The Sunshine State Digital Network (SSDN) is proud to welcome our first museum partner, HistoryMiami Museum. They will be sharing their Pan American World Airways collection in partnership with the University of Miami. The collection includes a wide variety of objects from Pan Am, ranging from flight attendant uniforms to model airplanes, dinnerware, shirts, bags, and even a board game. Digitization of the collection was made possible as part of a Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) grant project in partnership with the University of Miami, HistoryMiami Museum, Duke University, and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).
The collection will become a part of a commercial aviation portal currently under development by the DPLA. The portal will include materials digitized during the grant along with other commercial aviation materials from collections shared to DPLA. This will allow for focused exploration of aviation history across multiple institutions, and it will serve as an innovative model to bring together disparate collections in a collective portal hosted by DPLA, fostering discoverability and availability to researchers in both public and academic domains and across borders.
“These promotional materials, operational records, and artifacts highlight the complexity and reach of Pan Am, a leader in globalizing aviation and shaping public perceptions of air travel, whose impact on global affairs, corporate culture, and social history is still relevant today.”
Laura Capell, Head of Digital Production & Electronic Records Archivist at the University of Miami.
The SSDN is excited to be able to work with HistoryMiami Museum to share these materials with a worldwide audience in the DPLA portal. We look forward to expanding our partnership with them and sharing more of Miami’s history with the world.
Sunshine State Digital Network 