This type of project is very big right now! There's a group of folks involved with collaborative projects at the state level who have been meeting at the American Library Association conference regularly, and we're trying to figure out how to get some presence at AAM, AASLH, and SAA as well.
In Minnesota, you should definitely look at the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition (http://www.mndigital.org/). Even if you're not digitizing your collections, they can probably point you in the direction of how to create the database. There's also a project at the U of M: http://digital.lib.umn.edu/
The closest analogy I can think of to the type of database you're describing are the "online archives" projects. I don't know off-hand of one in Minnesota, but Texas, Arizona, California, and many other states have them. You can see what Texas has done at www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/. The Minnesota State Archives has a page at http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/records/workshops/edarchivists.html that discusses the training needed for this type of digital project.
Good luck!
Danielle Cunniff Plumer, Coordinator
Texas Heritage Digitization Initiative
Texas State Library and Archives Commission
512.463.5852 (phone) / 512.936.2306 (fax)
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Hayes Scriven
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 11:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Collabortive Projects
We are forming a group in our town (Northfield, MN) that is looking at
developing a collaborative project on making access to our town’s history
easier. This project will include our public library, Carleton and St. Olaf
College, our county historical society and our own town’s historical society.
We are looking at developing a website that is a searchable database of our
towns records that is gathered at all of these different institutions. So, one
person can search for a subject and see what each organization has. We are
also looking at developing a documentation strategy for all of the institutions
so we are not duplicating work. My questions to you all are:
Is there any city or town that has this sort of project out there? Or have
tried in the past?
Has there been and inter-institutional documentation strategy done before in
a town or city?
And also is there a need for this type of project out there?
One of our goals is to increase communication between libraries, archives and
museum/historical societies; we think this type of project will do that. So I
ask again, is there a need in "our world" for this type of collaboration?
You can respond to me off-list or on list.
Thank you all in advance for your responses!
Hayes Scriven
Executive Director
Northfield Historical Society
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