Save Our Signs (SOS) is a rapid-response digital archive working to preserve U.S. National Park Service interpretive signs and exhibits at risk of removal under new federal mandates. The initiative began as an urgent response to Executive Order 14253 and Secretary Order 3431, which directed NPS sites to review and replace materials seen as “inappropriately disparaging Americans past or living.” As the team notes, “Real history is not just happy stories,” and this effort seeks to safeguard the fullest possible record of narratives told on park lands.
Led by librarians, data experts, and public historians in partnership with the Data Rescue Project and Safeguarding Research & Culture, SOS invites the public to join a continuing effort to build a community archive of signs, exhibits, and texts threatened with removal. Anyone is encouraged to contribute by photographing park signage and submitting images, helping the archive grow and document a diverse spectrum of American stories.
More than 10,000 publicly submitted photos are already available at saveoursigns.org, released to the public domain for unrestricted research, teaching, and advocacy use. By inviting ongoing public participation, SOS models how collaborative, crowdsourced preservation efforts can secure access to endangered histories.
dh+lib Review
This post was produced through a cooperation between Rachel Hogan, Anna Kijas, Trip Kirkpatrick, Olivia Staciwa, and Mark Szarko (Editors-at-Large), Christine Christian-Lamb and Molly McGuire (Editors for the week), Ruth Carpenter, Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara, Pamella Lach, Christine Salek, and Rachel Starry (dh+lib Review Editors), and Tom Lee (Technical Editor).