Community History Work: Ensuring Lives Are Remembered Through Databases

ID: WMA2026_601

Track:

This session, led by public historians Carly Bagley, Megan Weiss, and Randell Hoffman, will explore how database development can help you track, organize, analyze, and remember individuals from your community’s history. Using examples from our own work on tracking Utah women and queer Utahns, the audience for this round table includes community historians, public historians, and hobby historians who are new to collecting data on underrepresented communities who are often lost in the archive. 

Session Information

Format: Regular session/panel (roundtable, single speaker, etc.)

Uniqueness: This roundtable is meant to inspire questions, open the floor for people to talk about their own database community work, and get feedback on ideas.

Objectives: Audience members will learn 1) The value of database work in tracking and preserving individuals from history typically lost to the archives 2) What kinds of information is important to track regarding these individuals 3) How this information can be used in partnership with community in long term projects

Engagement: Our guided audience conversation building on the shared example projects will explore questions such as, “How do you preserve data about individual lives?,” “What kind of data should you collect?,” “How do you obtain the information you need?,” “How do you partner with local organizations and community?” and “What are the possible end goals for your project?”

Relationship to Theme:

Audience

Audiences: Curators/Scientists/Historians Events Planning Technology 

Professional Level: All levels 

Scalability: The information in this session can be used by organizations of any size, as evidenced by our own organizations. Carly and Megan’s example is from a large museum/historical society of 80+ employees, and Randy’s example is from his own work as an individual historian.

Participants