I have been on a cumudgeonly tear about "Web 1.0" archives--you know
the sites--they are heaven for one variety of traditional archivist
who delights that nothing has changed except that the items can be
vaguely browsed via the web. Sometimes you get search or even the
ability to look within date ranges.

But that isn't the sort of site that puts the digital artifacts into
people's hands, that helps people discover and explore stuff they
didn't know they were interested in.

A simple, non-archival web 2.0 interface might resemble something we
did for our online encyclopedia: http://jwa.org/encyclopedia where we
used tag clouds and javascript and other tricks to make (we hope)
discovery and exploration fun and natural.

The Smithsonian starts to do this on an archival level at sites like
http://polarbears.si.umich.edu/

If you were looking at a web 2.0 archival site that seems to invite
use, reuse, and general discovery/engagement, what site(s) would you
point to? What makes them work for you?

ari

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