Sponsored by the Colonial North America at Harvard Library project, What’s Next? Exploring New Ways to Use Digital Early American Manuscripts is an unconference that will bring together researchers, teachers, technologists, librarians and archivists, and others with an interest in discussing and planning for new ways to use digital manuscripts, particularly those related to 17th and 18th century North America, for teaching and research.
The unconference will take place from 9 am to 4 pm on November 16, 2016 in the Knafel Center, Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University.
The goal of the Colonial North America at Harvard Library project is to provide free and open online access to images of all known archival and manuscript materials in the Harvard Library that relate to 17th and 18th century North America. These documents – written by the famous and the infamous, the well-known and unknown – reveal a great deal about the changing Atlantic world during the colonial era. Unique and unpublished materials previously available physically at 14 repositories have been digitized and are being united for the first time. The materials provide insights through the eyes of people who not only wrote about revolution and politics but also about topics such as education, trade, finance, law, science, medicine, religion, family affairs and social life, women, Native Americans, slavery, food and agriculture. Many of the documents contain visual materials, such as drawings, sketches, maps, and other illustrations. In addition to reflecting the origins of the United States, the digitized materials also document aspects of life and work in geographical areas such as Great Britain, France, the Mediterranean coast, Canada, the Caribbean, and Mexico.
Check out the FAQ section for more details about the unconference What’s Next? Exploring New Ways to Use Digital Early American Manuscripts.
We hope you will join in the discussion on November 16!