A Massive Archiving Effort at National Parks (with Jenny McBurney and Lynda Kellam)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The 404 Media Podcast

Episode: "A Massive Archiving Effort at National Parks"

Guests: Jenny McBurney & Lynda Kellam

Date: November 10, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of The 404 Media Podcast focuses on the grassroots archiving movement "Save Our Signs," a massive crowdsourced effort to preserve the educational and historical signage in U.S. national parks. The project emerged as a rapid response to a 2025 executive order—titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History"—that mandated the removal of park signs or monument placards that cast America in a negative light. Host Sam speaks with Save Our Signs organizers Jenny McBurney (University of Minnesota Libraries) and Lynda Kellam (University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Data Rescue Project) about how this initiative arose, its challenges, its collaborative process, and why preserving historical truth in public spaces matters.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Backgrounds & Motivation

• Origins in Library Science
  Both Jenny and Lynda share similar career paths, originating in political science and moving into library science and data preservation, driven by a shared passion for public information access and history.

  • [03:05] Lynda: "I got into data librarianship because I was a political science major...decided I didn’t really like political science much anymore. So I started looking around for career paths, and data librarianship seemed like a good use of my skills."

• How the Project Started
  The Trump administration's executive order in March 2025 was a catalyst. It restricted park signage to only mention "beauty and grandeur," banning any reference to negative or complex aspects of American history.

  • [05:04] Sam: "Good start. Amazing title. What a banger...it demanded that...monument placards and signs...would never attempt to address anything negative about American history..."

Initial Reactions to the Executive Order

• Dismay and Frustration
  Both guests describe their initial reactions as disbelief and frustration, highlighting a lack of understanding by policymakers about the purpose of national parks.

  • [07:45] Lynda: "...this is, you know, just sheer frustration...they don’t understand what is at a national park, that this isn’t—national parks aren’t just natural areas...they engage with our history of America."

• Realization of Urgency
  The reality set in with a follow-up secretarial order in May specifying removal logistics (e.g., using QR codes to report “disparaging” signs), making it clear this executive order would be actively enforced.

  • [09:17] Jenny: "I remember reading the title of it and being like, whatever, I can’t deal with this...did not pay attention until the secretarial order came out in May...that’s when I started paying attention, was like, oh, this is actually going to do something bad."

Building the Save Our Signs Project

• Parallel Efforts and Collaboration
  Independently, Jenny and Lynda began coordinating data rescue plans, only to later connect and combine efforts after a mutual contact.

  • [13:05] Lynda: "That’s when we put out a call for assistance, because we were just so frustrated trying to figure out what the mechanism would be...and that’s when Jenny saw that and was like, oh, we’re already doing this."

• Choice of Tools: Qualtrics Survey
  For privacy protection and ease of participation, they used an anonymous Qualtrics survey for photo submission, allowing public crowdsourcing from anyone visiting parks.

  • [14:34] Jenny: "...anonymity was going to be a really important aspect of people wanting to participate in this project...folks can upload materials photos without having to log in with an email account..."

• Crowdsourcing as Empowerment and Necessity
  The project intentionally involved the public, both because of logistical limitations (there are too many parks for just a few archivists) and as a way for the American public to directly assert the importance of shared history.

  • [21:11] Lynda: "We didn’t have that reach...it was so close to July 4th that we wanted to capitalize on that, that people would be going out to parks...this was something that anybody could do."
  • [22:19] Jenny: "...this is what the administration was asking for—the public to weigh in. Okay, well, then we’re going to weigh in..."

Execution and Challenges

• Submission Process
  Participants could submit sign photos, titles, and context without identifying themselves. The submission period was strategically launched around July 4th for maximum engagement.

  • [19:42] Jenny: "They upload the photo. They say, yes, I consent...They can also enter the title of the sign...or any additional information about it..."

• Archival Rush and Overwhelm
  Following national coverage, submissions skyrocketed, catching the organizers somewhat by surprise.

  • [36:23] Jenny: "...it only took a few weeks before suddenly the submissions were just spiking off the charts...I thought I was going to be able to see the photos come in and look at each one as they came in. And that worked for like a week, and then it was too much..."

• Data Organization & Publication
  A robust curatorial process followed, sorting through 10,400 photo submissions to ensure images fit the project’s scope (i.e., were actual signs, not scenic photos). The new public-facing website, saveoursigns.org, showcases the collection and invites ongoing participation.

  • [37:21] Jenny: "We kind of went with the original deadline of September 17th...we had a giant spreadsheet...and then we had to go through and look at every single one to make sure that it was in scope..."

Archival Philosophy and Broader Implications

• Beyond Just Signs: Preserving Truth and Building Community
  The initiative highlights how easily public historical knowledge can be erased. The project’s dual goals were to preserve information and empower a wider community to value and protect public history.

  • [27:15] Jenny: "...there’s two goals here. There’s the preservation and there’s the getting people involved, getting people to think about history, talk to each other— all of that."
  • [24:33] Lynda: "If you look at Philadelphia’s signs, a lot of those were years and decades in the making...the efforts that’s gone in to recognize the history of slavery or the history of civil rights in the country...has been a very important part of this..."

• Ambiguity and Ongoing Threat
  The order’s vague language (“disparaging”) means any sign—even those recounting military losses or uncomfortable facts—could be subject to removal. Vigilance is required, as the campaign for historical erasure continues.

  • [33:59] Lynda: "The way the orders are written are so vague that even...a part of military history could be interpreted as disparaging..."

• Hope Through Action
  Despite difficult circumstances, both organizers report inspiration in the outpouring of grassroots participation and its impact on national discourse.

  • [41:22] Jenny: "I get a lot of hope and joy out of all of the comments that we get from people...I am so happy that I’ve been able to submit photos and be a part of this work..."

  • [42:37] Lynda: "It’s really recognizing building awareness of the importance of public data and why it matters and how much it infuses our life..."

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the Executive Order
  "It demanded that public officials make sure that things like monument placards and signs...only ever acknowledge how beautiful and pretty America looks...the wording in the EO was beauty and grandeur."
  — Sam [05:04]

• On Collaboration
  "My idea...was that I wanted to turn the tactic on the administration. So if they were going to use QR codes to have people report these pictures, I wanted to have people report what they loved about the pictures."
  — Lynda [12:20]

• On Public Involvement
  "We’re going to weigh in and we’re going to show what we think is important. We, the people of America, are going to say that we think this is important and contribute to this collection of photos."
  — Jenny [22:19]

• On the Importance of Park Signs
  "These new signs...a lot of those were years and decades in the making. And acknowledgment of the history of slavery...is a huge part of the conversation that's gone on..."
  — Lynda [24:33]

• Reflecting on Scale and Impact
  "It only took a few weeks before suddenly the submissions were just spiking off the charts...I thought I was going to be able to see the photos come in and look at each one...and that worked for like a week, and then it was too much..."
  — Jenny [36:23]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introductions and Project Setup — [00:00–05:04]
• Description and Impact of Executive Orders — [05:04–10:41]
• First Steps and Emotional Response — [07:45–13:05]
• Tool Selection and Crowdsourcing — [13:05–21:11]
• Participation, Submission Process, and Anonymity — [19:08–22:44]
• Early Success, Media Help, and Data Overload — [36:12–39:54]
• Website Launch & Ongoing Need — [40:11–41:22]
• Broader Significance and Closing Reflections — [41:22–43:38]

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How to Participate or Explore

• View or Contribute to the Archive:
  saveoursigns.org —
  • View the collection
  • Add your photos
  • See where documentation is still needed

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Tone & Language

The tone throughout the episode is conversational, passionate, and occasionally irreverent (especially when describing government action). Both hosts and guests share a sense of urgency mixed with optimism and a belief in public engagement as a tool for historical preservation.

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Summary

"A Massive Archiving Effort at National Parks" tells the story of how librarians and volunteers created a lifeline for American historical signage under threat. Through swift organization, smart tool choices, and a crowdsourced model, Save Our Signs collected over 10,000 park sign photos, ensuring future generations have access to an uncensored historical record. The episode underlines the fragility of public knowledge, the power of grassroots response, and the hope that emerges when ordinary people become custodians of national memory.

Transcript

[Jenny McBurney]

Foreign.

[Sam]

Hello and welcome to the four four Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. Four4Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To subscribe, go to Four4Media Co as well as bonus content every single week. Subscribers also get early access to additional episodes where we respond to their best comments. And they get access to our interview series like this one too. Gain access to that content at Four4Media co. This week we are joined by Linda kellum and Jenny McBurney. Linda Kellum leads the research, data and digital scholarship team at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries and is a founding organizer of the Data Rescue project which we're going to get into in this episode. And. And Jenny is the government publications librarian and regional depository coordinator. Nailed it. At the University of Minnesota Libraries. Thank you both for being here. I'm so excited to talk about this project. We cover archiving, preservation and all that good stuff quite a bit. 404. So very excited to talk to some of the folks who do it every day. Yeah. So Jenny, do you want to say hi to people who can recognize your voice? I just realized we're having a two person interview. Podcast is a little different.

[Jenny McBurney]

Sure, yeah. What should I say? Hi, I'm Jenny and Linda.

[Linda Kellum]

Hi, I'm Linda.

[Sam]

Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. So both Jenny and Linda have been volunteering to help lead this independent project called Save Our Signs. It's something that I wrote about a couple months ago and then again last week when they launched. The result of the archiving and Save Our Signs is this, this really big, impressive effort to archive national park signs and monument placards around the country. It's crowdsourced, it's community collaboration. It was co founded by librarians, public historians, data experts, and all of this was done in partnership with the librarians at their respective universities, but also with the Data Rescue project and Safeguarding Research and Culture, which are both doing really important work, especially following the Trump administration. And just in the few nine months that we've had so far, shockingly, as so much information, public information and data and just knowledge on the Internet and IRL has gone down as a result of some of the orders that we're going to talk about today. So we'll get into that in a second, but tell us a little bit about yourselves before we dig into this project. How did you get into library sciences and data preservation? Linda, do you want to go first?

[Linda Kellum]

Sure. I've been a data librarian since 2007, so I've been around for a while, and I actually started in a position similar to Jenny's, where I was not a regional coordinator, but I was part of the government information depository system as a librarian. I got into data librarianship because I was a political science major, so I'd been working in a PhD program for political science. I'd been working with data for a while, both qualitative and quantitative, and decided I didn't really like political science much anymore. So I started looking around for career paths, and data librarianship seemed like a good use of my skills, especially at that time, because it was so early in that field. There weren't a lot of people who had skills with data in librarianship at the time. So I thought it was a good fit, decided to do it, and here.

[Sam]

We are, relevant to where we're at today, for sure. I think everyone needs to take a political science course at this point. Very cool. Thank you for that. Jenny, how about you?

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, well, it's a slightly similar origin story in that I also did poli sci as an undergrad degree while I was in my undergrad. My advisor was a faculty member and a librarian at the same time, and so I basically wanted to be her when I grew up and so went to library school, took the gov dog class, bounced around in a couple different liaison areas. Lately, I've ended up as the government publications librarian, and it lends itself very well to looking at data and just, like, open resources and information that everyone in the public should be able to access. Yeah. So all of this just fits really well into all of my interests.

[Sam]

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like everyone, or so many people, especially in academia, have that moment of, like, I want to be that person. What are the steps that I take to be my mentor or someone that I look up to. Yeah. So you were both positioned pretty well for 2025 after that experience and building that. That knowledge base. And in March, we saw Trump sign this executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. Good start. Amazing title. What a banger. And in that order. It demanded that public officials make sure that things like monument placards and signs and things that you take for granted when you show up to D.C. for example, and you walk up to the MLK memorial, and you say, here's a sign that someone wrote and decided to put there, or even a battlefield or something like that, and it said that anything under the Department of the Interior's jurisdiction, basically, which is a lot of stuff, would never attempt to address anything negative about American history and past or present. And instead, they should only ever acknowledge how beautiful and pretty America looks. I think the wording in the EO was beauty and grandeur.

[Jenny McBurney]

Right.

[Sam]

Which is great. Love, beauty and grandeur. But there's a lot of American history that is not pretty to look at, and that is important to know. So this executive order demanded that those signs come down that said anything negative about America by September 17th, and this was in March. So walk me through where you were when you heard about this order and what was like. Because you're coming from a very different mindset than a lot of people. A lot of people were like, that's crazy. You were. You had a different reaction. So I would love to hear just, like, where you were, what you were doing at the time, and what your initial, like, first reaction was to hearing this.

[Linda Kellum]

I can say that. So at that time, I was in the thick of the data rescue project work. So the first reaction in March was, what in the world are they talking about? This is, you know, just sheer frustration. But in March, it was really hard to kind of concentrate on what they were, what the implications would be, I think. And. And there was other things that we had to focus on. So for me, it's dismay and frustration that they would. And. And I don't think these. These people, the people who wrote that, I don't think they go to national parks. They don't think they understand what is a. At national parks, that this isn't. National parks aren't just natural areas that they are. They engage with our history of America. And so it was. It was also a bit of. In addition to frustration, dismay, like, disbelief, and that they understand even what a national park is.

[Sam]

So, yeah, it's pretty clear from, like, from the wording that they don't understand. So I totally. And I hadn't even thought of that, that they probably don't even get it, that it's not just a pretty place to look at where you might see a bear or something. It's actually, like, meant to be educational.

[Linda Kellum]

A lot of different kinds of parks out there.

[Sam]

Yeah. Which I didn't even fully grasp until I started reporting on this. Jenny, what was your first, like, gut reaction to that?

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, at that point, I think it had been over 100 executive orders had come out since the beginning of the whole situation. And I remember reading the title of it and being like, whatever, I can't deal with this. And just moving on with my life. And did not pay attention until the secretarial order came out in May. May 20th. And so when the Secretary of the Interior made a order about what the specifics of the implementation of what this executive order would be. That's when I started paying attention, was like, oh, this is actually going to do something bad.

[Linda Kellum]

So, yeah, yeah.

[Sam]

And. And that order was. I mean, I saw that and totally agree that at that point you're like, okay, people who are in charge of implementing this are taking it seriously, and they're actually going to do it. You know, they're falling in line. So that was part of. Also the. What Secretary Doug Burgum wrote in that order was, this is how we're going to do it. And how they were going to do it was partially. They were going to start putting QR codes up next to park signs.

[Jenny McBurney]

Right.

[Sam]

Am I remembering that correctly?

[Linda Kellum]

Well, and there's a sign that they required the parks to put up that had the QR code where you could report signage that was disparaging.

[Sam]

Yes. Yeah. And I saw one of those for the first time ever, a month ago, I think, at the. The big prison that's on Governor's island in New York, which is. Has an incredibly dark history. And, you know, you have this sign here that's like, if you don't like what you're reading, snitch. You know, it's like, no, the point is to learn about it, to know what happened here. It's a prison. It exists, and it's preserved to remember that history. So, okay, so that's a really good point that, you know, the Interior Secretary was like, okay, we're going to actually do this. We're going to. We're going to enforce this ridiculous EO about restoring truth and sanity. Scary enough. And then what was kind of the next step? Did you immediately go into librarian mode and start thinking, we have to do something, or what was the next impulse you had?

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Linda Kellum]

Independently. That was the interesting part. So Data Rescue Project started talking about ways that we could try and capture. Do a crowdsource effort to get people taking pictures and submitting them. And we went through several iterations. We thought maybe just submit them to Blue sky would be the easiest because we have a Blue sky account. And then we tried to set up another approach that did not. We actually got. Ended up locked out of that approach for some reason. And I forget why. It was just. It didn't work out. And I think that that's when we put out a call for assistance, because we were just so frustrated trying to figure out what the mechanism would be for doing this. But my. My idea or not my idea but my goal for myself was that I wanted to turn the tactic on the administration. So if they were going to use QR codes to have people report these pictures, I wanted to have people report what they loved about the pictures, you know, to kind of split the SC little bit. And that once we put out a call on Mattermost, I think that's when Jenny saw that and was like, oh, we're already doing this.

[Sam]

So cool that you were having the same brainwave at the same time. So then, Jenny, what were you working on over in Minnesota?

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, so pretty much the same conversations that we were having. Okay, we got to do something about this. What are we going to do? What are the different ways that we could. What are the different tools that we could use? And for me, the specific turning point happened at, at a, a conference I will places. I'm not the biggest fan of AI, but I was presenting at a panel there and one of my co panelists was Kirsten Delegard, who is the director of the Mapping Prejudice project at the University of Minnesota. And I was like, kirsten, I'm really bummed out about the national parks. And she was like, yeah, me too. And I was like, you know, Mapping Prejudice does all this really cool crowdsourcing, community based work. Could we do that for national park signs? And she was like, yes, let's do this. So we started trying different things, but we didn't really know how to really get things moving. And so that's when I was at that. I was at a different conference, the ALA conference in Philadelphia. And I saw Linda's post in the Mattermost where we kind of chat about data rescue things. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is going to work. We found people who can help make this happen.

[Ad Reader]

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[Jenny McBurney]

And so we had kind of settled on the idea of using a Qualtrics survey, because working out of a university, we have access to these really powerful tools. Qualtrics is really great. And we chose it because folks can upload materials photos without having to log in with an email account. We knew from having various conversations with people who work in the parks that anonymity was going to be a really important aspect of people wanting to participate in this project. And so we, we realized that this was going to be the best option from our end where we could collect the photos, but also information about the photos and keep that information really organized and also not create a barrier of people having to like, say who they were, that they could just take their photo and submit it to the online form.

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[Sam]

Yeah, and so if you're, if I'm at a park and I see a sign that I want to preserve and you were taking all signs, right? Like, it wasn't just like, if you think this sign might be at risk. It was like I saw signs for like Aztec Island. It was like, oh, that's nice. Like, probably fine. But like, you know, keep it for sure. But people, if you get to a sign and you open the Qualtrics link, right. And then you snap a photo and put in like what else is in the form that you were taking from people. Yeah.

[Jenny McBurney]

So they upload the photo. They say, yes, I consent to put this into the project and put it into the public domain so that the photo can be reused. They can also enter the title of the sign if they have time, if they feel inclined, or any additional information about it. Like it's located at this particular section of the park or it's located in this particular building in the park and then they can also add the date and submit it. And so we tried to make it as short of a survey as possible to make it easier for people. And we also got a lot of help from folks through the Data Rescue Project network of finding people who are really good at building accessible, good qualtric surveys specifically. And so getting help on that was really important too, to make sure that it was a usable tool.

[Sam]

Yeah, for sure. You want as little friction as possible, do it as quickly as possible, and then get on your way. I think Linda mentioned something about this just now also, but like the decision to make it a crowdsourced effort. You could have just said, we have a network of people who have experience archiving and will take the high quality photo and get the information we want. You could have just said, go out to your parks and do this. Why did you decide to leave it up to the public to bring in all this data?

[Linda Kellum]

We didn't have that reach. I mean, we knew that there was no way we could have the reach. And it was. By the time we had started to get everything together, it was so close to July 4th that we wanted to capitalize on that, on the fact that people would be going out to parks. We had had a lot of luck with crowdsourcing the data rescue efforts. And so it didn't seem that this seemed like an easier lift for a lot of people who may be wanting to do something, but weren't really feeling like they could do a data rescue, because that does require some technical skill. So this was something that anybody could do. You can go take a picture and you can submit it onto a form. It's really not that hard. And so I think that was one. It was just a matter of feasibility to be able to cover all of 300 parks, or as many of those as possible. And then to getting people the word out there about what was happening and how important national parks are and why we should care about this issue. I think that those are the two things that I see as the most important for that crowdsource element.

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, a lot of the same thoughts, and especially like the point that you made earlier about that, you know, this is what the administration was asking for the public to weigh in. Okay, well, then we're going to weigh in and we're going to show what we think is important. We, the people of America, are going to say that we think this is important and contribute to this collection of photos.

[Sam]

Yeah, And I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself to people who listen to the podcast, because I think I discussed the project before and they've probably heard me say this before, but I think it's such an interesting exercise just in that muscle for people to start looking and paying attention to things, to not just understanding what an executive order like this can do, because signs did start going down even before, I think, September. There were a couple signs that were. I'm blanking on. Do you guys remember what the John mirrors? The John mirrors.

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sam]

So it was like it was starting to happen, and it probably is still happening. And I Like I said, I learned something about national parks. Like, I didn't realize how huge the system was. And I'm a national parks fan. And I think if you're not. If you're not someone who's, like, super engaged on a lot of political issues, maybe you can appreciate that the parks are this other kind of very sacred thing that everyone is meant to enjoy. It seems like the least political thing in the world to go out and enjoy your local park. So I think making people kind of flex that muscle a little bit is interesting and in a way that is very positive. Like you said, it's highlighting what we love about having access to this information, this education, not just attempting to scramble to get it saved, but really appreciating it, which I think was not the goal, probably, but, like, definitely.

[Linda Kellum]

Cool. Yeah. Well. And I will say that I think some people assume that these new signs were just created in 2020 or in response to 2020 events in 2020. And if you look at Philadelphia's signs, a lot of those were years and decades in the making. And acknowledgment of the history of slavery in Independence park is a huge part of the conversation that' on in Philadelphia about this. So it's not, you know, recognizing not just that this is important for.

[Ad Reader]

You.

[Linda Kellum]

As a person, but also for the wider community. And the efforts that's gone in to recognize the history of slavery or the history of civil rights in the country, I think has been a very important part of this and something that I don't think a lot of people understand who aren't engaged in it every day.

[Sam]

Yeah, the signage in parks is one of those things that you don't notice or think about until you're really looking and you're really there reading and being thoughtful about what you're consuming. For a lot of people, I think you're there just to see. I don't know. It's like the Statue of Liberty National Monument is part of the park system. And there were so many. There were like four hundred and forty signs from that. Just that monument, which I thought was really interesting. I don't know if it could not have been the only one person.

[Linda Kellum]

Oh, well. So we did an event.

[Sam]

Okay, that explains that. Okay, so you guys had an event there to promote. Yeah, we.

[Linda Kellum]

We had two volunteers from our. Two of our steering committee members who live in New York, took two different groups, one to Ellis Island. Lena Bowman took them to Ellis Island Island. And I forget where the other group went, but Ellis. I think most of the people went to Ellis island and so. And then that's why independent Independence park is the second most submissions because it's, it's been a big deal here and a lot of coverage in Philadelphia.

[Sam]

Yeah, okay, that explains that. I was like, God, this one guy at Ellis island really racking it up, trying to get high score. But I think that's, it was a cool event.

[Linda Kellum]

It was cool to be able to take people there. And like we paid for the ferry ride. Dagdorowski project paid for the ferry ride for the people who decided to come and. But I think that's the thing somebody said to this to me early on, it's not just about the rescues. It's about the community we build through the rescues. And I think that's something to keep in mind.

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, yeah, I think that you kind of touched on that, Sam. You said like, I don't know if it was the goal. I think it kind of was the goal. Like there's two goals here. There's, there's the preservation and there's the getting people involved, getting people to think about history, talk to each other, all of that.

[Sam]

Yeah, for sure. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It's very unfortunately sad lamp time. But a light alone isn't going to help us get through the winter. And shorter days don't have to be so dismal. It's time to reach out and check in with those you care about and to remind ourselves that we're not alone. This season isn't easy for everyone and it's important to stay connected. Every time I reach out to a family member or a friend I haven't talked to in a while, I feel a bit better. And I wonder, why didn't I do this sooner? But that applies to other things in life too, like therapy. When you try it, you'll probably think, why didn't I do this sooner? BetterHelp has been helping people connect with licensed therapists for over 12 years. With more than 30,000 therapists and over 5 million people served worldwide, they're the world's largest online therapy platform. And with their therapist match commitment, finding the right person to talk to is easier than ever. BetterHelp's flexible platform makes it it easy to schedule, reschedule and go to your sessions on their all in one online platform. This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that step. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com 404media that's BetterHelp H E L P.com 404media if you've ever.

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[Sam]

Yeah, and just going through the signs that were captured is. It's so interesting because, I mean, I was just clicking signs at random to write about this and El Salon, obviously, so many of the signages very. It's not like it doesn't have a political agenda. It's just saying exactly what was happening. And what was happening was people were fleeing war and oppression and genocide. And that's very relevant to today. And you know, sites like the Frederick Douglass historical site in D.C. has the. I think they probably have the full. I just saw a couple of the signs quoting, but the full what to the slave is the fourth of July address. And that's just. It's a beautiful piece of work that is so relevant to today. And it's just if the administration was going to send out people to take down these signs, that would be. I'm just imagining ripping them all down. You would have to take all of them down because how would you ever. I don't know, it's like all of them were subversive in their own way while being just completely straight. No politics about it. Just this is what was happening at the time, what people were thinking about and dealing with. So I thought it was really incredible just to go through Arxiv. But we'll talk about the archive in a second. I'm getting ahead of myself. Were you rushed? Was this like a very. Like, we need to get on this, like, immediately, because I know a lot of Archive projects, especially in the digital world, are like, this is going down tomorrow. Get a terabyte ready. Like, let's go. What was kind of the mood? Was it very urgent for you to get this launched?

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, I mean, we kind of talked about trying to make capitalize on that Fourth of July weekend, and that was the initial deadline of let's get this going. Let's get everything set up and ready to release. I think we officially launched on July 3rd. And yeah, I mean, all along there's a sense of urgency because we don't know exactly what's at risk and we don't know exactly when it's at risk. Like you mentioned, Sam, there have been some signs that came down before and after the September 17th kind of initial deadline. And then there's no real understanding. At least I don't understand exactly when things are going to be done. So we don't know, have they stopped? Have they finished taking down signs, or is this going to continue? And we kind of have to keep our eyes open to know when it's happening. So all along there's a bit of a sense of urgency to try to collect as much as possible before it can be removed or changed.

[Linda Kellum]

And there's some sites that we still can't get to, I mean, that are either closed. There's one site in particular I would love in Pennsylvania, I'd love to go to, but it's on an active military base and it's a former Native American school. So it's definitely one of those that would be fit within kind of the main things that we're looking for.

[Jenny McBurney]

And that's why we are continuing to accept photos. And so if people are still going out to parks, take pictures of everything that you see. And like we've been saying all along, we don't know what is at risk. We don't. We don't have a shared definition of what negative means or what disparaging means.

[Sam]

Yeah.

[Jenny McBurney]

And so we want pictures of everything, and we still need pictures from a lot of places. And so we're still collecting photos.

[Linda Kellum]

I'll give you a fun example. That's not. It's not in civil rights history. It's not within that angle, but I think it's an interesting one. The Guilford Courthouse, the Battle of Guilford Courthouse is a site in North Carolina that is we, the revolutionary forces lost quite a bit. I mean, they lost many men. They. It was abjectly a loss, but they damaged the British forces so much that it changed the course of revolutionary history. And that site tells that story. But one of the questions I had when I went to it was like, would this be seen as disparaging? I mean this is, you know, a negative view of the revolutionary army because it talks about the fact that the North Carolinas just kind of high tailed it and ran away from the battle and other kinds of tales, you know, of mutiny in a sense. But it was a critical part of the revolutionary history. So the way the orders are written are so vague that even something that that's you would normally see as a pot like a. And a part of military history could be interpreted as disparaging of. So it's one of those examples where it's, you know, we know what certain, we know what are the likely candidates for removal and certainly those are the ones that we targeted. But the way you can read this could be so much broader then.

[Sam]

Yeah, and I'm sure that's by design. Yeah, I'm sure that's, that's part of the playbook here. The White House is part of the national park system currently being taken apart. Maybe we needed to get somebody out there to take some pictures. Yeah. God, I have to laugh or laugh or we will cry. So you launch, was it immediately just like everybody was flooding submissions? Did they trickle in? What was the reaction after you launched?

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, I mean shout out to you at 404 Media for getting the first media mention out there. That's really how we got the word out.

[Sam]

Right.

[Jenny McBurney]

We shared on the data rescue projects Blue sky and shared on lots of different listservs and once we started hearing from reporters then that was, that was the chance to really get the story out into the people's hands. And I think that it only took a few weeks before suddenly the submissions were just spiking like off the charts. Like I thought I was going to be able to see the photos come in and look at each one as they came in. And that worked for like a week and then it was too much and it was very overwhelming and we're like, okay, it's just going to happen and we'll figure it out later.

[Sam]

It's a good problem to have it. Is it a huge project to then sort that data to make it something that you could show the public and put it into the domain? Yes, tell me about that process.

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, so we kind of went with the original deadline of September 17th because we needed a cutoff point. And so we said everything that anybody submitted before that date, we, at the very least we would get all of that out there by October 13, which was the date that we had picked to tell people that, yes, we are, in fact, going to share this, the photographs that you take, and make it part of a publicly accessible collection. And so we could do a little bit of work before then to prep scripts and things that were going to help organize all the photos and get them all into the right places. But there's only so much you can do before you wait till the cutoff date and then say, okay, here we go. And then we turned on all the scripts, and things broke. And then we kept working on it and had about a week to get everything organized. And then when that was ready, then we had a giant spreadsheet with, I think it was around 10,400 photos that had been submitted through September 24th. We're like, okay, that'll be the real cutoff date. Give ourselves a little bit of wiggle room there. And then we had to go through and look at every single one to make sure that it was in scope of the project. And so we got a whole giant room full of friends together, and they helped. And we spent a week curating photos saying, like, yep, this is in scope. Nope, this is a picture of a buffalo, and it's really cute, but that is not a sign and does not belong.

[Sam]

Wait, I want the buffalo picture project. Next, please.

[Linda Kellum]

The bloopers for a different group.

[Jenny McBurney]

Yes.

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Yes.

[Jenny McBurney]

It was honestly so much fun. Like, so inspiring to see all of these amazing pictures that people went out and took. And they're like, thousands of people contributed all of these photos. It was just so cool. And also, I learned so much looking at all of the different signs. Like, you get distracted. You're supposed to be checking, like, is there no people in this picture? Is it a sign? Wait a minute. This is really cool. Oops, now I'm reading the sign. So. But we got through them. We got through all of them in about a week. And then it took another week to somehow get those into a publicly viewable website, which, thank goodness, it finally worked. It was a little bit of a challenge, but we got really amazing people on the team and helping, and so just all kinds of people putting effort into it. It was really, really great.

[Sam]

So cool. Yeah, the site looks amazing. It looks really good. I love the design of it. Just is very fun. So, yeah, go check it out. If you haven't, do you have the URL offhand, if you go to saveoursigns.org.

[Jenny McBurney]

There'S kind of three big buttons, and so there's view the collection and then add your photos and then look at where we still need photos. So that's probably the fastest route to find it is to go to saveoursigns.org and then click on View the photos.

[Sam]

Perfect. Yeah. And add your photos. I've been to a couple of parks this summer, and I've been slipping. I need to make up my archive quota just to kind of to close us out here. I would love to hear what each of you see as not just like the future of archiving or the near future, because who knows how anything is going? We can only look so far into the future. But what do you see as the immediate need of archiving? And why is this work important? Because it is thankless work in a lot of ways, but it is so vital to remembering our history and keeping our history alive. So I would just love to hear just why you think this is worth doing, getting involved in all that good stuff.

[Jenny McBurney]

Yeah, I mean, I guess I get a lot of hope and joy out of all of the comments that we get from people and just hearing that people appreciate the opportunity to help in some way, even if it's small. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, is it the biggest deal in the world to keep track of some signs in some parks? You know, maybe not. But this is how we're telling our story. This is one piece of the big puzzle of. Of everything, and we want to do what we can to preserve it. And it's been so special to hear from people saying, like, I am so happy that I've been able to submit photos and be a part of this work, be a part of the project. I think it's helping to bring people together. It's helping to raise awareness and getting people involved in just the conversation of what do we want our history to be and what do we want to learn about for the future. So things are really scary and stressful a lot of the time, but I just feel a lot of joy and hope when I think about all those people that are helping.

[Linda Kellum]

Yeah, I definitely want to echo that for Data Rescue Project. It's really recognizing building awareness of the importance of public data and why it matters and how much it infuses our life. And I think for us, this is only one campaign that we're involved in, but it's one that is so important for our national history just as much as the public data that we support outside that. So being able to continue to tell our stories and tell the stories of all the nation, of all the peoples who are in our nation. I think is what I get most out of this. And to echo Jenny, hearing people talk about how much this has helped them get through some difficult times, I think it also has meant a lot and it's given me hope for how we can fill the gaps in for this nine months and next three years that we have left.

[Sam]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We write about a lot of, to put it mildly, concerning things that are happening in the news. Bummer. News is a lot of the beat that we're on because a lot of tech is going that way. So it is really nice to see something that people can get involved in. And it is. It's an optimistic project. Even though it's inspired by a bummer of an executive order. I think it means a lot to people to be able to get involved directly in something like this. It's very tangible that they can see directly. I helped do this. So thank you both so much for your work. I'm going to link to the project and to Data Rescue project as well in the show notes, but thank you so much. This has been fantastic.

[Linda Kellum]

Thank you for having us. Thank you, thank you and all the support for media. It's been really great.

[Sam]

Yeah, we can't write about this stuff without people like you doing it. As a reminder, four four Media is journalist founded and supported by subscribers. If you wish to subscribe to 404 Media and directly support our work, please go to 404 Media co. You get unlimited access to our articles and an ad free version of this podcast. You also get to listen to the subscribers only section where we'll talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is made in partnership with Kaleidoscope. Another way to support us is by leaving a five star rating and review for the podcast. That really helps us out. This has been four four Media. We'll see you again next time.