WMU grant to digitally preserve Gilmore Car Museum, Richland library historic collections; set regional pilot program
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—Western ¾ÅÒ»Â鶹ÖÆƬ³§ University received one of five state grants to digitize materials from the Gilmore Car Museum and the Richland Community Library, providing broader access to these special and historic collections and guiding future regional partnerships to make digital collections available across the country.
Amy Bocko, an assistant professor and digital projects librarian, was awarded a $23,758 grant from the Collaborative Library Services‘ program and the Library of ¾ÅÒ»Â鶹ÖÆƬ³§. She will lead a team that provides training, oversight and support to these community partners as they create pilot digital collections. These collections will be made available to the public through the ¾ÅÒ»Â鶹ÖÆƬ³§ Service Hub of the Digital Public Library of America.
"Small institutions often lack the resources needed to effectively undertake large-scale digital projects," Bocko says. "By providing them access to high-quality moveable digitization equipment, digital collection platforms and specialized expertise in the library, we are breaking down these barriers. We aren’t just digitizing collections for our partners, but rather we are teaching our partners the skills needed to continue this work on their own."
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The training materials created during the process and overall findings will help guide future regional partnerships to create digital collections in the community. Bocko, Dr. Sharon Carlson, professor and history librarian, Marianne Swierenga, assistant professor and cataloging and metadata librarian, will support the collaborative project.
"The goal of this grant is to empower and support our partners to digitize and disseminate their unique archival materials using WMU's long-established digital collections infrastructure and pipeline to the ¾ÅÒ»Â鶹ÖÆƬ³§ Memories Project, and help them reach wider audiences," explains Bocko, the grant's principal investigator.
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"We're very excited to continue the library’s tradition of working with community partners to preserve the region's cultural history and help uncover hidden treasures," adds Paul Gallagher, associate dean for resources and digital strategies at WMU Libraries.
The project is funded in part with a Library Services and Technology Act grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library of ¾ÅÒ»Â鶹ÖÆƬ³§.
The grant is awarded by the Collaborative Library Services as part of a new Improving Access to Information program. This program supports a statewide initiative to increase access to digitization technologies so community organizations and individuals can digitally preserve historic documents and share their collections globally.
"We're excited about what this grant means for not only developing collections for campus research, but also making ¾ÅÒ»Â鶹ÖÆƬ³§â€™s history available to a national audience through our state collaborations with the ¾ÅÒ»Â鶹ÖÆƬ³§ Service Hub and the Digital Public Library of America," Gallagher said.
View the University Libraries' digital collections online.
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