DIVINER is a free and open-source Wordpress plugin for small to mid-size institutions with public archiving needs.
DIVINER 1.0 is a digital platform built for archiving, organizing, and presenting large amounts of photographs, audio, video, and documents - or all four! It’s main selling point is an audience-friendly public interface that encourages personal interaction and engagement. DIVINER might be right for _your _organization if you have a collection of humanities materials you would like to share with the public (for example, a collection of 3,000 photographs of a large farm in the early 1900s; or thousands of audio clips and interviews related to immigration in Wisconsin).
About the Creators
DIVINER was created by a team at North Country Public Radio (an affiliate station of National Public radio - NPR), including Project Manager Amy Feiereisel, Digital Developer Graeme Hoffman, Station Manager Ellen Rocco, Digital Editor Dale Hobson, and Digital Director Bill Haenel.
After conceiving a people-powered photo history project (North Country at Work, ncpr.org/work) that needed a platform like DIVINER, and searching fruitlessly for an affordable already-existing software, we decided to build one in late 2016. About a year later we had a website up and running with a place for stories, photo collections, and most importantly, a reactive archive filled with about 2,000 photos.
The team applied for an NEH Digital Advancement for the Humanities grant to white-label the platform and make it available to other non-profit organizations (like museums, historical associations, and public media organizations). Our first version of the platform, DIVINER 1.0, became available on May 1, 2019.
Future of the project
This is DIVINER 1.0.
We plan to have future releases, and are currently working with organizations, big AND small, from around the United States to populate their own installations of DIVINER.
What DIVINER does
First, a little on what DIVINER is not: it is NOT an internal cataloguing database. It is a space to organize and share media in a public-friendly archive! Though it is a FABULOUS way to sort through large amounts of material, and may be used as a way to search through a full collection, we do not suggest an organization store MASTER images, documents, or videos in DIVINER. They will a) take up too much space, and b) you should always have a back-up (or several) of your master digital files.
The heart of DIVINER is our browse experience for your materials (referred to as “archive items”). We also offer a unique collections experience, and let users custom design other desired pages (examples: Homepage, About, Contact Us, History, etcetera). A user can also create standard WordPress posts and stories.