Project Showcase: History Hub

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History Hub Screen Grab

Screenshot credit: History Hub

The Internet has changed the way nearly every profession shares knowledge and communicates with the public. In the last few years archivists and historians working for the federal government have joined the conversation. In December 2015, the National Archives created History Hub, a platform for collaboration between researchers, historians, archivists, and the federal government.

History Hub differs from other governmental crowdsourcing platforms, such as openNASA and the Library of Congress’ Flickr pilot project,  which seek the public’s assistance in obtaining information and insights, answering questions, or resolving challenges faced by government officials. The main purpose of History Hub is to answer inquiries from the public, fully engaging them in the endeavors of the National Archives through tools like discussion boards, blogs, and community pages. History Hub facilitates knowledge- and information-sharing between parties, enabling greater public utilization of the National Archive’s vast resources.

History Hub is currently in its pilot phase, which runs through the end of May 2016. The National Archives is now looking to partner with other federal agencies in order to answer even more thoroughly the public’s historical and archival questions. History Hub is the first crowdsourcing platform that enables multiple federal agencies to communicate with the public and one another via a single platform. The platform has already proven to be a powerful resource for researchers looking for information on various topics: genealogical history, presidential records, and military records, to name a few. For example, one user asked if anyone had information on relatives who had served in the same U.S. Army General Hospital in India as his grandfather during World War II. In response, another History Hub user provided the detailed story of her own father who served in a similar unit–information that could not have been accessed anywhere else.

To learn more, visit History Hub. Ask or answer a question, share successes or roadblocks, and keep the conversation going.

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