Collection Principles. Make the Dirt Fly! Building the Panama Canal is a Digital Collection created in December 1999 by the Smithsonian Institution Libraries’ Courtney Danforth. There is no statement regarding the collection principles on the collection’s home page other than the information under “credit” in the home page menu. The credit section lists the underwriter support, the guest curators from the National Museum of American History, and the online exhibition by Ms. Danforth, suggesting that the collection principles are that the topic was of interest to, and specifically funded by, major supporter Bucyrus International, Inc., and other engineering organizations. Once into the site, however, the information is engagingly presented to give an interesting history of the building of the Panama Canal.
The site is entered in a series of six introductory pages that include black and white photographic images with overwritten short summaries of the genesis of the Canal. Passage through these introductory pages is by clicking on the forward arrow. After quickly moving through to the 4th page, the 5th page takes a bit more time to load, then appears with a photographic image of a ground blasting, an accompanying “boom” sound, and the phrase from the title “Make the Dirt Fly” that descends onto the page. The 6th page gives much information on the size of the steam shovels manufactured by the Bucyrus Co. used in the digging and information on the hours worked by the laborers. Only after this introduction does the user enter to the homepage with its history text and images recounting the history of the who, what, why, when, where, and how of the building of the Canal. Included are text and images recounting the 19th century developments in canal building generally that preceded the Panama Canal.
Object Characteristics. Generally, the site is easily navigable. Click-to-enlarge jpeg images of varying pixels present books, letters, engineering drawings, black and white, sepia, and color photographs, legal documents, magazine covers, maps, brass nameplates, newspaper articles and even a presidential medal. Each enlarged image includes at the bottom metadata as to its title, if any, its origin, author or creator and date. The images are placed next to or amidst text telling the story of the Canal’s construction. I found that some images did not present an image when clicked to enlarge, suggesting they were too large for the average home computer user.
Metadata. The metadata on each of the enlarged images is generally consistent and provides information on title, origin, author or creator and date. In many cases, information on the donor of the original item is also provided. There is no metadata provided on rights or usage on the collection’s site.
Intended Audience. This digital collection is focused largely on the construction of the Panama Canal and will appeal to students of engineering as well as to historians and students interested in 19th century canal building generally, and in the history of the building of the Canal in the early 20th century specifically.
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