Topics
Since the inception of the William F. Cody Archive, materials had been categorized into four topical categories:
In order to more accurately reflect the current contents of the Archive and to make items easier to find, the topics page has now been revamped. What has been done:
The European Tours topic, which was by far the largest topic, has been divided into three major areas visited by Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. The new topics are:
Wild West in Britain
Wild West in Germany
Wild West in Italy and Spain
Rough Riders has also been split into:
Congress of Rough Riders
Roosevelt’s Rough Riders
In addition, two topics have been renamed:
Show Indians has been renamed as Lakota Performers to reflect the contributions of the Lakota people to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.
Empire has been renamed to Buffalo Bill’s Wyoming to focus more clearly on the materials included in the topic.
A major improvement to the topics page is the addition of three new topics:
Buffalo Bill Himself
Buffalo Bill on Stage
Buffalo Bill on Film
Another important addition is the inclusion of more than 500 visual items (photographs, posters, etc.). Previously, only textual materials (books, letters, newspaper articles, etc.) were categorized into topics.
People and Places Search
The visual materials have also been added to the People and Places Search, greatly increasing the number of items that can be found through this search.
We have been working on regularization of personal and place names. An example of this can be seen with Alexandra.
In addition work has been done, and continues to be done, to identify underrepresented people and put them in the People search. An example of this is Jenny Nelson, who was previously not included in the search. She now has four items associated with her:
As always, the People and Places search is not an exhaustive list, but a tool to be used in conjunction with the keyword search to help guide users to the content they are seeking. Happy searching!
Cody Archive Changelog 