THE BOSTON HEMP CO-OP'S DIGITAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM

Well. The Boston Hemp Co-op site purports to be a digital library and museum, offering articles and images, all related to hemp. The articles run the gamut from U.S. Government publications, "Hemp for Victory" articles, other hemp "items of interest," poetry, and articles. The images include the biology of hemp and also a sort of historical smattering of hemp posters, advertisements and the like, especially from WWII. Perhaps unsurprisingly there is no information whatsoever about the organization, the funding, or even the mission of the site. I would not wager on its longevity.

The site is spare in the extreme. There is a list of all articles on the site, divided into broad topics such as articles by the USDA, articles from the hemp for Victory campaign, etc. The search function is basic---and I could not get it to work at all, despite looking for common words such as "rope." There is no context provided and the "hempologist" author of several articles has no accompanying information (and provides no sources in his narratives). However, he does provide multimedia hyperlinks in the article about hemp in Boston, for example, that allows the reader to see on a period map the location he describes. There are actually a smattering of maps and images of Boston's ropewalks (historical and modern) with minimal explanation but arranged chronologically and thematically-- a nice touch. These images have no metadata attached to them. The photos are clearly taken by someone wandering Boston with a digital camera, and the maps are no-functionality scans of black-and-white reproductions.

The rest of the images include diagrams of hemp processing equipment, botanical information, photos of turn-of-the century hemp plants, and "KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY'S 1691 HEMP TYTHE ACT (Scans of actual documents that were probably printed on hemp paper)." (I like the "probably.") The images are readable, but again there is no functionality beyond the static image, and no context whatsoever. The photos from the USDA have what appear to be the original captions and accompanying articles, and those are more interesting.

This site is clearly a labor of love. The simplicity of the design and the lack of features is perhaps counterbalanced by the unique juxtaposition of the historical and the botanical. It is as though they are taking the visitor through a whirlwind tour of history, ignoring everything not related to hemp. Despite its minimum functionality the site is interesting in the singularly focused perspective, which unites disciplines in its myopic obsession with documenting as many primary documents that mention hemp as the authors could scan. Cliff Lynch would approve: it is an unmediated collection, and the viewers are left to draw their own conclusions from the smatterings they find. Of course I would imagine the site's hempologists are usually preaching to the choir...