The document proposes a new online resource called the Encyclopedia for the 21st Century that would serve as a hub for Connecticut history and public history. It would provide story-driven, curated content from a variety of sources on different towns, topics, and people in Connecticut. Content would be acquired through collaboration and aggregation of other institutions' resources as well as strategic commissioning. The resource would also promote informal collaborations between history repositories, educators, and diverse communities to explore Connecticut history through various initiatives and projects.
2. Browse by town, topic, person
Linked to external resourcesNew material published daily
News aggregator
3. Evolving Public History Resource
• Story-driven, curated content
– A reliable, first-stop hub
• Promotes connective exploration
– Within and beyond site
• Content acquisition model
– Collaboration & aggregation
– Strategic commissioning
4. Informal Collaborations
• Institutional
– Museums, archives & other CT history repositories
• Connecticut History Day 2013
– National themes through the local lens
• Native Histories initiative
– Diverse extra-institutional communities
• Teach It
– Educator-curated social studies modules
• Experimental
– “On the Line” digital history project & undergraduate seminar
First I want to Introduce ConnecticutHistory.org and tell you a bit about why we chose WordPress.Then, I’ll give you an overview of just three of several things we’ve done with WordPress to meet the needs of our publics and team.
Customized Category Pages Normally when a viewer clicks on a link to one of the Categories on your site, he or she is taken to a page listing the Posts from that particular Category in chronological order, from newest Posts at the top to oldest at the bottom. There are many display choices, including whether to display the complete post or post excerpts, and what additional information to display (title, author, publish date, last modified time, etc.). We haveHave swapped out native category page with a custom page type. Now category pages serve as intermediary portals and aggregators of posts, images & resourcesContext and interpretive value
Zotero as “Learn More” resource managerDeveloping a plug-in which uses the Zotero API Group library: websites, places to visit, video, audio, books, and documents (maps, finding aids, etc)Organized in foldersUploaded to Zotero cloudPlug-in grabs the associated resource set, formats it, and dumps it into the “Learn More” section
Edit Flow Managing a team editorial process from within WordPress rather than external to it.Colleagues at DH Now also using.New so some glitches; evaluating how it fits our needs and what else we’d like it to do