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Juneau-Douglas City MuseumA Few Words about the Project and BobThe Bob DeArmond Alaska History Project -"Digital Bob"-- began in 2004, and is the result of work by Juneau-Douglas City Museum Director Jane Lindsey, Curator of Collections and Exhibits Ellen Carrlee, and, notably, our super volunteers: Anne Castle, Rich Cormack, and Anne Schultz. In a recent survey of our patron's we found that "historical research" was ranked highly in public perception of the Museum's purpose. Volunteer Mike Blackwell had an idea that was hard to resist: a searchable Web database of Bob DeArmond's writings. (For the time being, our site is limited to Bob's Juneau-Douglas-related material; the future will determine if we are able to expand it to a broader horizon.). Bob's columns (Days of Yore, News of the Gold Camp, and Gastineau Bygones) document the growth of both of our towns: the rowdy days of the gold camps, the world's largest hard-rock gold mines, small-town rivalries, Native rights, fishing, timber, territorial government, capital city issues, statehood, and everything else. We think that Bob portrays Juneau-Douglas for what it is--extraordinary--and that his factual accounts can shed light on current events. Anne Castle gave us a head start--she had been already digitizing Gastineau Bygones from Juneau Empires that an acquaintance, Sue Hirsch Brock, had given her. The Juneau Empire gave us permission to reproduce Gastineau Bygones and News of the Gold Camp, for educational use. The Alaska State Historical Library gave us permission to copy photos for Bob's scrapbook. Webmaster Patrick McGonegal cheerfully signed up to help us build a database and patiently endured questions from the technically challenged. Under Ellen's supervision, interns Katie Mahoney and Crisitina Smiraglia, converted the Days of Yore articles into formatted text and entered them into the database. Volunteers Rich Cormack entered Gastineau Bygones, and Anne Schultz entered News of the Gold Camp. And...the redoubtable Bob DeArmond has supported our project from its inception, with suggestions, advice, and (we hope) approval. |
