This exhibit, The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, chronicles the lives of patients in a New York mental institution through their old belongings. While an extremely interesting and thought-provoking concept, the online interpretation is clunky and barely engaging.
Collection Principles:
I have no idea. While this exhibit is also a traveling show with an accompanying book, on the website I can find no information about why certain patients were chosen to highlight, as 427 suitcases were originally found in the attic when Willard closed in 1995. I know legal constraints would not allow the use of full names, so perhaps not all of the patients could be included because of legal reasons. The book appears to delve into 10 people's lives.
Object Characteristics:
The site runs on Flash, which is incredibly frustrating. There is only one way to scroll down the text; little arrows at the bottom must be clicked. The images next to the text also must be browsed by arrow clicking. As a person with who must newly work with only my non-dominant hand, I would stop looking at the site because of the difficulty getting around and scrolling. The 'drop-down' menu options at the bottom of the site are also annoying, as there is no index page for each topic. You can't go to the "Suitcases" page, just to each name separately. The images are probably jpegs. There are streaming sound files, as well, but I don't know what file they are.
Metadata:
There is no visible upfront metadata with the images. The images don not even have captions with them. I don't even know how much administrative metadata there is behind the scenes. There are no search capabilities. All in all, poorly done.
Intended Audience:
Originally an exhibit at the New York State Museum in 2004, the audience would be the general public. Online, it seems quite basic, almost for school children.
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