"Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man."
- Francis Bacon, Of Studies
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Digital Library of the Caribbean: a review
Posted on February 4th, 2010 3 comments
A photo of Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince, from 1957
In reading news coverage about Haiti’s earthquake, I periodically came across references to the Digital Library of the Caribbean. It turns out that it is organizing efforts to help Haiti rebuild its libraries and archives; it is also providing training in digitization. Founded in 2006, the digital library has a variety of materials including maps, photos, archival materials and books documenting the history, culture and other aspects of the Caribbean. The image at the top of this post, a view of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital city, came from the Digital Library. Even more impressive is the fact that the interface functions in the region’s three major languages: English, French and Spanish. There is also a geographical search tool where you can either enter latitude and longitude or draw the area you’re interested in. By using the map search tool, I was able to find a 2006 photo of Haiti’s archives. As impressive as the Digital Library of the Caribbean is now, it will only get more impressive later; it looks like there are plans to add oral histories, more newspapers and other resources. Some aspects of the interface strike me as a bit difficult to use and perhaps inelegant, but there is still much value to be had from it.
Related posts:
- Europeana: Europe’s Digital Library
- The World Digital Library
- Book Review: Super Crunchers by Ian Ayres
- This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All: a book review
3 responses to “Digital Library of the Caribbean: a review”
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Carolyn February 6th, 2010 at 18:52
I’m glad there is an effort underway to preserve the surviving documents from Haiti’s archives. There have been a number of fascinating books published in recent years about the Haitian Revolution including John Garrigus’s “Before Haiti” and Laurent Dubois’s “Avengers of the New World” that drew upon documents from Haitian archives. I wonder if it would be possible to get historians who did research in the archives before the earthquake to donate copies of their transcriptions or digital photographs to the Digital Library of the Caribbean so that the content of lost documents can be recovered.
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I was surprised at the impact on me as I read about how Haiti’s libraries had been destroyed. I run a small Bed & Breakfast in Ireland and am always amazed at the number of, mainly American/Australian visitors, we have searching for their “roots”. (They are usually fourth or fifth generation from immigrants.) My own father was a keen reaearcher of his family tree and was hindered in his research by the loss of records when Somerset House in London was destroyed, by fire. My point is that there are many children from Haiti who will have “lost” their past, whether through being adopted overseas or through relocation in the country. Who knows the impact loss of records and research will have on them in the future?
All the best with your website.
Yvonne -
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