I reviewed the online archive, Documenting the American South, which was compiled and maintained by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. There are roughly 1400 documents from the South pertaining to the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries. The documents include books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews, and songs.
The Archive is divided into seven collections; “First person Narratives of the American South”, the “Library of Southern Liqueur”, “North American Slave Narratives”, “The Southern Home front, 1861-1865” , “The Church in the Southern Black Community”, “The North Carolina Experience, The beginnings to 1940”, and “ North Carolinians and the Great War”.
Each of these collections contains primary documents that can be browsed by and alphabetical list, by a list of topics, or by subject (in the case of images). The search function of the archive provides a general search capability, not narrowing it to any specific collection. I did at times find the search function rather confusing, at times giving me links to other sites entirely.
Overall the presentation of the site and its navigability is good. The main page tells you the purpose of the site as well as provides you link to all of the collections and other resources, all without scrolling.
The advantages that this site, and most online archives, has over a normal print archive is its accessibility and easy of use. The archive can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, thus providing for a wider user base. Also the browsing and searching capabilities of the archive make finding at retrieving a document much quicker than in a print archive. For example if a student in California wanted to do a paper on Slave narratives, could find sufficient information from his home or school without having to visit North Carolina. I guess some would say this is part of the promise of digital scholar ship, the broad audience.
The disadvantage of this archive, as well as all archives, is that the longevity of such a database is questionable. The archive only exists in a world of binary code, that can be lost if a server dies or is shut down. Even if the information is stored on backup tapes somewhere, the storage media only has a shelf live of about 10-15 years. However, finding hardware and software that is still compatible with the 15 year old media is sometimes impossible.