing an interpretative checklist of the exhibit materials, including a selection of 17 paintings and other materials from the library collection; information about the artist and The Seattle Sunday Times Magazine series for which the paintings were created; painting conservation details; and marketing and programming suggestions. By contrasting the historical personages and events in McAllister's artwork with primary and secondary sources from the library's collection, this exhibit highlights the materials available to the Seattle public about the early history of the Pacific Northwest, and creates space for community dialogue about our history and its portrayal in interpretative art upon which the library can build.