The “User Story #makeinghistory” outlines a process for digitizing the Campbell Family archive, which contains significant historical materials related to activism and political movements. Here’s a breakdown of the steps involved:
Setting up the Application: The archive sets up a desktop computer or a hosted VPS instance to install the #DAT based p2p application for “makeinghistory.”
Uploading Digital Files: They use the application to create an account and start uploading directories of digital files from the archive, adding basic metadata if possible.
Building a Community: The archive builds a community of users, including family members and wider activist groups, to seed an affinity group and encourage them to install the application on their devices.
Column Structure: Users see columns like “new” and “recent” along with others added by users working on the same accounts. These columns contain boolean logic lists of the data in the account.
Data Interaction: Users can interact with the data, adding metadata, information, and editing hashtags. They can swipe through items and modify data as needed.
Categorization: By editing hashtags and data, items move into category columns and into the recent columns.
Engagement: Users actively participate in categorizing content instead of passive scrolling. As others add metadata, it updates the feeds of other users, encouraging them to return and contribute.
Story Feature: Archived categorized metadata-enriched data flows are turned into cohesive narratives using the story feature, providing overviews and linking multiple items and categories.
Sharing History: The created histories can be shared with the wider world, providing grassroots quality history in addition to traditional top-down narratives.
Impact: People use these stories to inspire real and lasting social change, recognizing the importance of history in driving progress.
The “User Story – Resistance Exhibition” extends this concept to an exhibition setting, where visitors can participate in archiving and storytelling using a app installed at the exhibition. This creates a participatory space where people can engage with historical materials and contribute to ongoing projects. All data collected is public and available for use in other projects, emphasizing openness and collaboration.