The Library of Congress through The Signal: Digital Preservation blog recently posted an article about Doug Boyd, director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries. In the post, Boyd talks about using digital technology to collect, curate, distribute, and preserve oral histories.

Boyd recently partnered with MATRIX on the Oral History in the Digital Age (OHDA) project, hosted by MATRIX and funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The site connects users to the latest information on digital technologies pertaining to all phases of the oral history process, including information copyright, ethical issues, microphone selection, lighting set-up, and more. To learn more about the intersection of digital technology and oral history, check out the LOC article and explore the OHDA site.

The Lansing State Journal recently posted an article entitled MSU, the CIA— and Vietnam. This article contains portions of interviews with the primary investigators for the MSU Group Vietnam Project Archive, a digital preservation and access collaboration between the University Archives & Historical Collections at MSU and MATRIX. This project, which has received significant NEH funding, seeks to digitize and make available online a number of primary source documents, photographs, and maps which detail a Michigan State University nation-building program in South Vietnam from 1955-1962. MSU worked with the American government in South Vietnam for the purpose of producing a stable, non-Communist country in the Cold War era. Although their efforts eventually failed, the MSU Vietnam Group Archive project contains rare and valuable data about life in South Vietnam immediately prior to the Vietnam War. MATRIX is working with the University Archives & Historical Collections to digitize and archive these primary source materials and their accompanying metadata using KORA, an open-sourced, browser-based digital repository developed by MATRIX. To learn more about the project, browse this description of the archives or an older blogpost by MATRIX which introduces the project.

In October 2012, the Michigan State University’s Archives & Historical Collections, in collaboration with MATRIX, launched a new website entitled the Civil War Archives at http://civilwar.archives.msu.edu/. This website contains an online digital archive of hand-written letters and photographs sent from and to Michigan soldiers who participated in the Civil War. This website’s goal is to educate students and citizens about the Civil War and re-humanize the individuals who fought and died during the conflict.

The Civil War Archive is built using KORA, an open-source, browser-based content management system created and produced by MATRIX that allows organizations to build digital repositories that preserve both digital objects and their related metadata. KORA has a flexible and customizable metadata scheme, which allows it to be used with any data set. KORA also contains a record associator which gives MATRIX the capability to link a digital object with it’s corresponding metadata and/or related objects (i.e. letters and photographs from the same individual). This allows for the creation of complex digital objects that tell stories and continue MATRIX’s goal of re-humanizing big data.

Beginning in the spring of 2010, researchers at Michigan State University’s Archives & Historical Collections began digitizing their collection of hand-written letters and photographs sent to and from Michigan soldiers in the Civil War. The letters are addressed to soldiers’ friends, family, and sweethearts and describe some major battles (including the Battle of Gettysburg) from the soldiers’ perspectives.

The presentation of information in this archive is unique in that it displays both the digitized copy of the letter and a typed transcript of the document side-by-side. Having both views appear simultaneously on the screen allows users to toggle seamlessly between the two documents. The collections in this archive are grouped by both donating family and Michigan regiment to allow for the quick location of interested records.

To learn more about the archive and its creation , read this article by MSU News. Similarly, if you’re interested in learning more about MATRIX’s efforts to re-humanize big data, browse a recent blog post describing a Ethan Watrall’s talk on Big Data, Small Stories: Community, Collaboration, and User Experience in the Age of Digital Cultural Heritage or read about MATRIX’s participation in the Slave Biographies and Digging into Data projects.

MATRIX is pleased to announce the launch of the Oral History in the Digital Age (OHDA) website at ohda.matrix.msu.edu. The website features numerous essays, articles, and videos about best practices in collecting, preserving, and disseminating digital oral histories.

The OHDA project represents a partnership between MATRIX, the Michigan State University Museum, the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center, the American Folklore Society, and the Oral History Association. Seven interdisciplinary working groups composed of experts and practitioners from museums, libraries, and scholarly societies worked to produce recommendations around core topics including intellectual property, transcriptions, digital video, technology, scholarship, preservation, and access. Final recommendations from all groups were compiled and published on the OHDA website as a guide to conducting digital oral history.

The need for this project stems from the way in which twenty-first century, digital technologies are transforming oral history. As mobile devices, digital recorders, online repositories and the like become more prevalent, oral historians need to be educated as to  new methods available— as well as the risks and rewards of those methods. The OHDA essay collection is a valuable and timely resource and one that MATRIX is proud to be a part of. We welcome you to investigate the sources listed at ohda.matrix.msu.edu and learn more about the project at the OHDA planning site.

A new episode of Africa Past & Present was released on June 1. This episode features Dr. Peter Limb of Michigan State University (MSU) as he discusses the life and writings of Dr. Alfred Bitini Xuma. An important figure in the history of South Africa, Xuma was the first black physician in Johannesburg and served as President-General of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1940 to 1949.

Limb’s discussion is based on his recently published book, A. B. Xuma: Autobiography and Selected Works. By reflecting on Xuma’s autobiography, his correspondence, essays and speeches on health, politics, crime, beer, the pass laws, and the rights of African women, Limb illuminates some of the tensions and controversies Xuma faced during his career and describes his historical legacy for South Africa.

Africa Past & Present is a joint project between MATRIX and the MSU Department of History. The project works to make regular podcasts focused on issues of African history, culture, and politics. Visit their site to learn more about the project, download this podcast, and explore past episodes.

The Vietnam Project Archive- a joint collaboration between MATRIX, Michigan State University (MSU) Department of History, and MSU University Archives & Historical Collections- has received $264,998 in funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

Vietnam Project Archive is committed to the task of digitizing and archiving documents from 1955-1962, when MSU worked with the American government in South Vietnam with the goal of producing a stable, non-Communist country in the Cold War era. Although their efforts eventually failed, the Vietnam Project Archive contains rare and valuable data about life in South Vietnam immediately prior to the Vietnam War. Materials in this archive allow students and scholars to get an insider’s view of America’s university-assisted nation-building practices.

Included in this collection are contracts between MSU and the U.S. Foreign Operations Administration, reports on the rural economy and society in South Vietnam, personal communications between MSU staff and the president of South Vietnam, and audio recordings and films, which include images of MSU staff assisting in police training, ceremonies, and inspection tours. These documents are rare and available only in this archive, making its preservation and dissemination an important and necessary project. Project partners hope that the digitizing of the Vietnam Project Archive will allow new scholarship and understanding to develop about a country’s transition from a colonial to post-colonial society, nation-building strategies, and the history of South Vietnam.

This quilt, called "Grandmother's Flower Garden" is one of the quilts that is now accessible from the Quilt Index.

 MATRIX is pleased to announce that The Quilt Index, one of our primary collaborations, has succeeded in becoming one of the first international online quilt and quilt ephemera repositories with their recent posting of historic quilts from the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton. The Quilt Index has been using KORA– an open-source, database-driven, online digital repository application developed by MATRIX– to provide centralized access to more than 60,000 quilt records.

What makes the addition of the Royal Alberta Museum’s quilt particularly exciting is the impact their addition has on Canadian heritage studies and on the future of the Quilt Index as a whole. The quilts, according to Lucie Heins, Assistant Curator of Western Canadian History for the museum, are an important part of the museum’s collection and help tell the story of its settlement and historical development. The craftsmanship displayed in these quilts is quite spectacular, and making them easily accessible online will help foster new scholarship and community engagement.

TheRoyal Alberta Museum is the first Canadian contributor to The Quilt Index and is one of the most significant international contributors to the project so far. The addition of these 45 quilts is a landmark for The Quilt Index, which has been aspiring to go international ever since its inception in 2003. In addition to the Canadian quilts, The Quilt Index contains digital records of quilts fromSouth Africa and plans to add quilts from many more countries in the upcoming years.

MATRIX is excited to see how The Quilt Index is combining KORA technology and archival traditions to create a quilt repository that is cutting-edge and innovative. We look forward to continuing to work with The Quilt Index to advance preservation and access to these artistic and historical cultural heritage materials for research, teaching, and public audiences.

MATRIX is very happy to announce that GradHacker (www.gradhacker.org) will be appearing on Inside Higher Ed.  Edited by MSU grad students Alex Galarza (PhD Candidate in the Department of History and Cultural Heritage Informatics Graduate Fellow) and Katy Meyers (PhD student in te Department of Anthropology and past Cultural Heritage Informatics Graduate Fellow), GradHacker is a collaborative blog for grad students, by grad students. Their contributing authors hail from a variety of universities and disciplines. The posts aim to share experiences, identify problems and solutions, and inspire discussion about our fields and academia. They take the term ‘hacking’ beyond technology, analyzing the process of graduate school to better navigate its challenges and reach our goals. GradHacker topics are as varied as the individuals who write about them; they include parenting, pedagogy, health advice, using social media, and proposing a digital dissertation to your committee.

GradHacker began life as an idea generated by the Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative Graduate Fellows, and has been incubated by MATRIX for the past year.  MATRIX is proud to continue its support of this innovative grad student undertaking, and look forward to new and engaging work as they move into this new phase of the project.

MATRIX is pleased to announce the launch of a new website, Everyday Islam in Kumasi: Devout Lay Men and Women in Daily Life.

This growing collection of video interviews and photographs features the voices of Muslim men and women who live and work in Kumasi, the second largest city in the West African country of Ghana. Interviewees reflect on the ways Islam influences their activities at home, with their neighbors, and at work as traders, tailors, and teachers.  Gracia Clark, Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University, who made her field research freely accessible on this site, hopes this collection will contribute towards better understanding between Ghanaian Muslims and their neighbors in North America and in Africa.

Everyday Islam in Kumasi is part of the Diversity and Tolerance in the Islam of West Africa digital library.  Each collection in this digital library sheds much-needed light on how Muslims in West Africa accept religious difference and create productive interactions among Christians, Muslims, and followers of other faiths.

Funding for this project is provided by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education Title VI Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access (TICFIA) program and by Michigan State University.