Category Archives: Interviews

Interview with Historypin MLIS Intern, Andrew Crawford

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S. Andrew Crawford joined us for an internship over the fall of 2012, and served as both our first MLIS intern and first virtual intern. Andrew did a fantastic job outlining various metadata standards across libraries, archives, and museums to our team, and researched potential tools and insights for metadata crosswalks.

How did you find out about Historypin?

I actually heard about Historypin through my faculty mentor/advisor Dr. Margaret E. I. Kipp. In order to finish up my masters I had to do a few credits worth of fieldwork, and when I approached Margaret about opportunities, Historypin was the first thing she showed me. After looking over the site I knew that it was just the sort of organization that I’d been hoping to work with. From there I got in touch with Jon and the rest is history.

What’s your primary interest of study, and what kinds of innovations do you think are on the horizon in your field? 

My primary areas of study are UX design, metadata, and linked data / the Semantic Web. As someone who has spent a lot of time looking into the ways people interact with information technology, I’m a bit biased towards the notion that the next big wave of innovation is going to come out of a desire to develop technologies around the basic cognitive processes that define the way people understand the world around them. As I see it, the Semantic Web is the ultimate expression of that intention. By restructuring Web content in a way that allows machines to approximate our ability to make inferences we’re laying the foundation to make the process of using the Web much more intuitive. I’m a big fan of Marshall McLuhan, and when you view the Semantic Web through the lens of his theories on media it becomes clear just how much of an extension of our own cognitive faculties it is. I genuinely feel that the innovations that are going to matter in the coming years are going to be those that are rooted in an understanding of the narrowing gap between human thought and digital processing. And not just because Ray Kurzweil’s working for Google.

Since you’ve been working on a lot of back-end and database issues, have you had much of a chance to poke around the content? Have you found any favorites?

Honestly most of my poking around has had more to do with academic articles and resources, but during the times I’ve got to play around with the map I’ve found that the content that interested me most is that which came from my hometown, Lexington, Kentucky. My personal favorite is this picture taken inside the Kentucky Theater, an historic movie theater where I worked for a year when I was an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky. I actually spent many Saturday afternoons taking matinee tickets near the exact spot the band in the picture are standing.

Kentucky Theater, Bird of Paradise Promo, from University of Kentucky Special Collections.

What kind of challenges and opportunities do you see for LAMs in collaborative projects like Historypin?

Collaborative information environments offer an incredible platform for LAMs to share their digital content to the widest possible audience, and in an incredibly efficient fashion. The chance to further develop and refine information resources like Historypin and Europeana is an incredible opportunity for these institutions and one that I’m sure will become increasingly exploited as time goes on. The major challenge that I foresee for the development of collaborative knowledge domains is a lack of interoperability between different systems and their content.

You’ve really been our first “virtual” intern.  How has that experience been for you? Are there things you liked about it or things you would suggest for other people doing virtual internships?

It’s been a great experience that’s really given me the chance to hone my skills and apply many of the lessons I’ve learned as a grad student. What really made it worthwhile was that it allowed me the opportunity to explore a topic I’m passionate about in a way that really worked for me. I’d say that’s ultimately the key to a successful virtual internship, feeling sufficiently invested in the work your doing that you won’t need anyone else to motivate you to do it.

What’s next for you?

Well, now that I’ve “mastered” information science the next logical step is to begin what I hope will be a long and prosperous career as a UX designer and/or a linked data specialist. If anyone out there’s hiring you can find my information at sandrewcrawford.com.

University of Wisconsin Scrapbooks and More

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In this edition of Better Know an Archivist (thanks Stephen Colbert), we talk to Vicki Tobias at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives.

Historypin: What do you do, exactly?

Vicki Tobias: Since 2010 I’ve served as the Images and Media Archivist for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives.

I’ve always loved history. I’m a fanatical genealogist and love nothing more that tackling a good history mystery, whether my own or someone else’s. I feel quite lucky/blessed to have landed a career that perfectly marries my love of history and enthusiasm for sharing it!

How and when did you come across Historypin and what made you decide it was worth pursuing for UW and your work?

A friend and colleague who works for the Wisconsin Historical Society initially introduced me to Historypin – maybe two years ago? I was immediately impressed with the organization’s mission statement which talked about bringing together generations through shared history. This idea is at the core of our work in the UW Archives. Historypin is a great tool for showing change over time and is the type of tool/project that inspires a user to further explore their own place in history. Any tool that prompts a user to ask “I wonder what was here 100 years ago?” or “I wonder what’s there now?” is a success in my book.

In the UW Archives, we host a bevy of volunteer, intern, practicum and paid student staff. They all want to work on projects that include a “technology element.” Building a collection in Historypin from start to finish (e.g. scanning, researching metadata, uploading, outreach, etc.) provides our students an opportunity to apply technology skills in an archives environment and results in a great end-product they can then link to on a resume or application. We’ve had great success with students creating Collections in Historypin.

You’ve got a great variety of photos across campus, and we’ve noticed these amazing scrapbook collections you’ve been sharing lately. What can you tell us about the scrapbooks, and do you have a strategy in sharing these?

Why, thank you! We’ve had great fun selecting content to add to our Historypin collection. I wanted our campus history collection (on Historypin) to include more than a bunch of photos of historic buildings. I thought it would be interesting to try to tell a student’s story using Historypin and items from historic student scrapbooks. The UW Archives has a great (and growing) collection of scrapbooks dating from the late 1880s through the 1960s. They include all sorts of memorabilia, photos, clippings and other “bits and pieces” that wonderfully illuminate the college student experience. Selecting and pinning location-based items provides a different and more nuanced interpretation of each scrapbook – allowing a user to better understand the places and spaces inhabited by a student during a particular period in our campus and town history. For example, an invitation to a dance held at the Stock Pavilion on campus (still in existence), a monthly bill for items purchased from a “sweet shop” on Capitol Square (no longer there), a photo taken during summer vacation “up north” in Wisconsin. When viewed on a Historypin map, these items prompt a user to ponder questions of mobility and transportation (How did one traverse the distance from campus to the aforementioned sweet shop – walking? trolley car? Were there sidewalks? Horses?), use of space on campus (Dances held in the Stock Pavillion? Really?) and other questions that might not be apparent when simply flipping through a scrapbook. Seeing items on a map presents an entirely different view of the story being told by the scrapbook creator.

What excites you most about Historypin, and how do you envision it being utilized at UW and other college campuses?

I love the idea of user-generated content. It would be fabulous if other campus units with an interest in building community around shared campus history could collaboratively build collections in Historypin. Likewise, I think Historypin might be an interesting tool for uniting alumni to build collections that illuminate their shared experiences.

What is your favourite piece of content that you have pinned?

Last year, we built a new collection – Lawrence Monthey: 1959 Tour of the Soviet Union which documents this UW faculty person’s trip to that region. The slides are beautiful (and in color!) and include images of many iconic locations in the former Soviet Union. I love the following photo of St. Basil’s Cathedral (Sept. 1959) and the juxtaposition of the historic and current street views.

It’s one of my favorite UW Archives collections and a perfect fit for Historypin.

Interview with Kerri Young, Historypin Intern

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Name: Kerri

Role: Historypin Intern

Why did you want to intern at Historypin?

I wanted to intern here because Historypin has such a fresh take on engaging the public with history.  I am currently doing an MA in Public History, which is all about the ways in which people engage with history through museums, heritage, television, etc. I love how Historypin is one of the pioneers in this field, making the best use out of something that much of the world now uses: social media. The fit with my area of study is fantastic and provides a great learning opportunity.

How did you come to hear of the project?

I came across Historypin on Twitter. An enthusiastic user described something she had pinned, and I was intrigued about an online-archive that was so hands-on and easily accessible. Anything that helps to promote history in a fun way, I am all for it.

Describe an average day for you as a Historypin Intern.

An average day consists of moderating content that goes up on the site, updating Historypin’s social media accounts, doing some pinning, and finding interesting material for blog posts. Basically, lots of exploring of all the great content that’s out there!

What do you do when you’re not at Historypin?

Since I’m not from around these parts (San Francisco native), I like to explore London and its surroundings as much as I can. I like to visit new museums, go to concerts, and bike-ride in park-when it’s sunny of course! Pub-culture in this country is fantastic as well.

What’s been your best moment here?

I don’t think I can pick one moment, but finding the exact location for vaguely-located photos on Street View is pretty rewarding. In general, it’s great to be able to pick out interesting content and share it with everyone via our blog and Twitter. Sharing is caring!

What excites you the most about Historypin?

What excites me the most is that everyone who explores our map has the chance to be inspired by someone else’s history. The individual moments and stories that are pinned contribute to a larger history of a time, place, or event. Also, that fact that you can travel down a street in Street View where both archival institutions and individual users contribute historical memories is an exciting collaboration between the professional and public spheres.

Unlike your straight-forward online historical archive, Historypin is interactive and visually-fun to explore, and is a great tool for bringing in those who may not engage with history that often.

Can you show us a photo you have personally pinned on Historypin?

Princess Diana Dancing With John Travolta, Nov. 5, 1985.

What’s your favourite photo that has been pinned to the Historypin map and why?

Muni Streetcar 101 and Bus 1 | W5065, 1920, San Francisco MTA Archives

There are so many great photos on the site, but this is one of my favorites because it blends personal and local history with an amazing Street View. This photo shows two old  lines from Muni, which is still San Francisco’s local transportation system. As a native San Franciscan, images like these are fascinating, especially since I and so many other people still use Muni each day. I can’t get enough of local transport images like these, and even wrote a blog post about a similar SFMTA photo. Something mundane like taking the bus every day somehow seems a little less so when having a glimpse at the line’s changing history.

What kind of content would you like to see more of on Historypin?

I would like to see more family and local history on the site, something we are taking great strides towards. Family and community are associated with some of our greatest memories, and I think at its heart Historypin links different ones together from all over the world and places them within a larger historical context. Individual ‘histories’ are definitely changing how we perceive History with a capital H!

Why do you think people should add their photos and stories to Historypin?

This is the chance for people to encourage the spirit of sharing and learning about history with both their local community and the rest of the world. The more people pin, the more the site can grow and encourage the collaboration between individual users and historical institutions. Contributing to our site will also help people find the things they are interested in more easily. Historypin only works when people participate-and that means you!

What do you think the future of Historypin is?

I see Historypin expanding even further through social media, allowing it to utilize more resources and collaborate with more people from all over the world. I also see Historypin becoming a very useful learning tool in the classroom, especially in relation to local community engagement. If students everywhere collaborated on projects akin to Pinning Reading’s History, they can literally put their community ‘on the map’ and expand the often neglected field of local history.

Contact:  kerri.young@wearewhatwedo.org

Historypin on the Radio, plus how-to’s in Australian!

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We’ve been getting lots of love in Australia lately! Most recently, one of our partners, Museum Victoria, did a radio interview about their contributions to Historypin.

The fabulous Ely Wallis alerted us to it with a Tweet.  Thanks Ely and Gerard Callinan at the ABC! You can have a listen to it here: gc-history-pin-23-7.

And if that wasn’t enough, we heard from our friends over at the Bright Ideas Blog, which is a fantastic resource from the School Library Association of Victoria and the State Library of Victoria.  It turns out they’ve used Storify to create an embeddable resource guide on how to get started pinning on Historypin, full of all sorts of video tips on using our site!  Thanks for creating such a great resource–you guys are the best!  We’ve embedded the videos below–very clever!

Interview with Steve Clifford, Historypinner

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Name: Steve Clifford

Location: Victoria, BC, Canada

How did you hear about Historypin?
I heard about it through Twitter.  One of the family history magazines I follow mentioned Historypin and I was immediately hooked.

How have you been involved with Historypin?
I’ve been pinning since early August 2011 and have encouraged other local historians and public institutions to get on board.  Although my initial interest was focused on Victoria I soon began pinning photos from across Canada and around the UK.  Some of these images have family connections while others are just interesting old photos I’ve picked up over the years. Hopefully someone in Moose Jaw or Manchester will see my contribution and be inspired to add a story or begin pinning their own  content.

What do you do when you are not pinning?
When I’m not pinning I maintain a blog dedicated to vintage ephemera and photographs.  I enjoy researching and uncovering the stories behind these discarded bits of paper and forgotten family photos.  I also spend quite a bit of time piecing together my own family history and this led to an interest in the First World War, specifically first-hand accounts of soldier’s experiences on the Western Front.

To earn “pin” money I work in IT although I also spent quite a few years in the adventure travel industry.  I’ve had itchy feet for as long as I can remember and in 2010 I fulfilled a dream by walking from Land’s End to John O’Groats … and the really crazy thing is I want to do it again!

What excites you most about Historypin?
I’ve always dreamed of owning a time machine that would allow me to explore my favourite streets and neighbourhoods a century ago.  I’ve also been looking for a way to share the photos I’ve collected with others who have similar interests.  So when I landed on Historypin I felt immediately at home.  I suppose what excites me the most is the opportunity to share, discuss and build content that can, in theory at least, benefit generations to come.

What is your favourite piece of content that you have pinned?
I have two favourites, one of my hometown, Digging out at Fort and Douglas in 1916, and the other of an image I never get tired of looking at, Grandborough Brook, Winslow, Bucks:

(Click the images to read the story about them and see them on Street View)

Digging out at Fort and Douglas

 

What is your favourite piece of content that you have found on Historypin?
I haven’t made it through all 110,000 photos yet but I think this is wonderful image:

The Traveller's Rest

If you could have any person or organisation start pinning, who would it be?
I would love to see the British Columbia Archives begin to pin.  They have an amazing collection of photographs, many of which are digitized, but unfortunately their interface is painfully dated.  I suspect funding is an issue but if they used Historypin they could focus their resources on sharing content with British Columbians and beyond.

I’d also like to encourage seniors to pin their photos and their stories before it’s too late.  I’ve rummaged through hundreds, if not thousands, of wonderful old photos that have nothing written on them.  Unfortunately these photos, treasured memories for one generation, become clutter to another once the personal connections are lost.

If you could go back to any place and time, where and when would you go?
I’m fascinated by the Victorian and Edwardian eras and especially the development of Victoria (BC) and London (UK) during these periods.  However if I could only use my time machine once I would program it to take me back to the Wirral peninsula in the mid-1920′s.  That’s the last known whereabouts of my great-grandfather Herbert Clifford and his disappearance is a mystery I’ve spent the last 15 years trying to solve.  I would dearly love to buy him a pint and have him tell me his story.

What would you like to see on Historypin in the future?
A growing and active community of pinners.  There’s a lot of fantastic content on Historypin and it will really take off when the that community begins interacting with each other on a regular basis.  It’s these conversations that I’m most looking forward to.
I’d also like to be able to pin other types of content, such as letters or pictures of ephemera.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see a photograph of a soldier boarding a train for the front and then be able to read the letters he wrote to his family back home? Or to look at a vintage automobile driving down the street and then view a copy of the original brochure?

Historypin Channel

Contact

Interview with Mike Strange, Historypinner

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Name:  Mike Strange

Location:  Biggleswade, Bedfordshire

Historypin Channels:

Biggleswade History Society
Your Total Event

How have you been involved with Historypin?
By making available for all a number of the images of Biggleswade in the custodianship of the Biggleswade History Society.  In order to make them interesting and relevant I have always included the date and, where time permits, a story to go with them.  I have also added a few of my own images of a few places and events that interest me and hopefully others.

How did you hear about the project?
Approached by Ella Wiggans from Historypin asking if I would like to take part way before it went live.

What do you do when you are not pinning?
Genealogical and local history research, web site development, digital photography and computer processing, playing blues guitar (for me only!), DIY (plenty of that to do so no offers of help I am afraid!), seeing the occasional film, hardly any TV, model-making, design and development of electronic projects …. you see I am retired!!!

Why did you decide to share Biggleswade History Society’s collection on Historypin?
It is inappropriate for 6,500 images to all be locked away in an archive where few people ever get to see them; Historypin has proved to be an ideal way of sharing and hopefully to get something back from people who view them.

What excites you the most about Historypin?
It is dynamic, you can put in just as much as you want, it is an opportunity for people to share their stories associated with the images and it is boundless – anyone in the world can share their images from any country and in their context of their map.

What is your favourite piece of content that you have pinned?

From the History Society it is this collection of Berkeley Cars:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From my personal pins, this Coronation street party on my road in 1953:

What is your favourite piece of content that you have found on Historypin?

An image of my wife’s uncle aged between 4 and 7 (so the date on the image is wrong!) looking out of the window of the George Hotel, East Dereham, that her grandparents William Charles and Laura Rogers kept.

The surprise was seeing the image we know well that had been pinned by someone else!


Why do you think other people should add their photos, videos & audio clips and stories to Historypin?
Because we all have something that is relevant to other people and they may never have the opportunity of seeing it any other way.

If you could have any person or organization start pinning, who would it be?
ALL local history societies who have not yet joined in!

If you could go back to any place and time, where and when would you go?
Hopefully this is not a question of a one-way ticket!!  Roman Britain because they forgot to leave very little information about their stay here – I want to know their stories!

What would you like to see on Historypin in the future?

  • Dynamic feedback of comments from viewers.
  • Be able to contact Pinners who do not leave a web site or email address.
  • More concentration on getting folk to use their photos to tell the stories (the Essex school project was brilliant).

Contact
History Society:
www.BiggleswadeHistory.org.uk
webmaster@biggleswadehistory.org.uk

Personal:
www.YourTotalEvent.com
mike@YourTotalEvent.com

Interview with Vicky Pearce, Historypin Intern

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Name: Vicky Pearce

Role: Historypin Intern

Why did you want to intern at Historypin?
I had just finished an MA in Cultural Heritage and was looking for work in the heritage sector, so I wanted some relevant work experience in the mean time. I had already done some work with new media in heritage and was really interested to gain more experience on a project that not only used digital media, but really takes advantage of social networks to raise awareness and communicate with users. The fact that it fit with my interest in photography was an added bonus.

How did you come to hear of the project?
I originally found WeAreWhatWeDo through its stationery (I have a bit of a thing for nice stationery) and went on to browse the site and other projects, like the Action Tracker, before coming across Historypin and the internship opportunity. After I finished my dissertation (using my WeAreWhatWeDo notebook), I came back to find the opportunity was open again.

Describe an average day for you as a Historypin Intern
I arrive and go through emails before sifting through some of the statistics for the previous week’s social media and trying to analyse how people are engaging with it. Then I might spend some time finding, uploading and pinning photos, or preparing information for bulk uploads. I also do quite a bit of research on different archives and other groups we can work with, as well as looking through recent uploads and interesting pins to find content we can highlight through the social media.

What do you do when you’re not at Historypin?
I do a few things at the moment. As well as two days at Historypin, I spend one day a week at a National Trust internship, where I work on the social media and digital marketing of a contemporary art project. I also work part-time as a recruitment consultant and I spend my weekends riding horses, taking photos and applying for jobs.

What’s been your best moment here?
It’s been really satisfying to be faced with an image for which you have very little information and find out enough to give it an exact date and location. Sometimes you can find out every detail if you try hard enough, and sometimes it’s impossible, but it’s still great to feel like your research has given that photo the context of time and place that can now always be associated with it on the site.

What is the oddest job you’ve been asked to do in the name of Historypin?
I think researching Bob Dylan fan groups was the oddest experience. I didn’t really know much about him or his music before that, so trying to navigate websites where every link is written in song lyric code was kind of surreal.

What excites you the most about Historypin?
The international scope of it. Researching and contacting archives from all over the world, and then seeing content being pinned in these far flung places really makes you realise the reach of this project is and how many different people are involved.

Can you show us a photo you have personally pinned on Historypin?

Napoleon Beach, Cherbourg, 1944

What’s your favourite photo that has been pinned to the Historypin map and why?

I actually tweeted this pin a little while ago because I’d just seen the film War Horse and this struck me as the ‘real’ version of one of the scenes from that film. It’s a reminder that those theatrical scenes of a country preparing for war really did happen. It’s also great on Street View because most of the buildings around the marketplace are still standing 100 years later.

WW1 Troops in Dereham Marketplace, August 1914

What content would you like to see more of on Historypin?
I’m always really interested to see people’s family history, or their personal stories about people they knew and things that happened. It’s great to see content which focuses on people and their experiences in the places where they are pinned. Plus, old photos of people let you peek at some great outfits.

Why do you think people should add their photos and stories to Historypin?
It gives you some way to archive and preserve your own history and knowledge. How many times have you said you should do something with your old family photos, rather than just stuff them in a draw to get crumpled and faded, and never looked at? Historypin gives you that something, and means you get more enjoyment out of your collection.

What do you think the future of Historypin is?
I think Historypin could become more of a social network, with pinners more able to see each other’s content, comment and contribute. It also has great potential as a research tool, and as a really engaging tool to inspire an interest in history in students.

Contact @vicky_pearce        vicky.pearce@wearewhatwedo.org

Interview with Miles Dell, Historypin Assistant

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Name Miles Dell

Job Title Historypin Content Assisstant

What’s your role on Historypin?
I moderate content as it goes onto the site and research archives and institutions that might be interested in working with us. I also take photographs for any community outreach work that Historypin does, as well as leading the modern photography aspect of Historypin- this includes taking modern replicas and liaising with other photographers. Soon I will also be a Historypinner in Residence at English Heritage to help organise their archives and get their content up on the site.

How did you come to hear of the project?

I had heard only a few things about the project before I became a part of the team. I was on the dole and was shown the details about the project as part of a Government scheme called the Future Jobs Fund, which creates jobs for 18-24 year olds. History and photography are both passions of mine, and the opportunity to combine the two on a project such as this was one that I jumped at.

Describe an average work day for you

I will come in and spend time in the morning going through recently uploaded content, adding keywords and checking that details are correct. When we were running a community project in Reading, I helped out with optimising the images for web use, sometimes digitising submissions we received. I also spend some time researching institutions we can work with, this involves looking through image libraries as well as contacting curators and library directors.

What is the oddest job you’ve been asked to do in the name of Historypin?
I have done a lot of photography for the site, but spending a couple of hours on Trafalgar Square shooting a photo every minute was fun.

What excites you the most about Historypin?
Seeing the amount of content that goes up everyday shows that we are building something which can become a great resource for future generations is very rewarding, though the stories that come in show that people are having an emotional response to our content, which shows that our original aim of creating this online community is coming to fruition.

Can you show us a photo you have personally pinned on Historypin?

Checkpoint Charlie, 19 August 1963, uploaded from Wikimedia Commons


What’s your favourite photo that has been pinned to the Historypin map and why?

Mulberry Street Scene, New York City, 1900

The image itself is amazing, a black and white image from the immigrant centre of New York, where colour has been added afterwards. There is so much going on the image and the colour makes it come to life. On top of this it fits so well with the Street View, because the architecture has changed so little in the last century.

What content would you like to see more of on Historypin?
I would like to see more content from the iconic photographers of the last hundred years, such as Cartier- Bresson, on the site. Much of the content is very personal, user submitted work, and I believe that content from well known photographers will help make the site accessible to a wider audience.

Why do you think people should add their photos and stories to Historypin? Historypin is a way of writing history in your own voice. That in a few years we will have this patchwork history round the world, written by the world and not a historian or an editor is an exciting prospect. And, the more people join, the more accurate the content will become.

What do you think the future of Historypin is?
I would like to see Historypin being used as a serious educational tool. The range of modern (and personal) history that a teacher could access will provide a new way of looking at history, and provide a more interesting medium for students to work with.

Contact  miles.dell@wearewhatwedo.org

Interview with Alison Kennedy from Manchester Archives

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What’s your name?
Alison Kennedy

And what you doing in the Historypin offices?!
I’m doing a Historypin Internship for a week

What’s been your best moment here?
When I found a surprising image whilst carrying out a research task. I was looking at online image archives of ex-commonwealth countries and came across one in Singapore, my family has a long association with Singapore and I decided to search the database for my family name not really expecting to find anything but lo and behold an image popped up of my Gran looking fresh faced at her engagement party. It was a fantastic image and it absolutely made my day, and hopefully one day soon it could be uploaded to Historypin!

Where are you currently working?
I am a trainee on the National Archives ‘Opening Up Archives’ programme. The programme’s primary goal is to diversify the archives profession by providing an entry route into the archive and heritage sector for those with non-traditional backgrounds.

There are 13 full-time one year workplace traineeships in a range of specialist areas at various host archives. I am based at the Manchester Archives and the main specialist area I am focusing on is community engagement. I come from an arts/media background and I have a particular interest in photography, films and online social networking.

How did you hear about Histroypin?
I had heard about Historypin through a colleague who had already contributed some images to the site. I have been working a lot with the images collection at the Manchester Archives and am always trying to find more ways to make the images more accessible, to as wide an audience as possible, after spending a lot of time on the Historypin website I soon discovered that it was a fantastic resource for me to be able to do this.

Why did you want to intern at Histroypin?
I decided that it would be of benefit to me to do a work placement at the Historypin offices in London as it fitted in with my training plan and I wanted to know more about the process they go through in order to promote what they do to colleagues and other archives as well as getting a chance to show off some of the fantastic images we hold at the Manchester Archives to a large new audience. I wanted to share ideas as essentially our aims are the same- to ‘open up archives’.

What did you do in your internship?
During my week at Historypin I gained a wider understanding of their uploading process and how the website works as a whole, I learnt some useful tips when it comes to searching for a location and geotagging images.

It was really useful for me to attend a presentation done by Historypin’s CEO Nick as I saw how important it is to get out there and promote the site on a personal level and how the marketing and promotion side of Historypin has really made an impact and is working. It was also interesting to find out what other archives and similar organisations think of the project, the questions they have, the common issues that come up and the way Historypin can help them.

It was great to be able to discuss online outreach and sharing ideas of how best to utilise social networking sites. Discussing outreach work was useful and will hopefully lead to future partnerships such as facilitating a project like Magic Me in Manchester and the documents given to me by Freddie (one of the Histroypin team) will be particularly valuable when I come to do this.

It was very exciting to hear about the future plans of Historypin’s development and inevitable global domination which will give archives an even greater platform to show off their fantastic and often hidden collections.