San Francisco Library has an improved platform for those looking to search its digital collection.
The archive — available at DigitalSF.org — features 80,000 historical photographs, publications, and oral histories housed within a new interface.
Amateur and professional researchers alike can now create accounts and add materials to their digital "basket," including city ordinances going back to 1862, clips from historical publications, and audio recordings, like one of Harvey Milk’s "in case tapes."
Milk, one of the country's first openly gay elected officials, made these recordings shortly after he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and a year before his assassination. In them, he explains his hopes for his movement and its leaders in case he is killed.
The archive also features images of Milk and copies of his speeches and handwritten notes.
The library is adding new materials regularly. Visit the San Francisco Public Library's website to submit documents to the collection.
Harvey Milk audio credit: Harvey Milk Archives-Scott Smith Collection, Hormel LGBTQIA Center, San Francisco Public Library"
