Special Collections in Performing Arts (SCPA) at the University of Maryland has, for many
years, become one of the central repositories for material culture on the Washington, D.C. punk
scene. SCPA holds thousands of items relating to the scene including fliers, photographs,
fanzines and recordings, and while many of these were digitized and available for online use,
navigating digital collections proved to be an obstacle in promoting access and use for the
populations involved in creating these materials. To address this issue, we created the digital
exhibit, Persistent vision which serves to contextualize the materials and arrange them in a
manner that promotes use by members of the scene. This presentation will explore the
development process for this project from wireframing to publication, lessons learned, and how
similar work might be done to increase access and broaden the base of users for special
collections.