I chose to examine the UCLA Historic Photographs digital archive. It is filled with aerial photos of the campus and events occurring throughout the university starting in the mid 1920s and going all the way up to the mid 1960s. The photos emphasized the 1930s time period. While looking at theses photos, the normal everyday life of a UCLA student can be envisioned. From photos of sorority women dressed up for a skit to photos of commencement with students dressed in graduation robes, student life is captured in these photos. The culture of the UCLA community could be examined through this digital archive.
The stories that would be told would surround the student body at UCLA as it grew to become the great university that it is today. As buildings were added, and the school grew, more students and a larger campus were shown in the pictures. The different chancellors and speakers at graduations and students in general fluctuate throughout the years. This is documented in the digital archive. Along with the photographs, there is a short description of the people and event pictured. Stories of UCLA covered in snowfall are brought to life through these descriptions in the meta data. A paper would in detail describe all these events and student life, especially how it has changed throughout the years. Tags are even in the description, making each photograph easy to link to one another and to search for.
However, there are not more than 300 photos in the archive; this means that the whole campus culture could not be photographed. More importantly, if an idea or mindset filled the campus at the time, that did not have an event or rally, it would not have been photographed or discussed in the archive. Moods of the campus can shift when different national events occur, that may not be photographed on campus because they do not relate only to UCLA.
In order to overcome this, you would need to look at a national newspaper archive, such as the LA Times, in order to understand the full picture of life at UCLA during the 1920s to 1960s. Since the 1930s were most often photographed, it would be better to specifically look at the changes occurring within these years both on and off campus. With this information, a full understanding of the campus life and culture of UCLA throughout history could be examined and written about.