Several weeks ago, I was in Anderson, S.C., meeting someone who has contributed to R&R. We planned to meet for lunch to discuss the website’s expansion into that area of the state. What I thought might be a pleasant one-hour meeting lasted far into the afternoon as we discussed our mutual love of houses and history. This young man, an author, tour guide and highly educated businessman, sees value in preservation and wants to see its memories and stories preserved.
How infrequently it is that I find someone truly interested in history who is not hoarding their collections or information but is rather interested in freely distributing to everyone to enjoy! It was a refreshing afternoon that lifted my spirits and made me realize that R&R truly does serve a viable preservation niche and, as long as it has an audience similar to my lunch companion, it has fulfilled its purpose.
What he realized is that R&R has become a repsitory of digital history; images, stories, genealogy, plans, maps, and house histories by the thousands. As of now there are some xxxx pages of data and the photo bank holds well over 500,000 images being preserved for all to enjoy. Though R&R didn’t start out to become a repository of history, it continued riding the wave of increased sharing of family information which swells with data. As one low-country homeowner stated, “please digitize my entire collection and exhibit it on the website — that way my relatives will not be bothering me all the time to see the papers.” In reality, yes, this is a service and R&R is helping preserve these papers since they are handled less frequently.
R&R’s expanded role as a digital repository of history is indeed a blessing because its platform allows information from a collection to be used in telling the story of not just that family but all those who were ever associated with it. As one recent donor learned, his family photographs ended up on numerous pages, in multiple counties. Linking these documents to tell a more complete storyline makes R&R a very useful tool. We look forward to working with our new young friend as he tells Anderson’s stories on R&R – a repository of digital history.