Introducing...
Digitizing the Archive
Archival documents paired with literary texts: an interactive reading room.
Welcome to my Capstone Project which pairs archival documents with literary texts inviting my readers to move between the material and the stories they complete.
About the project
This site stages a deliberately small collection of records and readings. Each entry connects an archival fragment to a literary piece from ENGL 4710 that helps frame what the document asks of a reader.
The interface is designed as a reading room: you can linger on one object, follow a catalog number into the next, and return to the same passage with a different question.
Central argument
No archive speaks for itself. Records arrive partial, catalogued under habits and hierarchies that already decide what counts as worth keeping. To use an archive responsibly is to interpret, to notice absences, to read against the grain, and to refuse the fantasy of innocent description.
Digital interfaces can either rush that work or support it. This project argues that thoughtful design, clear metadata, humane pacing, and room for literary juxtaposition can make archival fragments easier to approach without flattening them. The screen aids in understanding with documents and texts laid side by side for readers who may never enter the physical space they exist in but still deserve to engage with them.