The American Studies Web Museum is an experimental course in local cultural history and web design. Participating students use original archival materials from the Sheldon Museum and Middlebury College Special Collections to launch interpretive online exhibits that explore the rich cultural heritage of the College and the surrounding local community. A considerable portion of class time is spent on site at the Sheldon and in Special Collections. Students learn scanning, web design, and other technical skills.
     Part of what makes the Web Museum unusual is the collaborative nature of instruction and learning. The instructional team includes faculty, librarians, and instructional technologists. Learning is also collaborative. Students work in teams to interpret, digitize, and design websites relating to particular archival resources. For everyone involved, the work entails a rich combination of hands-on archival research and the development and application of web-based technical skills.
     While unique in the College curriculum, the American Studies Web Museum builds on the work of nationally recognized web projects such as the Center for History and New Media and the American Studies Crossroads Project. Inspired by such national web consortia, the American Studies Web Museum seeks to utilize new media for two purposes: first, to digitally preserve rare manuscripts and archives; and second, to create a more collaborative and participatory context for learning about America's cultural past.
     As a multi-year project, the Web Museum has evolved considerably since its first iteration in the winter of 2004. Each new group of students benefits from the accomplishments and shortcomings of work completed in previous years. Each year, the Web Museum also benefits from the distinctive skills and aptitudes of participating students. Students with technical expertise acted as course webmasters in 2004 and 2005. In 2005, Amanda Gustin designed what has become the permanent template for the Web Museum. Her contributions, first as student and then as Special Collections Digitization Intern, exemplify the unique opportunity this course affords for collaborative learning and knowledge production. The cumulative nature of the Web Museum also enhances students’ enthusiasm. Students enjoy contributing to a permanent website, and they like the challenge of improving on work completed in previous years through more sophisticated use of digital media.
     The American Studies Web Museum, because it is a collaborative learning project, differs from the College's other digital collections. A notable difference is the lack of a uniform design template. Students are given creative license in designing their exhibits. This makes navigating the web museum more challenging, but it also enhances students’ sense of their own authority and enriches small-group collaboration.
     For more information on each year's projects, click here.