Eric Zimmer, PhD candidate in History, discusses the digitization of his project the History Corps. The graduate students running this project interview members of the university and the community and post these online, giving exposure to scholars and their projects. The digitization of the History Corps led to more exposure and more opportunities for projects, including a photo essay on the 2008 flood.
Zimmer explains the process the History Corps used to grow from a single page to a multi-tab website. “Often people have great ideas, but don’t know how to make them happen,” he says. He lays out the pipeline he used to receive support for his project, which consisted of networking, filling out paperwork, and digging for resources. To keep projects around for years to come, he says to think about how projects can be useful for future generations. He plans to broadens the History Corps reach from Iowa to the entire Midwest.