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Bringing the Borderlands to the Web: The Arizona-Sonora Documents Online Project
SHAN C. SUTTON
Archival repositories are increasingly publishing digital images of their collections online to support remote research. Arizona-Sonora Documents Online exemplifies this trend. It provides web access to fifteen manuscript collections on the history of Sonora, Mexico, that are located at three different archival repositories in Arizona.
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THE STUDY OF THE U.S.-Mexico borderlands presents inherent challenges to historians on both sides of the border. Scholars' research often requires access to archival collections scattered among far-flung institutions. Borderlands collections are not only located at a variety of American repositories, they are also spread out among their Mexican counterparts. Archival institutions can help scholars overcome some of these logistical barriers by using the web to publish digitized versions of their collections. The utilization of the web as a tool for expanding access to primary sources is a major trend in the archival profession. The University of Arizona Library's Arizona-Sonora Documents Online (content.library.arizona.edu/collections/asdo) is a significant achievement in this area. It provides access to over seven thousand digital images of documents from fifteen manuscript collections on the history of Sonora, Mexico. |
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Arizona-Sonora Documents Online was developed from 2000 to 2003 with a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (www.imls.gov). The grant's original purpose was to digitize historic documents at the State Archives of Sonora in Hermosillo, Mexico. After reaching an impasse with the Sonoran government on the University of Arizona's legal rights to publish the images online, the project was revised in 2001. The focus shifted to digitizing archival collections on Sonoran history at three Arizona institutions: the University of Arizona Library Special Collections, the Arizona Historical Society-Tucson, and the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records. |
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The project's fifteen collections cover a variety of topics within Sonoran history, including ranching, mining, land grants, American companies in Mexico, and governmental issues. They were selected by archivists at each repository according to their research value. Some of the collections have traditions of heavy use. Others are less well known but have great potential for scholars. Putting these collections online promotes their use by researchers who may not have even known of the original collections' existences. |
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Most of the collections are in Spanish, although some include extensive documents in English. Each digital image is accompanied by a metadata record in English that offers users a description of the document they are viewing. The level of detail in these records varies among the collections. At a minimum, all images have a descriptive title. Some also have more in-depth information on their content. |
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As anyone who has created a website knows, putting digital images online is a relatively simple task. Publishing entire manuscript collections on the web in a way that facilitates research is a much more complex undertaking. In this process, arranging digital images in the same order as the documents they represent is critical. This approach maintains the context of the collection and interrelationships among the items it contains. Replicating the original order also enables researchers to browse the digital collection in the same manner as the physical collection. |
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