Middletown Digital Archives

According to a BSU news release, James Connolly is now the director of the Center for Middletown Studies at Ball State University. While it's great they have the Middletown Digital Archives online, they're a little hard to navigate. I want better navigation and larger resolution versions of the images. I want videos and a blog. I'm not originally from Muncie, but this whole Middletown thing fascinates me and I think it would make a great website, maybe a Wiki even.In any case, this is on the Digital Archives main page:

PLEASE NOTE: After clicking on folder or image reference, the folder listing will return to the top of the page and it may be necessary to scroll down to the selected folder or image reference.

Heh. This is just what I found so difficult about navigating the pictures. Not to mention the frames making it hard to link directly to pics of interest.

As I said, the content is very cool, though, if you haven't seen it before. It's a collection of photographs from the 1920s in Muncie and surrounding towns. The navigation is split by categories like agriculture, education, the Ku Klux Klan, transportation and many more.

The site also has a bibliography. (Ok, I'm going to break down and link to this bibliography index without the navigation because it's very handy. Should we, the Muncie Free Press community, gather some web design help for the Center for Middletown Studies? For free? Just a thought. ;)

Overall, the website is put together well. I'd just like to see more done with the multimedia. For example, you can get videotapes of the PBS program on Middletown for free, so why not make them available as video streams or even Quicktime files?

On the page about their Social Change Newsletter, they say:

Readers' comments are welcomed. Please direct your comments to the Editor, The Social Change Report, 542 Cabell Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22902 or by e-mail to tc@virginia.edu. Other correspondence should be directed to the Publisher, The Social Change Report, Center for Middletown Studies, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana 47306, or by email to jconnoll@bsu.edu.

Wouldn't a blog be even better?

I admit I haven't emailed anyone there yet. I may, though, in the future. I just wanted to look at the website and point out a few cool things and see what people here think.

This might not interest everyone, but as I said, I'm not from around here and I find it interesting.

Technorati Tags: News Ball State Ball State University BSU College Community Groups Delaware County Middletown Digital Archives Middletown Project Middletown Studies Muncie

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