Dying Speeches and Bloody Murders: Crime Broadsides Collected by the Harvard Law School Library

Ever heard of crime broadsides? If not, picture going to the circus and buying a commemorative program from one of the vendors outside. Now pretend that instead of watching a modern-day circus, you're actually in Britain between 1700 and 1900 and you're part of a crowd waiting to watch someone be publicly executed. The commemorative program you're holding details the condemned person's life, crimes, and sentence. That's a crime broadside.

The Harvard Law School Library claims to have one of the largest collections of crime broadsides (500+), and the entire collection is now available for viewing online at http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/. No audience is explicitly stated for the collection, but it would certainly appeal to both historians and the generally curious. The Dying Speeches and Bloody Murders site includes fairly extensive background information on the history of crime broadsides (see Introduction, About the Collection, and Resources) and some brief information on how the collection was actually digitized. Funding was provided by the Peck Stacpoole Foundation, while conservation and digitization services were provided by divisions of the Harvard library system. For anyone interested in publishing, ordering a reproduction of, or citing a broadside, a helpful FAQ page offers guidance and contact information.

The collection can be browsed, searched by keyword, or searched by category. For the casual user, the "search by category" feature is the most interesting (and macabre). It allows users to search by crime, victim, and/or condemned (among other categories). Some of the more intriguing crime categories include body snatching, fortune-telling, and seduction, but the standard robbery, arson, and murder are also options. The search results view shows title (e.g., "Confession of Dr. Pritchard to the murder of his wife"), creator (e.g., Pritchard, Edward William), date, and a link for each result. Clicking on the link opens a new window with an on-screen image of the selected broadside, which can be zoomed in on, rotated, or converted to PDF for saving and printing.

The browse feature is less interesting for the broadside novice because rather than allowing a user to casually page through random broadsides, the feature instead requires users to "browse" through alphabetical lists of titles or names, select a record, and click on the link within the record to open a broadside. The user then must return to the results list to select another record for viewing.

I spent some time exploring how Harvard manages and delivers its digital content and was interested to read the overview of its Digital Repository Service. Given our recent discussions about digital preservation, I found this statement particularly interesting: "The DRS is both a preservation and an access repository. Its obligations include assurances that stored digital content will remain both viable and accessible into the indefinite future despite a constantly changing technological environment. All objects managed in the DRS will receive the highest level of preservation service consistent with the object’s characteristics and the current technical capabilities of the DRS and its staff." As I continue to learn about managing digital content, I will definitely return to the Harvard University Library site to remind myself of what it means to thoughtfully plan for the longevity of a digital project.