One of the latest examples is a new state-wide cemetery survey launched by the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT), the State Highway Administration (SHA), and Preservation Maryland. The program will solicit help from community members to identify and record local cemeteries and burial sites. An app being developed by SHA will collect data points of grave sites to create a layer in SHA’s statewide geographic information system (GIS) mapping tool. The data will help SHA avoid interference with burial sites when planning projects. About a dozen cemeteries have been documented by the app so far, many dating from the 19th century and located on private property.[1]

Much more work is forthcoming. As part of the project, archaeologist Caroline Herritt, working as Cemetery Document Specialist for Preservation Maryland, will survey 100 at-risk cemeteries, some in abandoned or poorly maintained locations, and will attempt to locate previously unknown burial sites.[2] Libraries and other community centers will be the site of workshops lead by SHA and Preservation Maryland in which members of the public can find out more about the project, volunteer as community liaisons, and eventually learn how to use the app to collect and record data. 

Internationally, new technology and the growth of participatory culture are making it easier for researchers to find graves of ancestors or people of interest, and to contribute data. Find A Grave allows members of the public to search for graves located on any of the seven continents. Members may add photos of headstones, memorial information, or GPS coordinates, and may also request photos of grave sites or headstones from others users.  

Billion Graves is a similar resource. Billing itself as “the world’s largest resource for searchable GPS cemetery data,” their app includes satellite maps of cemeteries around the world with GPS markers to help users find individual graves. Users can contribute GPS data, add images of headstones, and transcribe material online. The website includes a guide for service groups and those earning Eagle Badges that explains how to contribute by documenting a cemetery. 

Many libraries have taken an active role in documenting local cemetery data and making such data more user-friendly for customers. Pharr Memorial Library in Texas, noticing customers struggle to navigate paper records in their collection, coordinated with city Geographic Information System (GIS) and engineering departments to map the data for over 2,000 deceased individuals in nearby Guadalupe Cemetery.[3] The data is now available online as an interactive map. 

Many cemeteries have created their own apps to help visitors find individual headstones and landmarks within the property. Arlington National Cemetery’s app, ANC Explorer, for example, enables families and members of the public to view front-and-back headstone photos, and receive directions to grave locations and other points of interest via web or mobile app. 

Laws and regulations regarding the preservation of historic cemeteries vary by country, and within the U.S. are governed by federal historic preservation laws as well as state laws and local regulations. The Library of Congress guide, Preservation of Historic Cemeteries in Selected Countries, offers an overview of some of the complexities.  

Cemetery data is important to many researchers, not to mention families like the one who contacted Fairfax County Public Library for help finding their missing Grandpa. Fortunately, with the development of new technologies and techniques, these markers of history are becoming easier to locate and preserve. 

1.  Deville, Taylor. 2019. “‘These Places are Worth Protecting’: Public Invited to Help Document Burial Sites at Arbutus Library Workshop.” Baltimore Sun Media, December 6, 2019. https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-county/catonsville/cng-co-ca-at-cemetery-documentation-workshop-20191206-6wihjyieuvbzzpuzfz7ixgwm2u-story.html
2. Cowen, Elly Colmers. 2019. “New Statewide Cemetery Documentation Project Underway.” Preservation Maryland, March 19, 2019.https://www.preservationmaryland.org/new-statewide-cemetery-documentation-project-underway/
3.  Rosales, Romeo, Jr. 2015. “The Departed: One Library’s Innovative Cemetery Project.” Public Libraries Online, November 10, 2015. https://publiclibrariesonline.org/2015/11/the-departed-one-librarys-innovative-cemetery-project/
   

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“Participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices. A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with one another.” – Henry Jenkins, Mizuko Ito, and danah boyd. ¹

The term “participatory culture” had no meaning to me until recently. It is a term that has been around for at least a decade, and it is an idea that Henry Jenkins, a provost professor at the University of Southern California School of Communication, has been working with for more than two decades.² There is a relationship between participatory culture and libraries; in some cases, the would would not exist without the other. It behooves us, as librarians, to be aware of the relationship, and to promote collection development with participatory culture in mind.

I recently took part in a family discussion about the electoral college. One family member cleverly used round candies to illustrate a point: in the two-party system, the candidates are narrowed down to two choices (say, a purple candy and a brown candy), selected from a group of other round candies. With the pool of choices limited in this way, certain aspects of the future were determined even before the presidential election. Round candies are useful for illustrating options, and have a place in popular culture, and it is one that I hope will facilitate conversation.

If you think of a library collection in terms of an assortment of round candies (brown and blue M&Ms, orange and yellow Reese’s Pieces, green and purple Skittles, red Sixlets, pink SweeTarts, etc.) and the library relies on other branches to supplement the missing pieces of the round candies collection, you would think that the collection would be fairly complete. However, it isn’t complete. When developing the collection, the square candies were overlooked, the chocolate varieties, the nuts (a bit controversial), the caramels. Participatory culture is dependent upon opportunities being available, upon participants knowing that there are choices beyond round candies, being able to interact with others in various formats, having access to the other varieties, being able to create, and being able to share.

The connection between the access that libraries provide and the ability to participate in culture is clear. Participation in civic engagement, in media, and in entertainment is vital to underrepresented populations, to the disenfranchised, to our youth as they discover their voice, and to our public. Libraries provide more than Internet access; some libraries provide equipment to capture the many formats of story, of participation, of communication, of transmission. Others provide the safe spaces needed for participation. Beyond the oft-mentioned “digital divide” is an entertainment divide, and a media divide. These divides are, in part, the problem of the round candies collection. It must remain ever in our minds that our collections are for more than the active users: the collections are for all within the service community.

In “By Any Media Necessary,” Jenkins and his co-authors discuss how forums that center on popular media (chats, blogs, YouTube, Facebook) have become venues for civic-minded action.³ There is a need for services and programs that encourage these behaviors, that continue to provide opportunities for populations to participate in popular culture. This in turn may provide the tools for them to engage in more civic-minded pursuits, or, at the very least, become an informed and active population.

“If participatory cultures are to reach their full potential,” Jennifer Jacob Henderson writes in The Participatory Cultures Handbook, “it is not enough for us to post our own videos, data, comic strips, and short stories. We must also acknowledge disparities in access and rulemaking, and work to promote equality, respect, and freedom in our engagements. These values constitute the ethical core of participatory culture.”⁴

The “ethical core of participatory culture” is reflective of our core values as librarians. Our collections, traditional and nontraditional, need to provide equity of opportunities. Whether it is updating the graphic novel collections, expanding the offering of video games, or providing Internet access, all of these activities improve our patrons’ equity of access to popular culture, and provide opportunities for participation and growth.

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