Community Resilience: Preserving and Promoting the Park County Local History Archives

Photo provided by Fabien Barral via Unsplash

Introduction

The project focused on preserving and promoting the cultural heritage of Park County in Colorado. It was undertaken in partnership with the Park County Department of Heritage, Tourism, & Community Development, which currently houses the Park County Local History Archive (PCLHA). The Park County Local History Archive is a community archive that was established by a group of volunteers in 2001 to collect documents related to the history of Park County. The Archive with a collection of over 4,000 photographs, manuscripts, and oral histories provides unique primary source materials for researchers and community members interested in the history of mining and railroads, or the challenges of rural life in the remote region of the Rocky Mountains. The project’s partner, the Park County Department of Heritage, Tourism, & Community Development assumed the stewardship of the Archive in 2018 and reached out to the University of Denver Library and Information Science (LIS) program for assistance in archival processing and digitization. The Public Good Scholarship Fund provided support for the faculty and graduate students from the LIS program, who assisted with digitizing archival materials.

Project Goals and Accomplishments

The goals of the project were to preserve the PCLHA archival collections and to explore the way digital technology can be integrated to promote the unique heritage of the region. The project exceeded its goals in digitizing the materials and building the Digital Archive. Initially, we planned to digitize 100 items for a pilot site. However, during our summer site visit, we learned that the Archive had no more active volunteers. We decided to build a more substantial Digital Archive to demonstrate the value of the materials and attract new volunteers. PI presented the project at the regional symposium in Fairplay in September 2019. This presentation helped to promote the project to the Park County community and was a great starting point for building new relationships with the community. Park County community members reached out to the project team and donated new materials, such as oral histories and photographs. A volunteer from the Park County community began assisting with the conversion of oral histories in the fall of 2019. Digitization of oral histories recorded on audiotapes became one of the project priorities because of a serious preservation risk associated with the degradation of magnetic tape.

The Digital Archive created as a result of this project was officially launched in June 2020. It is open to the public at: https://pclha.omeka.net/ . As of June 2020, it included 573 photographs and 15 oral histories. The project team scanned original photographs, creating archival master files for preservation and access files for the Digital Archive. A similar process with master files and derivatives has been undertaken for oral histories. This approach ensures not only high-quality of digitized objects but also their long-term preservation. All digitized items were evaluated regarding their copyright status and have item-level descriptive records. The descriptive records were created with input from the members of the project’s Community Advisory Group and were revised based on their feedback. The site also includes an interactive map that allows users to connect the photographs with a geographic location. In addition, the students in the fall LIS 4810 Digital Libraries class built three digital exhibits about the history of Park County. Two community members visited the class and offered recommendations on the selection of topics and resources.

The following activities regarding the organization and digitization of the Archive were completed by the end of June 2020:

• Needs assessment report and recommendations for purchasing scanners (summer 2019)

• Transfer of the Archives to the new location in the Park County building (summer 2019)

• Development of the guidelines for organizing and digitizing the materials

• Digitization of 573 historical photographs from the Archive

• Digitization of 15 oral histories

• Evaluating the copyright status of digitized objects and including standardized rights statements in the records

• Building the PCLH Digital Archive and exhibits in Omeka at: https://pclha.omeka.net/

• Three meetings with the Community Advisory Group.

The project provided a great opportunity for LIS graduate students to engage in a community-based project and gain valuable practical skills in many aspects of digitization, copyright evaluation, and collection building. Throughout the year, eight graduate students were involved in the project as student assistants, volunteers, or students exploring research aspects of the project as part of their independent studies. Seventeen students in the fall 2019 LIS 4810 Digital Libraries class were involved in building digital exhibits for the project.

Promotion and Impact

The promotion efforts of the Digital Archive have been undertaken jointly by the community partner, research team, and the project’s Community Advisory Group. The About page of the website [https://pclha.omeka.net/about] acknowledges the University of Denver contribution to the project and the support from the Public Good Fund. The community partner hired a local company, Mt. Bailey Productions to create a video promoting the project. The video includes interviews with PI and the LIS students working on the project. It is available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCmPyvxoL8E

The community partner and the members of the project’s Community Advisory Group started promoting the Digital Archive to the community through social media and personal contacts. The project’s team prepared a flyer to be distributed in the community in hard copies and through social media. The site uses Google Analytics to capture data about users. From July 1, 2020, to August 15, 2020, the site had 220 unique visitors who engaged in 333 sessions.

The visitors came primarily from the United States but there were also a few users from Europe. In addition to collecting quantitative data through Google Analytics, PI also began an evaluation study in summer 2020 to gather data through a Qualtrics survey and qualitative interviews. Fifteen participants completed the survey as of August 15, 2020. The study participants commented on the quality of the Digital Archive and discussed the role of the Digital Archive in the community. While participants offered many suggestions for its improvement and enhancement of the project, the overall feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The participants noted the high quality of digitized images and good organization and search ability of the site. For example, one of the study participants commented, “I am quite impressed with the quality of this site. Very easy to find materials of interest. Items are well organized and displayed.” Another participant added, “Well organized and visually engaging. Exhibits are great for an overall history by topic. The collections are easy to navigate if you know what you’re looking for. Promoting the digital archive project will encourage others to contribute their family photos, stories, and correspondence, increasing the amount of information available to all users. This is a terrific project.”

Scholarship

In addition to the practical aspects of preserving archival materials and building a digital archive, this project also included a research component. Two research questions were posed for this study. The first one focused on the best practices for preserving and digitizing local community archives and was addressed by developing practical guidelines. The second research question aimed to explore the role of digital archives in the promotion of local heritage. The research study was redesigned because it proved to be challenging to organize focus groups in a rural area with community members dispersed throughout a region. The pandemic also caused delays and forced PI to adjust the design of the study. PI received IRB approval in June 2020 and started collecting data using a Qualtrics survey and conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews. As of August 15, 2020, 15 people completed in the survey, and 10 agreed to participate in the interviews. The study is ongoing and further supported by the BRIDGE grant. PI plans to conduct additional interviews in fall 2020.

Scholarly presentations and publications represent important components of this project in addition to the practical tasks in digitizing materials and building the Digital Archive. In the first year of the project, the team presented at the International Federation of Library Association (IFLA) conference on local history in Belgrade, Serbia. A full-length paper is included in the IFLA Library. Also, the project team had a presentation accepted at the Visual Resources Association Conference that was scheduled in Baltimore at the end of March, but the conference was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The team submitted a new proposal for the 2021 Visual Resources Association Conference and is currently finishing an article “Rights metadata in a community archive: Implementing standardized rights statements” to be submitted to the Journal of Library Metadata.

Community Partner Contributions

The Park County Department of Heritage, Tourism, & Community Development purchased the equipment for the project, assisted PI with selecting the members of the Community Advisory Group, and engaged actively in promoting the Digital Archive. Here is a list of the major contributons:

• Purchased two professional photo scanners

• Provided funding for hosting the Digital Archive on the Omeka site

• Supported the promotion of the project and development of the promotional video

• Provided server space for digital preservation of master files.

Conclusion

The Digital Archive built as a result of this project provides remote access to unique archival resources and promotes the history of the region. The project assists preservation by providing high-resolution copies of unique and fragile archival materials. Digitization of oral histories and photographic materials is going to be continued with the funding providing by the BRIDGE grant. PI plans to continue the research study to examine the role digital archives play in the promotion of local heritage and in building community. The community partner will continue promoting the project in the community. The relationships built with community members through the research study are also an important component of increasing the visibility of the project and recruiting new volunteers.