Thoughts on the Presidential Visits to Charlotte Showcase Collection (Omeka)

I spent my time on Omeka with the Presidential Visits to Charlotte Showcase Collection.  Here's the link: http://thepresidentcomestotown.omeka.net/collections . The focus of this collection is pretty self-explanatory - it looks at Presidents of the United States who, across history, have visited Charlotte, North Carolina.  It was done as a research project by a graduate assistant at the University of North Carolina in 2010. Its disclaimer is that the exhibit does not touch upon all Presidential visits to the city, but exists to highlight some important pieces of the city's history. 

The collection is broken down into four sub-collections: Presidential Visual Aids, which include photos, letters, diaries, and newspaper clippings, the President Taft Collection, the President F. D. Roosevelt Collection, and the President Eisenhower Collection.  These last three collections all contain resources which circled around their visits to the city, including program covers, welcome letters, and photographs.  All of these collections are collected by the same, one woman, and are not incredibly comprehensive.  Although they capture the excitement of the city in response to the presidential visits, I feel like there are so many materials, and annotations, that are lacking.  There are also four exhibits featured.  They seem to include the same material as the collections, but just present them in different ways.  I like this presentation better because it walks the viewer through the event, from the arrival of the President to his speech and the celebrations that entailed.

Materials on the site can be browsed by tag.  There is also a search bar which allows for an advanced search.  The collection is so focused, however, that I think it would be possible to search the entire site by viewing every page and material in under an hour.  Although it is an interesting site, I think it could be expanded upon immensely, and appeal to history, art, and literature scholars.  As of now, there is not much scholarly collaboration happening in this showcase collection.  It has potential to grow, but needs huge amounts of annotation to offer background knowledge and more materials to enable comparison and evaluation before it could be used to create a research project.