Digital Library of the Caribbean: a review

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.