Universal Design - Digital Exhibit

This Hagley Museum and Library Exhibit "explores the careers of industrial designers Thomas Lamb and Marc Harrison and illustrates the ways in which their work helped to set the stage for Universal Design. Included are a selection of items from the Thomas Lamb and Marc Harrison collections at the Hagley Museum and Library."

The site does, however, provide very concise histories and overview of the beginnings of this design movement, the individuals and their creative efforts.

I liked that the full archival finding aid was posted online, and while you could likely locate the images in the finding aid, these linkages are not provided. I was hoping for direct linkages between the images provided and location within the finding aid / inventory.

Selection Decisions
The project was made possible by funding from the Hagley, the Fair Play Foundation, and the University of Virginia Institute for Public History. Hagley has a number of online exhibits, but I could find no further information on selection criteria or digital standards (I did not go into the annual reports, which may have provided information on the impetus for this collection exhibit).

Metadata
The site provides narrative biographies for Lamb and Harrison as well as an overview of their distinguishing accomplishments. The full archival finding aid is provided (and characteristics of the archive itself). Images include a brief description and are searchable by keyword, designer and subject. Keywords are not comprehensive - a search for "pig" came up empty while "adolf" brought up all the pig bank images.

Characteristics
Images are presented as large thumbnails, screen size, and a zoomable image. The large images are of fairly good quality which allows the reading light hand-written notes on memos, etc. Hagley has placed a "watermark" on the background which is not too distracting, but still annoying.

Audience
Researchers, anyone interested in design, the history of design, rehabilitative engineering and assistive technologies, war support efforts, etc.