History goes Online with The Digital Collections of The National WWII Museum

Many interpretative institutions today increasingly make use of narratives, storytelling, and the personal experiences of historical and everyday figures to educate their visitors. At the National WWII Museum, we use first-hand accounts to further our mission to tell the story of the American Experience in the war that changed the world—why it was fought, how it was won, and what it means today—so that all generations will understand the price of freedom and be inspired by what they learn.  Since it was founded, The National WWII Museum has been dedicated to collecting and sharing the stories of the citizen soldiers and Home Front workers who served and sacrificed for our country during WWII. The digitization project, supported by key funders and Institute of Museum and Library Science (IMLS) have helped the Museum achieve this goal by supporting innovative and unique ideas for access, description and navigation of our video oral history and photograph collections. The site currently offers access to 150 oral histories and over 5,000 photographs. Both types of collections can be searched, viewed, saved in a personal collection or licensed for use on the website.

Check out the Museum’s collections online at http://ww2online.org. We hope you will take the time to view some images and listen to the stories of those we chose to honor in this important project.

Post by Lindsey Barnes, Senior Archivist/Digital Projects Manager at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.