Digitization

As promised, I bring you the second half of my TLA Digitization Expo presentation, already in progress ...

Shortly after I started at The Petroleum Museum, the Development Director Luanne Thornton forwarded an email to me with an invitation to apply to the Rescuing Texas History grant. UNT's Portal to Texas History would offer mini-grants (ranging from $25 to $2500) to organizations with at-risk local history materials. According to the email announcement:

This project promises immeasurable benefit to cultural heritage institutions by preserving at-risk historical materials. These items are in danger of being lost forever, but with the generous support of the Summerlee Foundation, UNT proposes a solution that will help prevent damage from continued handling, while making these valuable historical materials widely accessible to all Texans.

I have previously mentioned the Portal to Texas History on this blog here.

Through this grant, the Museum received enough funding to digitize 368 images (with UNT responsible for metadata). We sent several small collections of photographic prints and negatives from the Museum's Library & Archives Center, all dealing with Texas from the late 1890s through the 1950s. Peruse the Museum's collection of images at UNT's Portal to Texas History here under the Recent Additions tab.

The purpose of the Portal to Texas History is to make materials available to the public, from academic university researchers to report-writing fourth graders to the amateur history enthusiast. This, in turn, is the purpose of museums, libraries and archives. These organizations are here for the public's benefit.

Soon after receiving the Rescuing Texas History grant, the Museum was recruited to participate in the Train to Share grant program, a project administered by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Learn more about the project here.

The Petroleum Museum has partnered with the Confederate Reunion Grounds in Mexia, Texas, and the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. As a state-wide team, we will attend a series of 5 workshops to learn how to plan, create and complete a digitization project. Then we'll digitize and make accessible 1000 digital objects. Our project title is "Earth, Wind, and Fire: Texas Energy Resources." The grant covers workshop expenses plus $3000 (over the 3-year timeframe) per team. (I actually just returned from the fourth workshop, Principles of Controlled Vocabulary and Theasurus Design, in Lubbock, Texas.)

This partnership has allowed even further collaboration. You see, the online module of The Petroleum Museum's collection managment database was cost prohibitive. So, the Museum has signed a Memo of Understanding with Texas Tech. The University will provide storage and access to their online module (DSpace) while the Museum will enter data and create the digital objects.

With the fifth workshop around the corner, things are getting in gear to get the project off the ground. As of now, I have identified three small photographic collections to include in the project. Those images have been catalogued and scanned. I will be trained on how to use DSpace in June. After training, I'll start posting those images online. Also, with the grant monies, I plan to purchase a network server for the Library & Archives Center for image storage and database access.

So that encompasses the digitization efforts at The Petroleum Museum. I am very excited about sharing images from the Museum's collections with the public online. Leave a comment to share what you think!