Visualizing Campus Throughout Time: Building a Web App Using the College Archives

Abstract

When planning my SIP, I knew I wanted to create an app. I then thought about another aspect of my experience at K, which is my job in the college archives. I have worked in the college archives since my sophomore year. I began to think about an app that, had I no exposure to the archives, would enable me to learn about the college’s history in an accessible and interesting way and encourage users to visit the college archives. This idea led to my end product, which is an interactive history map of K’s campus that incorporates photos of buildings from the archives’ collection. There are two main features of the web app: a “Tour Map” and an “Interactive Map.” The Tour Map allows users to take a self guided tour of the campus’s history. The user can walk around campus with the app open on their device and when they approach a building, some content appears on the screen. The content includes photos that reveal what the building looked like in the past. The images are accompanied by either a short description or a date caption. The other feature of the app is the Interactive Map page. This part allows users to view content by clicking on a static map of the campus, instead of walking through the college. This provides an alternate way to view the content, when walking around campus is not feasible or preferred.