University of Detroit Mercy - Black Abolitionist Archive

I looked at the University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive, a collection of documents created by antebellum blacks throughout the abolition movement. It is mostly made up of articles from periodicals and transcripts of speeches printed in newspapers. The collection was donated to UDM by Dr. C. Peter Ripley in 1998.

Selection Decisions: As far as I can tell, the entire collection was digitized when it was donated. It's mostly made up of newspaper clippings from the mid-1800s, so preservation was obviously a big concern. The media of the items in the collection is consistent, as is the size, so I imagine that it was almost easier to scan the entire collection rather than deliberate over what to digitize and how to allow frequent access to such a fragile collection. I do know that Dr. Roy Finkenbine, an African American Studies professor at UDM, maintains the actual paper collection.

Metadata: There is very detailed information about each article in the archive: Speaker/Author (and any known information about him/her), Publication, Date Published, and additional notes of context (the event where the speech was given, etc.) This amount of detail allows for very extensive search capabilities, with each entry cross-listed to allow searches by Person, Organization, Subject, Keyword, Publication, and Date. Therefore, people with varied research approaches can equally utilize the archives.

Characteristics of the Digital Object: The quality of the actual digital object is generally very poor. The scanned images are grainy and the text is often unclear. However, since all of the entries are in the written form of newspaper articles without pictures, the main value is in the information provided in the document. Luckily, a retyped version of each article, in its entirety, is shown alongside each digital object. In addition to the retyping, some of the documents provide an MP3 with the articles read aloud. I'm not exactly sure why- maybe for the hearing impaired? Or for dramatic effect?

The Intended Audience appears to be scholars of history and African American Studies, either students or academics doing research. It could also be meant for anyone with a general interest in abolition and Civil Rights. The URL is fairly obscure, and the appearance of the site is rather unprofessional, so I'd say that it's not aimed at the casual web surfer. I imagine that it's intended for people with a specific research plan, looking for fairly specific information.