NHC is very proud to partner with DPLA. Here is the press release sent out by the Minnesota Digital Library about Minnesota’s involvement in DPLA.

You can see all of the Northfield images in DPLA here.

Minnesota Digital Library announces tenfold increase in materials available through Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), the nation’s premier online digital library, has collaborated with the Minnesota Digital Library (MDL) at the University of Minnesota to complete a tenfold increase in the number of digital items from Minnesota available on its website, dp.la. This collaboration presents Minnesota culture and history to the world through high­quality scans of photographs, original manuscripts, videos, artwork, maps, and more. The 426,000 new items come from the collections of seven prominent Minnesota institutions:

● Minnesota Historical Society

● Minnesota Public Radio

● Minneapolis Institute of Arts

● College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University

● Carleton College

● Northfield History Collaborative

● University of Minnesota Libraries

“We are incredibly excited to be part of this groundbreaking effort to bring together collections from across the country into a single, searchable portal,” said Jennifer Jones, the Minnesota Historical Society’s Library and Collections Director. “This is a wonderful opportunity to make the cultural heritage of Minnesota available to a wider audience.” When a visitor searches DPLA’s website for this content, the site delivers results using data aggregated by MDL and directs the visitor to the host institution’s website to view the actual digital item. John Butler, the University of Minnesota Libraries’ head of Data and Technology, added, “The Minnesota Digital Library’s rich collaboration with the DPLA has now enabled the cultural treasures from the smallest and the largest of Minnesota organizations to have a digital presence on the national and international stage. It is a wonderful opportunity to connect Minnesota to the global community.” This work is made possible through the generous funding of the Digital Public Library of America Digital Hubs Pilot, which is supported by the Digital Public Library of America with funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

ABOUT THE MINNESOTA DIGITAL LIBRARY

The Minnesota Digital Library (MDL) is a collaborative and cost­effective online digital library. MDL serves Minnesota by providing a freely accessible online collection of primary resources on Minnesota culture and history and by providing digitization expertise and services to 167 organizations throughout the state. In addition to free public access, MDL uses its collections to support education and outreach. MDL adheres to professional standards and best practices in digitization, data management, information retrieval, preservation, and software application support. MDL is funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution via the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS). MDL’s collaborative partners, including the University of Minnesota, also contribute substantial in­kind services. Additional funding is provided by Minitex, a joint program of the University of Minnesota and the Office of Higher Education.

ABOUT THE DIGITAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OF AMERICA

The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used.

The Northfield History Collaborative (NHC) will host a Managing your Digital Collection workshop in Carleton College’s Weitz Center May 15, with registration starting at 8 a.m.

Attendees should RSVP by contacting Kristin Glomstad (507-645-9268, glomstad@northfieldhistory.org) by May 13.

As digital collections of photographs, papers, and other documents continue to grow in personal and professional collections, questions have arisen about long-term care — from optimizing organization to backing up your files, this workshop will have answers for you.

In a session titled “Cover you bytes and pieces! Fundamentals of preservation for digital material,” Carleton College Digital Archivist Nat Wilson will present the basic techniques for digital preservation, including recommended file formats, backup strategies, and suggested metadata fields. A follow-up session by Joe Hoover from the Minnesota Historical Society will look at some commonsense approaches to balancing time, money, volunteers, and skills to make digitizing on a shoestring budget possible while still meeting museum-quality standards.

The workshop also will look at economical ways to digitize photos, documents, books, and magnetic media, plus how to shoot photos of 3D objects and preserve your digital assets.

The main goal of the NHC, a committee of the Northfield Historical Society, is to digitize and make accessible Northifeld-area history.

The NHC is is hiring a new Project Coordinator.  You can see the job description here.

Think about the stories of your parents, grandparents, or great grandparents that are now lost forever – their experiences living through world wars, the polio epidemic, or the Great Depression, or of immigrating to a strange new land.  We may have small snippets of our family’s history – a few snapshots of people and places we do not recognize, letters home from the war, a tattered hand-made quilt – but the personal stories behind them that bring history to life may be gone.

The four-part series, Preserving Your Family’s Stories, is a collaborative effort between the FiftyNorth and theNorthfield History Collaborative, a program of the Northfield Historical Society to present information and guide participants in the collection and celebration of their family’s life stories.  Staff and volunteers from the Northfield, Rice County, and Minnesota Historical Societies and the Northfield Senior Center will lead the classes and provide individual assistance on each of the topics covered.  Optional additional work sessions with the presenters will be available on the Saturday following each class.  All classes will be held at the Northfield Senior Center.  The cost for all four classes and the follow-up sessions is $50 for members of the Northfield Senior Center or the Northfield Historical Society, $60 for non-members.  Individual sessions are $15/members, $20/ nonmembers.

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We are sponsoring a photo scanning workshop, come learn about the basic techniques of scanning photographs and then sharing them with your family and friends. The workshop will be held at the Northfield Public Library on Sat. April 28, 1-3 PM. Bring your photos and we’ll scan as many as time allows. The event is free but registration is required and will be limited to 30 people. Call the library reference desk at 645-1802 by Wed. April 25.