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Language: en

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the men with the guns was another
favorite one of mine I just thought it

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was cool how they're posing with their
guns this is from

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1945 I just thought that was really neat
seeing how everything's progress so much

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I want to know what was here before me I
like knowing where I live and I like to

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be proud of

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it we applied for museums for America
Grant in 2004 to develop a comprehensive

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digital history project for Johnson
County Kansas we were interested in

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expanding people's understanding of um
our County's history its influences in

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the metropolitan and the state of Kansas
and so we developed a partnership with

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the Johnson County Library with really
that goal of establishing a

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comprehensive resource a One-Stop online
accessible place that the community

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could go and do research and access
materials we have digitized about 30,000

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images from our collection that are
online at the Joko history

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site most of the historic pictures came
from different kinds of County reports

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the agriculture Department would go and
do poultry farm tours and so there were

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photographs of these ladies out in their
dresses looking at these barnyards full

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of
chickens there was a mattress program

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that was initiated by the county in the
late 30s early 40s the thinking being

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that if you have a good mattress you're
going to get better sleep so you're

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going to be more productive really
fascinating stuff that were that was

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just tucked away in some these reports
the big deal about this time also

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remember is the museum is a relatively
small organization we have about 10 to

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12 people on our staff we don't have our
own it support staff for instance and so

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um there were some resources that we
really needed to to um partner to make

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happen so that this project could move
forward we have a close relationship

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with the Johnson County Library who has
a very aggressive online web presence

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already and ask them if they would like
to partner we were really looking

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outward trying to see how the library
could be of service to the community and

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we were changing from an archive
organization to a much more Progressive

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forward-thinking Library it's really
creating content in the community and

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that's what we're after the museum is
after that the librar is after that I

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like how on the website when you click
on the picture you can zoom in or you

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can
move around the picture you really had

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to think about how people search and the
different variety of users that are

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going to be using this database for
different purposes and trying to address

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as many of those as possible there are
many small historical Societies in our

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community that have very small staff or
no staff at all they may be all

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volunteer but they've got some really
rich wonderful Collections and so for

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instance the Kansas School for the Deaf
which is located in OA Kansas and is our

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County Seat they have about 2100 images
on the site from their history which

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dates back to the
1860s when we were developing this

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project Web 2.0 was the big deal and I
knew we wanted to have some sort of

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feature that would allow people
to provide their own reaction to some of

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the content that was in the site it's
very comparable to having Community

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curated exhibitions and losing that
control or giving up that control to the

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community to create content that is
important to them and I think ultimately

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if we're going to be relevant in our
communities we need to be doing more of

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that as museums that idea of revisionist
history is in many ways connected to

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this in terms of who's commenting on
these objects who's who is the authority

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um and do they have a right to talk
about that we actively solicit feedback

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about photos to help us with names uh to
help us with places to help us with time

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periods we have a a photograph here of
little corner store which used to be

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very common and someone sent in this
comment my father and his wife and he

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names them owned an operated this store
as the South Ridge Market from

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1927 until closing it in 1940 it had a
full line of groceries vegetables fruits

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in a butcher
shop um he made chili and sold that in

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the meat counter and I still have his
recipe for the chili but I can't

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decipher it it's written on a torn piece
of brown paper and it's just notes to

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himself

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uh he closed out the store when he heard
there was to be a supermarket U built

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nearby and he thought he couldn't
compete with the

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supermarkets sometimes a photograph on
the site will sort of cause a trip down

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memory lane for people who visit and if
they see a photograph particularly of a

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relative or a place that was meaningful
to them um they'll sort of feel moved to

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contribute just to memory it's okay to
come to our site and walk down memory

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lane simply use it as entertainment and
enjoyment in that sense it really fits

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with the mission of both the museum and
the Johnson County Library each year

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that the site has been up we have had
anywhere between five and 8 million

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downloads so we're clearly reaching our
audience at a much greater level than we

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ever did before I think this website
will last a long time people later on

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will be able to look back at pictures of
us and think of how much different it

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has changed from then as a history
teacher it's invaluable for me you can

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see how much we've changed and how much
how much smarter we're getting and like

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learning from the mistakes of the
past it's the closest to time traveling

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in your local community that you can get
and it really does become an interesting

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and engaging online Center for people to
come together and share those

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experiences with each other with their
children they can show their children

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this is what used to be on this corner
or this is what it looked like when it

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was farmland and not a Suburban tract
Housing

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Development there were a lot of
cross-pollination across both staffs

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that really uh enabled it to be larger
than any of us ever imagined