Digital Vaults
Highlights from the 10 billion+ collection of documents at the National Archives are launch points for unique, personalized journeys of discovery through the history of the United States.
Putting visual records front and center—images of documents, photographs, and popular media—the Digital Vaults illustrates how records can come together in unexpected ways to tell the nation’s story. Through a unique record-browsing interface inspired by a Fibonacci spiral, visitors launch their explorations by shuffling records and selecting a starting point. A tag palette revealing the metadata attached to each record allows visitors to navigate through the Digital Vaults using keyword connections that describe relationships between the content of records. The closer records are to the record at the center of the record spiral, the more tags they share. The site offers opportunities for visitors to make their own collections, use records to create posters and movies, and take challenges that use clues to guide visitors along pathways of connected records. The interactive interface is connected to a backend server, giving the National Archives’ staff the ability to add records and update detailed record information with a content management tool.