Cross-Consortia Collaboration
Now this is meta-collaboration! In 2016, WPLC worked with Recollection Wisconsin on ways to help public library systems support their members’ growing interest in digitizing unique local collections.
With funding from WPLC, and guidance from the newly-created WPLC Historical and Local Digital Resources Committee, Recollection Wisconsin created several resources:
The Digital Projects Toolkit online course: This free series of five short courses is designed for CE coordinators and other system-level staff. Topics covered include copyright, scanning, metadata, file storage, and digital preservation.
A Digitization Vendor List (available to any library on request) and related tip sheet for working with vendors
Grants for Digitization Projects blog posts: These blog posts share Information about eight potential funding sources for digital projects, including examples of successful proposals
Thanks to the work of the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium (WPLC), the Wisconsin Historical Society, WiLS, and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, 85,000 pages of pre-2005 newspapers from 12 communities around the state have been added to Archive of Wisconsin Newspapers! Funding from the WPLC as well as Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds awarded to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) made this project possible. Read more
After three years of collaborative planning and development, Wisconsin’s libraries, archives, historical societies, and museums are joining their peers around the country in providing free online access to their digital collections through DPLA. Nearly 400,000 records representing photographs, books, maps, artifacts and other historical and cultural resources from 186 collections are now part of DPLA. School children, genealogists, and scholars will be able to find unique materials from Wisconsin and about Wisconsin through DPLA’s website.
We are grateful for the work of Recollection Wisconsin’s core partners: Marquette University, Milwaukee Public Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, WiLS, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and the Wisconsin Historical Society. These Governing Partners each make ongoing in-kind commitments of staff time, expertise, technology infrastructure, and other resources to support the program.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) today announced $21.1 million in grants for 248 humanities projects. We are excited to share the news that this includes a planning grant to WiLS, project manager for Recollection Wisconsin! Recollection Wisconsin’s NEH-funded project, Listening to War: Uncovering Wisconsin’s Wartime Oral Histories, will find, assess, and create a plan for the digitization of oral history interview recordings documenting 20th-century military conflicts as experienced by residents of Wisconsin, held by libraries, archives, and historical societies throughout the state.
This yearlong project will bring together expertise from twelve partner institutions to assist dozens of public libraries and local historical societies in preserving the irreplaceable voices of our veterans. The project, which begins this summer, will help to educate the community on preservation of oral histories, providing essential direction at a time when many of these audiovisual materials may be at risk. It will also raise awareness of the unique collections held by these institutions and create a community of practice that will help all libraries and cultural institutions interested in audiovisual digitization and preservation.
The 2nd Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference (#UMDCC16) will take place August 9-10 at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa (Quad Cities). The UMDCC provides opportunities for digital collections creators and curators in the region and beyond to network, share best practices, participate in hands-on workshops, and learn from leaders in digital cultural heritage. The conference will be held jointly with the 2016 CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting, sponsored by OCLC, August 10-11.
Conference Keynote: Trevor Owens
Trevor Owens of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will kick off #UMDCC16 on August 9 as keynote speaker. Trevor will introduce the National Digital Platform priority, discuss how the cultural heritage community can engage with and connect local projects to it, and share updates on the future of the initiative.
CONTENTdm Keynote: OCLC Research/Linked Data
OCLC and the Strategic Advisory Group for Digital Collections have created the Metadata Refinery Pilot Study to explore metadata enhancement and the conversion of record-based metadata from CONTENTdm and other digital repositories to entity-based linked data. On August 10, a panel discussion and demonstration of a “works-in-progress” toolkit will be followed by a breakout session where attendees can speak further with the panelists about their questions and use cases.
Conference Partners
Minitex, WiLS, and RAILS (Reaching Across Illinois Library System), along with a regional planning committee, are the primary organizers of the Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference. In addition, St. Ambrose University Library is the local host and is donating staff time and planning support for this three-day event. The CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting is sponsored by OCLC; their support means that this portion of the conference is free to current and potential CONTENTdm users.
The 2nd Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference (#UMDCC16) will take place August 9-11, 2016 at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa (Quad Cities). The UMDCC provides opportunities for digital collections creators and curators in the region and beyond to network, share best practices, participate in hands-on workshops, and learn from leaders in digital cultural heritage. The conference will be held jointly with the 2016 CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting, sponsored by OCLC, August 10-11.
The 2016 Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference is organized by Minitex, WiLS, and RAILS (Reaching Across Illinois Library System) and hosted by St. Ambrose University Library.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER TREVOR OWENS
Trevor Owens of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will kick off the UMDCC conference on August 9. Trevor will introduce the National Digital Platform priority, discuss how the cultural heritage community can engage with and connect local projects to it, and share updates on the future of the initiative.
About Trevor Owens Trevor is the Senior Program Officer responsible for the development of the National Digital Platform portfolio for the Office of Library Services at IMLS. He steers an overall strategy of research, grant making, communications and policy agendas in support of the development of national digital services and resources in libraries. From 2010-15, Trevor served as a Digital Archivist with the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP) at the Library of Congress. Before that, he was the community manager for the Zotero project at the Center for History and New Media.
Wisconsin is one of the newest additions to the Digital Public Library of America’s growing roster of partners. The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA,http://dp.la) brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives and museums and makes them freely available to the world. Since launching in April 2013, DPLA has aggregated over 11 million items from hundreds of institutions across the United States. These items come from a national network of Content Hubs – large digital collections from institutions such as the Smithsonian and the National Archives, and Service Hubs – state or regional collaboratives that bring together digital collections from multiple partners.
Wisconsin’s first contribution to DPLA is slated to go live in early 2016. It will consist of nearly 400,000 records representing photographs, books, maps, artifacts and other historical resources from more than 200 libraries, archives and museums. Many of these materials document the histories of communities across the state, including thousands of resources digitized by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center in partnership with dozens of public libraries. Other materials to be made available through DPLA in early 2016 encompass major research collections held by Wisconsin institutions, such as the Wisconsin Historical Society’s Freedom Summer Project and the American Geographical Society Library collections at UW-Milwaukee.
“Partnering with DPLA will not only provide significant exposure for our digital collections, but will enable transformative uses of our cultural heritage materials,” said Ann Hanlon, Head of Digital Collections and Initiatives at UW-Milwaukee and Chair of the Recollection Wisconsin Governing Board. “We are grateful for the leadership and coordination that WiLS has provided to enable Wisconsin to partner in this ambitious and groundbreaking effort.”
To read more about the Service Hub planning process, governance and implementation timeline, visithttp://recollectionwisconsin.org/dpla. For more information, please contact Recollection Wisconsin Program Manager Emily Pfotenhauer at .
Six digital collections of documents, photographs and artifacts from the Medical College of Wisconsin can now be discovered through Recollection Wisconsin. The collections, created by the MCW Libraries, trace the development and consolidation of Wisconsin’s first medical schools beginning in the 1890s. Read more about the collections here.
Additional digital projects in the works from the MCW Libraries include an oral history collection highlighting the experiences of faculty members and a timeline covering the history of the College from the founding of the Wisconsin College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1893 to the establishment of the MCW-Green Bay campus in 2015.
Two Recollection Wisconsin contributors — East Troy Lions Public Library and Mineral Point Public Library — recently completed their first projects to digitize local historical resources. Both projects were made possible through Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds awarded to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Read more
Join us in Minneapolis for the first-ever Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference, August 18-19 at the University of St. Thomas. WiLS is thrilled to be jointly organizing this conference with Minitex. OCLC is providing sponsorship, as the conference will include a Northern CONTENTdm Users Group Meeting on August 18 followed by a more general “all things digital” day on August 19. Read more
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Trevor Owens of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) will kick off #UMDCC16 on August 9 as keynote speaker. Trevor will introduce the 
Two Recollection Wisconsin contributors — East Troy Lions Public Library and Mineral Point Public Library — recently completed their first projects to digitize local historical resources. Both projects were made possible through Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds awarded to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). 
