Blog post by Neil Hodge and Caroline Cubé

In recent months, LSC's Instagram account has been lighting up with posts that expose our materials to an audience they would likely not otherwise reach. Curators from libraries, archives, and museums across the globe are realizing that IG is a platform uniquely capable of reaching a receptive audience for our cherished materials.

To honor the objects themselves, we created two in-house Flash exhibits.

The first, How a 1953 Negative from The Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive was revived as a 2016 Digital Object, exhibited from September 12-21, 2016, featured the following iterations of this image (originally captioned, "Copter Tested as Traffic Director"):

• the original 1953 negative on a light table
• a facsimile of part of the 1953 Los Angeles Times page 
• an 11x14 modern archival print, digitally edited in-house, which was selected as the signature image for the LA as Subject’s “History Keepers: Traversing Los Angeles” exhibit
• a flyer announcing the “History Keepers” exhibit
• and finally, our Instagram post as it appears on a mobile phone and tablet

The second Instagram-inspired Flash Exhibit, Hashtags of the World, Unite! is currently on exhibit (September 22-30, 2016).

The # is integral to an item’s virality as a digital object. Each # functions as a virtual gateway, allowing patrons who are #-specific followers to discover items tagged with their interests. Never do we limit ourselves to a single # for any given object. Instead, a cluster of #s assigned to an item provides users with different avenues of exploration. 

Days of the week --- as used by #LibrariesOfInstagram --- carry different alliterative themes, e.g., #MiniatureMonday,#WatermarkWednesday, and #EndOfTheWeekEndpapers. 

This Flash Exhibit features materials that have been posted and hashtagged on our LSC IG account by Neil Hodge.

To see documentation of LSC's past Flash Exhibits, please visit our Flash Exhibit LibGuide.