Library Board of Trustees Agenda and Packet 2011 09 28

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JUNE 2011 Imagine sitting in your living room, wondering how World War II affected your community. You go to a website a single, seamless, intuitive portal that includes rare and original materials from thousands of libraries around the country and, in a few clicks, you find an image of a local landmark that was once a factory, with rows of women in coveralls working at machines. Another few clicks take you to an oral history of a worker in the photo who lived in the next town over; a few more and you're reading a first person account of the first woman supervisor at a factory three states away. You look up; hours have gone by, and you know a lot more about the world. Imagine how students would look at historical research if they could use this website as a starting place. Imagine how researchers could expand their work and PERSPECTIVES Digitizing Hidden Collections in Public Libraries Gwen Glazer ABSTRACT Libraries no longer need to prove that they should be digitizing their materials; they just need to find ways to do it. This paper offers an overview of digitization challenges facing small and medium -sized libraries, presents options for large -scale digitization projects, and suggests ways to share newly created digital collections. connect to entirely new histories. Imagine how the discovery process could change. Now imagine that every piece of information about every subject on this website every letter, diary, photograph, video and audio file is locked away in a giant black trunk. A few people have keys to the trunk, but those people don't know each other and you don't know any of them. In fact, you wouldn't even know to ask for the key, because you don't know the trunk exists in the first place. How can libraries put those keys into everyone's hands? Introduction Public libraries support a common collective mission: providing access to information, knowledge, and resources.