Session 3I | Beyond the Reading Room: Virtual Archival Engagement with Interactive Visualizations

Abstract

In this talk, I address a key issue faced by many university archives right now--when in-person visits aren’t available, how can students engage with collections? In Fall 2020, I used metadata for over 15,000 texts in the Harry Ransom Center’s Comedias Sueltas and Spanish Theater collection to create an interactive data visualization with Tableau software featuring the collection’s authors, publishers, and translators. Interactive visualizations enable archival exploration and instruction that center student agency and address barriers to archival access. Ultimately, I argue, this type of virtual engagement with the archive should continue to be expanded even after archives reopen.