Because no one can deny the power of a good gif, the US National Archives and Records Administration (Nara) has launched an archive of historical moments in gifs.
Partnering with Giphy, the new library contains about 150 moments, including Ernest Hemingway having a drink, the exploding swastika in Nuremberg from the end of the second world war and the Beatles’ arrival in America.
The goal of the library is to bring a new audience into the work of Nara. Each gif links back to the National Archives catalog so users can discover its origins.
“Gifs help keep us relevant, but also further the agency’s mission of providing access to our holdings to the public,” Darren A Cole, with the web and social media branch of the National Archives Office of Innovation, told hyperallergic.com.
Nara is best known for holding some of the country’s most important historical documents, including the US constitution. However, it also contains a litany of culturally relevant footage with ample content for gifs.
Since launching a month ago, a gif of a patriotic squirrel holding a flag has been viewed more than 3m times. According to Cole, the image originates from a segment of news that would feature something weird.
“They would usually have a sort of ‘news of the weird’ segment,” he told the New York Times. “This one showed a woman who had a collection of trained squirrels, including one she trained to hold a flag.”
There’s also a number of patents featured as gifs on the library that were animated, including one of a velocipede.
Several institutions have worked on digitizing their archives in an accessible way to bring more of the public into their work, such as the New York Public Library’s Stereogranimator and the MoMa’s collection of more than 71,000 works available on its website.
