Memory Book of the National Museum of African American History & Culture (Smithsonian Institution)

Reviewed by: Max Brawer

Review date: March 5, 2025

Site Link: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/initiatives/memory-book

Archive Link: https://archive.ph/oaD2X

Keywords: African and African Diaspora Studies, Anthropology, Media Studies, Crowdsourcing, Archiving, Biography and Prosopography

Data Sources:

• Crowdsourced text
  
• Oral histories as told by visitors to the museum
  
• Museum photographs

Processes:

• It appears that the text, author name, photograph and title of the posts are hosted in their original user-generated format and unprocessed.
  
• The site claims 100 posts but only shows 10, indicating they may be selectively published.

Presentation:

Memory Book is a web-based text and photo archive (with the photos currently unavailable) of posts submitted by visitors to the museum. The home page shows a brief preface to the nature of the project and then posts the user-generated text in a standardized web template (accordions) for the user to read selectively. The stories generally speak to the lived experience of users in relationship to major events in African-Amercian history (e.g., slave trade, segregation, MLK Jr.).

Digital Tools Used:

• Presentation: jQuery for generic front-end web development (text and interactivity)
  
• Capture: not disclosed, but presumably through an online webform

Languages:

• English

Review

The National Museum of African American History & Culture is a newer addition to the Smithsonian Institution and was established in 2003. The museum launched its website in 2007, and the physical building opened in 2016 The museum leadership conceived of their website being interactive--to some degree a “social network” where visitors could post their experiences in digital format with digital, forum-like usernames. Users could, it seems, upload photographs as well that may have originated in analog format. Users of this “social network” appear to be able to contribute text and photography in this standardized format the museum solicited. A typical entry highlights a title related to the user’s memory and a brief autobiographical story (2-5 paragraphs):

In its current form, the Memory Book project only provides visitors with three pieces of information: date, username, and text. The rest remains ambiguous. We know little about the curators and their process, though we may assume that the founding staff of the museum were the ones responsible.

The first issue with the project’s interface is the stories seem to be arranged alphabetically by title. This immediately takes us out of the original context--an alleged social media network--and makes it more like reading stories ordered in a way that has no correlation to their content. The reader may reasonably ask: In what order were these posted? Did posters get to see their peers’ posts before posting? How did they choose a username? What did the posting tool or context look like?

We also may wonder: what were the inclusion criteria? We infer as readers that the topics are central to the African-American experience, yet the curators tell us only that these are visitors’ “memories.” We are left to wonder if the visitors are themselves Black, or prompted to write about specific experiences.

One positive element, though also very open to interpretation, is the inclusion of this quote by the museum’s founding director, Lonnie G. Bunch (who has since become the first African-American director of the Smithsonian Institution): “For too long, others have spoken for us.” We can presume museum leadership wanted user-generated oral histories so that no one could speak for the target population except for users themselves. This establishes a meaning behind the project and purpose, which I would say it theoretically achieves: that a museum could incorporate user content to tell a story of a people and that no institution can truly present an unbiased or complete point of view that summarizes millions of experiences.

Lastly, it is unclear why the sample of memories is so small. Just 100 entries from 2007-2011? This seems remarkably small for a modern internet project. Especially given the background knowledge of the museum’s popularity. Was something particularly buried or uninviting about the project? The Smithsonian reported 18 million annual visitors in a recent year. We assume that perhaps this was hosted only on the website and not seen in the museum itself after using the wayback machine to find an original version.

How are the collaborative aspects reflected in the project and are there elements that work particularly well?

Collaboration is not well represented. As described above, we see all work presented in isolation. We are unclear of almost any detail whatsoever surrounding the potential collaborations involved.

Do you see an opportunity for collaboration that would be helpful to the project?

Absolutely. The simplest opportunity I can see would be to revive a key component of a social network which is....socializing or networking. For example, what if other visitors could respond? Or the curatorial staff? I could see both as impactful. While open networks and fora are difficult to moderate, moderated institutional feedback would present an interesting perspective. Imagine if we could see a collaboration where user feedback on a history, such as these in the project, could be placed in the context of the museum’s exhibitions? What if the museum were to include pictures or references to scholarly content that contextualize the user histories in a more structured exhibition? This might embrace the interplay between the museum and visitor in a way that would provide the viewer even more information and experiential learning.