Archival Gifs - It's happening people

The tags under this gif were #happydance #fashion #groovy
Photo and caption courtesy of The New York Times and NARA. {http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/arts/design/watch-gifs-bring-history-to-life-patriotic-squirrel-included.html?ref=topics}

Once again the National Archives and Records Administration has found a way to connect with younger audiences and make their collection more accessible. NARA has started to use the website Giphy.com to create gifs (moving images) from their collection of film, illustrations, and photographs. NARA has been creating gifs by splicing together images and pieces of film to create short moving images that can be used across the web. They even decided to start animating some old illustrations and graphics to create moving advertisements or commentary.  So why create gifs from their collection? Gifs are like pieces of art in their own right. Many people use them across multiple social media platforms to communicate and connect with their friends. Sending a gif can often convey a message better than words. Creating these gifs are free and allow audiences to taken in bits of history in a medium that is now familiar to them.  Pairing gifs with a paragraph of historical narrative can go pretty far.

"This comes from a cocktail construction chart, which was in the records of the Forest Service." 1974.
Photo and caption courtesy of The New York Times and NARA. {http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/arts/design/watch-gifs-bring-history-to-life-patriotic-squirrel-included.html?ref=topics}

The gifs that have been created so far (about 164 in total) are absolutely stunning. Some of my personal favorites are a dancing girl from the 1960s, a WWII Marine with a kitten, and a prohibition-era group of men giving a toast at a pub. The possibilities here are endless and I can't get enough.

Prohibition-era men toasting. 1933.
Photo and caption courtesy of The New York Times and NARA. {http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/arts/design/watch-gifs-bring-history-to-life-patriotic-squirrel-included.html?ref=topics}

If you want to see more of NARA's gifs, click HERE.

And if you want to read the New York Times article about the project, click HERE.