Friday, June 16, 2006

Article: New Web site is rich resource for Hudson Valley information

From the sounds of this article, Hudson River Valley Heritage -- a digitization program in the Hudson Valley region of New York State -- had a formal unveiling last Friday (June 9). This program has been underway for quite a while and continues to grow. (There was actually a conference session on this program in 2004 at MARAC.) The article says:
The Web site, www.hrvh.org, has been accumulating digitized collections for about a year and currently contains photographs, maps, multimedia clips, newspaper items, postcards, diaries and other memorabilia from Bard College, the Consortium of Rhinebeck History, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, the Hudson River Valley Institute, the Samuel Morse Historic Site, Vassar College, Wilderstein Preservation, the Coxsackie Heermance Memorial Library, the Chester Historical Society, the Newburgh Free Library, the Library Association of Rockland County, the Orangetown Historical Museum Archives, the Huguenot Historical Society, the Marlboro Free Library, SUNY New Paltz and the Woodstock Library.

In addition to serving the Hudson Valley, the site also has received thousands of hits from foreign countries, administrators say.

One of the things that is interesting abut this program is that the Southeastern New York Library Resources Council -- one of the partners in this program -- has created a series of workshops for participants, made the cost for attending all of the workshops low ($100 for the series per person), and added a requirement that people who attend the series contribute digitized items to the collection. You can read the training brochure from the Council here. In my mind, the low cost for training gets people/institutions committed. The commitment of contributing a certain number of images is not burdensome and helps people demonstrate to themselves what they have learned and gives them a chance to practice. It is a win-win situation.


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