It's a big exercise in the synthesis of things. We kept coming back to this statement as we considered how to describe our process in developing the Media History Digital Library's (MHDL) website and Lantern, the project's new search engine. No, it's not the most eloquent expression (though it's a lot nicer than some of the phrases we've shouted at our laptops!). The statement succeeds, however, in capturing the project's blend of different communities, collections, skill sets, and open source software. Even reflecting on the statement in the light of day, away from our error-laden terminal screens, we still think of our work as "a big exercise in the synthesis of things."