I chose to explore and examine The Georgetown Slavery Archive as I appreciate the site’s mission and organization of documents. This archive features materials connected with the Maryland Jesuits, Georgetown University, and slavery, as well as documents provided by descendants of the people owned by the Maryland Jesuits. The materials in this archive are from multiple sources including the Maryland Province Archives of the Society of Jesus, Booth Family Center for Special Collections, and Georgetown University Library. In addition, the site mentions that the list of materials continues to grow as more descendants continue to share their stories to the archive.
All of the archive’s materials, varying from letters to stained glass windows, were scanned in and labeled with descriptions such as the document’s date, source, and language, among other descriptions. The archive organizes its materials differently under multiple sections of the site to allow easy categorical browsing and accessibility. Featured items, exhibits, and recently-added items are displayed in the Home section. The Gallery section presents a selection of documents that are viewable by clicking on a thumbnail of the document or selecting from a corresponding list of the documents to the right. A full list of the archive’s data is listed in its Inventory section. In this list, each document’s title is preceded by its “identifier” that links to its viewing. The archive’s data is also organized into five different collections. Additionally, browsers can explore documents using the Google Maps feature by clicking on a pinpoint on the map locating the origin of the document.
It is fascinating how the archive still has original documents from the 18th and 19th centuries and it appears to be really well organized like you described. I wonder how much more material needs to be and can be added to the archive.
I am surprised and awed at how technologies today can scan letters and other things in order for us in the modern world to sort of understand or fully understand how they wrote and what their thoughts were like so long ago. I also find it very cool that people can even scan windows and get information off of that. The modern world never seems to fail to amaze me!