{"id":1580,"date":"2019-11-12T16:19:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T16:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2019-11-24T17:46:46","modified_gmt":"2019-11-24T17:46:46","slug":"special-collections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/special\/special-collections\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Collections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Federal Theater Project, while heavily criticized, was one of the only (if not the only) occasions when the government actively supported and put money into the arts. Our visit to special collections and exploration of certain artifacts from the Federal Theater Project allowed us an in person look at actual materials that were created or written regarding or for theatrical performances for the FTP. My own opinion was genuinely affected by being able to see actual artifacts from the FTP because the article that my table paid particular attention to was a proposal by someone talking about the importance of the FTP and the arts, and it made me realize even more how little the government puts funding into the arts and values the arts and theater. Even when there was a government funded program for theater, people involved in theater\/arts were still trying to convince people to care about it. The archive also serves as a means to research and gain a better understanding and appreciation for the effort of those involved in the Federal Theater Project productions. For example, when reading about the voodoo Macbeth play in the Library of Congress\u2019 article, the reader gets the idea of the impact of the play, but not necessarily the effort or what the production looked like.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> So with archives such as Special Collections in the George Mason University Library, researchers are able to physically hold and see real life artifacts from actual productions.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Something that was significantly interesting about our visit to Special Collections was that archivists do have a say in what gets digitized or not, but only to a certain extent. When money is involved, certain items can get digitized faster or be prioritized over other items. This could be because they were paid to digitize them faster, or it could be because they were given to Special Collections from a donor to the archive, and so of course they get priority. This did spark a question in my head about how money influences history, not only in Special Collections, but in all archives everywhere. Aside from that however, archivists do get to decide sometimes if items are just genuinely unimportant or important. They also get a say in how something will be digitized, however it\u2019s generally a photograph if it\u2019s a 3D object. They also make sure to have rules and regulations concerning the access to the items in order to protect their quality.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> This ensures all researchers are able to look at whatever artifacts they want to see and know that they\u2019re in good condition and similar conditions to the way they were when they were produced.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special Collections proved to be valuable to us as students, and their importance to actual researchers is far greater. Our visit demonstrated to me just another reason as to how technology is an important aspect of the recording of history and the impact of digital history today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Federal Theater Project, while heavily criticized, was one of the only (if not the only) occasions when the government actively supported and put money into the arts. Our visit to special collections and exploration of certain artifacts from the Federal Theater Project allowed us an in person look at actual materials that were created … Continue reading “Special Collections”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1589,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions\/1589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}