Yakima Memory Project

Yakima Memory Project: "In July of 2001, the Yakima Valley Regional Library and Yakima Valley Museum began a project titled Yakima Memory. This project involves the digitization of approximately 9,000 photographs in two collections, and provides access to the new digitized collections via the internet. The intention of this project is to provide easier access to the photograph collections for study while securing a method of preservation and conservation." Yakima Memory includes items from the Yakima Historical Society, the Sundquist Research Library, and the Click Relander collection.

The web interface isn't pretty, but there are a lot of great regional resources here including photographs of Indians (some by famous photographer Lee Moorhouse), articles about Yakima valley history, XX. There are oral histories online as well, though they are embedded in a terrible Flash player that allows users to play the files, but not to download them or even to fast-forward, rewind or pause. There are even streaming videos online, and the truly Yakima-obsessed (and who is not?) can watch The Great Bank Robbery, a silent film created in 1950 by the Yakima Little Theater Project. The dialogue cards written in magic marker are a nice amateur touch.

The Yakima Memory Project is a pretty impressive resource for local history. Though the website could use some design help, and the techinical decisions on presenting audio and video were not very good, there is a wealth of material here.