Making Local History Relevant Online
Melissa Johnson, History San Jose, USA
Kristin Long, MIGHTYminnow, USA
Kristin McCaman, History San Jose, USA
http://www.historysanjose.org
During the last three years History San Jose has launched four online exhibits that explore the history of specific sites in the Santa Clara Valley. Our demonstration will feature three online exhibits "Dairy Hill", "Label Legacy", and "Del Monte", as well as our local history resource "Neighborhoods". Each exhibit explores the history of a specific place and includes a database of objects and materials from the collection that relate to topic.
Two of the four exhibits were created to fulfill historic mitigation requirements for historic sites that were demolished for new development. "Label Legacy" tells the story of the Muirson Label Company which designed and printed labels for many of the Santa Clara Valley's fruit packing and canning companies for over 60 years. "Del Monte" will launch April 1, 2007 and will document Del Monte's long history in San Jose, specifically former Plant #3, a site which processed fruit for 106 years. This exhibit will feature videos of interviews with former Del Monte employees. The purpose of historic mitigation is to document the history of a historic site that will be demolished for the public. By presenting this history online History San Jose is making the history of these sites available in the most public way possible.
History San Jose's online exhibits are an example of what a medium sized museum can accomplish with a team of staff members and consultants. The web team consists of the Curator of Interactive Media and a part-time Researcher/Writer from the History San Jose staff and a contracted graphic designer and web developer. Accessibility is elemental in the design of our exhibits and each is created to be accessible to as many users as possible and degrade gracefully.
This demonstration will give History San Jose the opportunity to share our approach to presenting local history online and meeting historic mitigation requirements to the museum community.
Demonstration: Demonstrations - 1 [Close-Up]
Keywords: history, exhibit, historic mitigation, database, public, web
