In April, Digital Humanities Librarian Dr. Lindsey R. Peterson attended the Organization of American Historians’ Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana to discuss strategies for connecting people to the past using digital history projects about the American Civil War Era. Along with project co-director Dr. Susannah J. Ural (Mississippi State University), Peterson delivered a co-authored paper entitled, “Do They Work? Free Digital Archives and Reaching Marginalized Audiences.” Peterson focused on the USD-based Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project’s efforts to create keyword, advanced, and faceted search mechanism to increase the discoverability of marginalized voices in digital collections without replicating the racial and gendered violence found within the archival collections.
Teen Intern Program
USD Digital Humanities Librarian Dr. Lindsey R. Peterson delivered a guest lecture and ran a workshop in March with the New York Historical Society’s Student Historian Internship program. Around thirty high school students transcribed documents from the USD-based Civil War & Reconstruction Governors of Mississippi project and discussed the importance and challenges of editing historical documents for born digital editions. Peterson introduced students to the workflows and components of scholarly digital editions like CWRGM, and they discussed importance of increasing digital access to cultural heritage materials, like nineteenth century governors’ records, and the challenges they can present.
