Underground Railroad comes alive with collaborative technology

A piece of Pennsylvania's past, not often seen or explored in history books, will come alive at noon Monday, Jan. 30, in 205 IST Building, University Park, during a special presentation that will feature stories of fugitive slaves and Pennsylvania's free black community in the 1800s.

The brown-bag event also will include sharing of the collaborative Web portal under development for the Underground Railroad community that will connect researchers statewide, and enable people to see archived documents, interact with maps of Underground Railroad sites and read first-hand accounts.

Karen James, coordinator of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission's Underground Railroad History project, will discuss some of the landmark legal cases involving personal liberty and fugitive slave laws. Joining James will be Roderick Lee, an IST doctoral-degree student and instructor at Penn State Harrisburg, who is spearheading the development of the Web site for the Pennsylvania Underground Railroad Network.

That Web site currently is housed at IST and is part of the Civic Nexus project of Jack Carroll, the Edward M. Frymoyer Chair in Information Sciences and Technology, who initiated the collaboration between IST and the state's Historical and Museum Commission. Civic Nexus aims to help community groups use IT in their organizations.

This presentation is sponsored by the IST Diversity Committee and the Department of African and African-American Studies.