Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has announced a new historical preservation project. The collaboration between the University of Arkansas and the University of Oxford’s Quill Project is attempting to create a searchable online database for the Arkansas Constitution and other legal documents.
Speaking at a press conference Tuesday morning, Griffin said it is the attorney general’s responsibility to release information about the state constitution to the public.
“If there is in fact information about our constitution, but we have not made it accessible, we must correct that,” he said.
Griffin said many historic legal documents are difficult to access and not searchable.
“While completing a recent research project, staff in my office spent several days rummaging through boxes of old documents, many of which are deteriorating and have been damaged over time." Griffin said.
University of Arkansas Chancellor Charles Robinson said making documents available digitally was a big step in better understanding the state’s history.
“I know that it will expedite and enhance understanding of this critical time in Arkansas history and American history,” Robinson said.
The upcoming online database will provide users with multiple functions. Once all documents have been digitized, they will be interconnected; this will allow users to see related materials to the documents they are browsing.
“You have the constitutions themselves, but you also have the convention proceedings, and you have newspaper articles around it.” University of Arkansas Dean of Libraries Jason Battles stated.
Oxford University professor Nicholas Cole, who has been working on the Quill Project for a number of years, said there are currently “about a dozen states” on the searchable database. Griffin said the project has an indefinite completion date.
