The document discusses the Texas Coastal Bend Collection (TCBC), a digital archive that shares historical resources from the Texas Coastal Bend region. The TCBC aims to make hidden local histories approachable by focusing on relationships between people, places, events, and cultural assets through an exploratory digital platform. Interviews, images, texts, and other materials are connected and can be explored laterally based on user curiosity. The unique design of the TCBC is intended to strengthen historical narratives of the region through linked open data.

1. Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative
Sharing Digital and Linked Data Resources
Mark Coffey, Alan Watts • Texas Coastal Bend Collection
Duane Degler • Design for Context
Museums & the Web 2018 #MW18

2. What’s unique about the Texas Coastal Bend?
• The events from 1835 to the present
fostered a unique culture
• Pivotal times in Irish,
Mexican, and American
history
• Isolated until the late 20th Century
• Self-contained culture
• Single economic focus
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 2

3. What’s unique about the Texas Coastal Bend Collection?
• A living history, a human collection, not just objects.
• The stories of the people, of this culture
• Digital history museum and archive, blended by design
• The site themes are relevant today
• Nature
• Culture
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 3
Louise O’Connor,
interviewer, author,
photographer
Nancy O’Connor,
interviewer, artist

4. What’s unique about the TCBC design and platform?
• Exploratory
• Make hidden histories approachable
• Relationships reflected in data
• Across types of content
• Among people
• Between people, animals, the land
• Enable relationships in the future
with other collections, research
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 4
Places
People
Events
Topics
Assets Stories
Cultural
taxonomy

5. TOPICS | AUDIO | PEOPLE | TEXT | IMAGES | PLACES
• Introduce people to the themes and history
• Help people discover what to look for,
how to explore the range of assets available
• Layered unfolding of experience
• Supports future creation of other narrative formats
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 5

6. TOPICS | AUDIO | PEOPLE | TEXT | IMAGES | PLACES
Topics
Topics
Sub-Topics
Subjects
Term
Term
Term
Group of
Subjects
Subjects describe specific
assets in the content
Topics provide easy entry
to the site’s overall focus
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 6
External
Collaborators
External
Vocabularies

7. TOPICS | AUDIO | PEOPLE | TEXT | IMAGES | PLACES
• The most important part of the site
• Storytelling
• Not 1-on-1 interviews
• Conversations are part of the culture
• Reflection, sparking off each other
• Create an environment where magic happens
• Explore, or remain subject-focused
• Future: Persistent audio
• Allows exploration from the story catalyst
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 7

8. TOPICS | AUDIO | PEOPLE | TEXT | IMAGES | PLACES
• Portraits humanize the voices
• Then discovering them throughout the site: “I know them, what they feel”
• “People as
portals”
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 8
Easter on the Welder Ranch
1930’s

9. TOPICS | AUDIO | PEOPLE | TEXT | IMAGES | PLACES
• Relating – books draw
from oral histories
• Active – use them as
a launching point to
other assets
• Focus – exploratory
filters and navigation
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 9

10. TOPICS | AUDIO | PEOPLE | TEXT | IMAGES | PLACES
• Represent the latter half of the 19thC – 20thC
• Majority of images are 1920-1940s
• Just as the Audio is the soundtrack to the story…
Images are the visuals for narrative
• Images allow stories to be non-linear
• Flow is prompted by the user’s curiosity
• Will be supported by persistent audio capability
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 10

11. TOPICS | AUDIO | PEOPLE | TEXT | IMAGES | PLACES
• Places anchor the people and stories in the land, in nature
• The next major site addition
• Places will have a similar “portal” presentation style as People
• You can explore this collection laterally, via
• People
• Places
• Events: Image galleries
• Assets: Audio, Images, Text
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 11

12. Technology: A Platform
• Not just a website
• Modular tools to streamline different curatorial tasks
• Standards-based development
• Focus on relationships – assets woven by connections with each other
Texas Coastal Bend Collection Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative #MW18 - 4.19.2018 Mark Coffey, Duane Degler, Alan Watts 12

13. Archives Strengthening Historical Narrative
Sharing Digital and Linked Data Resources
Mark Coffey, Alan Watts • Texas Coastal Bend Collection
Duane Degler • Design for Context
Museums & the Web 2018 #MW18