W06: Fostering Civic Engagement Through Digital Archives – The Revolutionary City Project

Welcome! Please join us for a brief survey… Please join us for a brief survey… https://tinyurl.com/mrys8vma 1 Fostering Civic Engagement Through Digital Archives Bayard L. Miller American Philosophical Society 2 Presentation Overview 1. Project Background 2. Why is this project important? 3. The project as it stands 4. Where do we go from here? 3 American Philosophical Society (APS) ●Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 to “promote useful knowledge.” ●14 million pages of manuscripts ●325,000+ books ●500,000+ digital objects ●20TB of born-digital material 4 Center for Digital Scholarship Who we are… ●Bayard L. Miller, Associate Director of Digital initiatives & Technology ●Sabrina Bocanegra, Head of Digital Access ●David Nelson, Digital Scholarship Programmer ●Yumi Shiroma, Digital Scholarship Specialist ●Elias Larralde, Assistant Digital Archivist 5 What we do… 6 7 What is Rev City? Core Goals 1. Break Institutional Barriers 2. Surfaced underrepresented narratives 3. Civics Education 8 The Revolutionary City (https://therevolutionarycity.org/) 9 16 Why is the spread of dis and misinformation plaguing our society when we have institutions and professions that exist to protect the reliability and authenticity of, and ensure access to, evidence of our culture and human experience? 17 At the federal level the United States spends approximately $50 per year per student on STEM fields and approximately $0.05 per student per year on civics (history, social studies, economics, government, etc…). 18 “The 250th is meant to celebrate our country’s history and spirit, but only 16% of Gen Z is proud to live in America. We are going to have to overcome the significant apathy and disillusionment that Gen Z is feeling about our country…” Cameron Katz, Made By US 19 20 If we don't have the resources to do it the way some think it should be done is it not worth doing at all? 21 Termination letter for a grant to fund an historic weather data project New restrictions prohibiting funded projects from inclusive project planning. 22 23 Presentation Overview 1. Project Background 2. Why is this project important? 3. The project as it stands 4. Where do we go from here? 24 The Pyramid to Save Democracy 25 Uncovering Indigenous Voices 32 kraken/eScriptorium - HTR software packages ●Open source ●Active community of users and maintainers globally ●APS sets terms for release of the data ●APS sets parameters for model training ●Downside: we have to do configure the software ourselves and supply the potentially costly hardware needed 33 Transcription & Content: Two Sides of the Same Coin 34 Build with, not for… At the federal level the United States spends approximately $50 per year per student on STEM fields and approximately $0.05 per student per year on civics (history, social studies, economics, government, etc…). ●Scholars - The baked in audience integral to the project's success. They can help us make sense of our records in a way that can speak to new audiences. ●Community - Public events and programming, museum audiences, and essayistic content that will appeal to public audiences. ●Educators - We are actively courting educators from public schools at all grade levels, museum educators, and community college professors. ●Ongoing questions of reaching Generation Z and beyond!!! 35 Engage Local Educators! 36 Classroom Resources 37 "Democracy may have been the right system of government for America at one time, but today we need to move to a system that gives a strong leader the power to do what is necessary to get things done." 38 Engage the Youth! Founded to: “unleash access to history and civics education for young adults by meeting them where they are with credible…resources sourced from a nationwide network of cultural institutions.” 39 The Kids are Alright! 40 If we work together, we can be heroes… 41