The Veterans History Project (VHP) began with a unanimous vote in both houses of Congress. As my mentor confided in me (I’ll use “Brendan” from here on out, in case I write something the mentor would rather not share), the VHP is the Library of Congress’s best selling point on Capitol Hill. Democrats and Republicans post its links on their websites, and the Library budget passes.
The purpose of the VHP is to collect letters, diaries, and interviews of US armed forces personnel, whether war veterans or not, and to educate the public on how to collect more. The Project’s website presents a formidable collection of collections, each dedicated to an individual service member, and each comprised of however many media said member contributed. For many that’s an interview, and for others it’s an interview paired with letters and photographs. Many but by no means all of the collections have been digitized, and can be viewed/read online.
I learned over the course of two lengthy phone calls with my mentor that my role in the organization is twofold. First, I will add a new Story Map exhibit to the half-dozen that are currently accessible on the VHP site. The first of these, and the only one that VHP staff recommended I look at, is on D-Day. It’s an impressive piece–four servicemen’s experiences before and during D-Day narrated down a page that scrolls through text, maps, and images to tell its stories. Second, I will assist the VHP in a data entry project that seeks to chart all of the Project’s collections by zip code. Needless to say I’m more interested in the first role than the second. But perhaps I can hone my primitive Excel skills in the process.
Categories
