Review of Spokane's Pride

Photo is a screen-capture from: http://spokanespride.org/

The “Spokane’s Pride: An LGBT Oral History” is a digital and oral history initiative which started in 2012 under Laura S. Hodgman, a professor at Eastern Washington University, and Ms. Maureen Nickerson. This project’s initial objective was to continue another Spokane-based LGBT oral history project which began at the Odyssey Youth Center between 2006-07, and on which Nickerson also worked. The project goal for “Spokane’s Pride” is to pick up where the Odyssey Youth Center left off, and to preserve the oral testimony of older LGBT community members in Spokane in the hope that doing so “will lead to greater understanding and to an appreciation for the historical significance of their lives.” The Odyssey Youth Center’s goal was to preserve their stories so they could serve as role models to Spokane’s youth. Thus, the intended audience is both Spokane youth and anyone who wishes to learn more about LGBT history in Spokane through an oral history lens. Marvo Reguindin, Karena Kliefoth, Sierra VanderHoogt, and Thinking Cap Communications & Design are credited for having developed and designed the website using Wordpress, and although their development process is not provided, they do state that the site is a work in progress.
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I consider this a digital history project because it is accessible through a website of their own design, and also because they digitized materials, whether through transcription or scanning images.  It is a site that uses digital media to make available the personal stories of more than thirty-five LGBT citizens. The site is easily accessible and navigable. If there is a certain person’s story you want to read there is a tab that takes visitors to the list of narrators. If there is a certain topic in which you are interested, like spirituality or activism, there is a tab that takes visitors to the list of fifteen topics, all of which are hyperlinked to pages which provide brief excerpts of interviews with narrators from which the visitor can choose. My only qualm with the site is the lack of audio and the limited amounts of visual material. The actual oral history interviews are only available in their transcribed forms, and although there are pictures of the narrators, there is little beyond that.  In a subsequent phase of this project I would aim to add in more visuals, like pictures of the spaces the narrators mention, or even newspaper clippings, if available, which address the same content as the narrators, and provide links to whichever repository currently possesses the oral history audio files. If one were to feel particularly ambitious one could use a system like OHMS (Oral History Metadata Synchronizer) to use the audio and add further depth and data to the visitor’s experience. That all being said, this is still a wonderful resource for anyone searching to learn about Spokane’s LGBT history through the eyes of those who have lived it. 

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