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SPRING CLEANING AT THE STATE LIBRARY

SPRING CLEANING AT THE STATE LIBRARY

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Do you have old or obsolete electronic devices stored somewhere in your home that you haven’t used in a long time? What about a box of mysterious, tangled cords that may or may not connect to things you’ve long since discarded? We do. Libraries, often much like the patrons and communities they serve, also accumulate things like this, and the Washington State Library is no exception. Recently, however, the State Library finally bid farewell to some old stalwarts: our mechanical…

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WASHINGTON DIGITAL HERITAGE GRANT RECIPIENT PROJECTS HELP DOCUMENT AND SHARE WASHINGTON HISTORY

WASHINGTON DIGITAL HERITAGE GRANT RECIPIENT PROJECTS HELP DOCUMENT AND SHARE WASHINGTON HISTORY

Each year, Washington State Library awards grants to libraries across the state for digital projects that document and share Washington’s rich and unique history. The 2021-2022 Washington Digital Heritage Grant awardees recently wrapped up their projects. This year’s grants encompassed a wide range of topics and mediums, from Nez Perce stories and legends to the Grand Coulee Dam. Grant recipients scanned images, created thesauri, recorded interviews, and much more. Read on to learn more about the awardees’ recently completed projects….

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NEW NORTHWEST DIGITAL HERITAGE SEARCH ENGINE ENABLES EASIER ACCESS TO PACIFIC NORTHWEST CONTENT

NEW NORTHWEST DIGITAL HERITAGE SEARCH ENGINE ENABLES EASIER ACCESS TO PACIFIC NORTHWEST CONTENT

Northwest Digital Heritage is proud to present its DPLA Local site, a new search portal that enables users to more easily access materials digitized by over 150 institutions in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. At the DPLA local site (https://nwdh.dp.la/), visitors can discover over half-a-million electronic documents, photos, maps, oral histories, and much more. The site enables users to narrow their search results across a variety of categories, including copyright status, location, contributing institution, and much more. Additionally, DPLA Local highlights…

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Washington Digital Newspapers Collection Exceeds Half a Million Pages!

Washington Digital Newspapers Collection Exceeds Half a Million Pages!

Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State, recently wrapped up several large digitization projects and achieved some significant milestones that expanded its Washington Digital Newspapers (WDN) online collection to over 500,000 newspaper pages. The WDN program selects historic newspapers, prepares them for online searching, and hosts them on the Library’s WDN website as a free public resource. Visitors to the website will find Washington newspapers from the state’s territorial days through the early 2000s,…

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INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY — LANGLEY, WASHINGTON, 100 YEARS AGO: WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY — LANGLEY, WASHINGTON, 100 YEARS AGO: WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

From 1920 to 1922, an all-woman cohort of councilmembers and mayor governed the town of Langley on Whidbey Island, Washington. Langley has the distinction of being the second town in the United States to elect an all-woman administration. Helen Coe served as mayor during this period. In July 1921, she purchased and deeded land to the Ladies’ Civic Improvement Club to erect a community building, which would include a public library, auditorium, and reading rooms. The 100-year-old library, now part…

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Collage of photos of Frank Porter Hungate and Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs with the original Washington State Constitution.
THE WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTION: A FAMILY’S LEGACY

THE WASHINGTON STATE CONSTITUTION: A FAMILY’S LEGACY

On March 2, 2022, Frank Porter Hungate, the 103-year-old grandson of 1889 Constitutional Convention delegate James Allen Hungate, visited Washington State Archives’ headquarters in Olympia to view the original 1889 Washington State Constitution. The original State Constitution is kept in a secure vault and — save for exclusive viewings and ceremonies (such as an anniversary of statehood or Constitution Days) — is not available for public viewing. Yet the opportunity for Frank to see his grandfather’s signature and further his…

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DEER IN THE HEADLINES

DEER IN THE HEADLINES

A herd of reindeer in Seattle? It happened. These reindeer, photographed in Seattle, may have been part of a government relief effort in the winter of 1897-1898. The expedition was launched when news reached the public that numerous miners, lured to Alaska in the hopes of striking it rich during the Klondike Gold Rush, were stranded in Dawson City, Canada, with supply lines cut off for the winter. If these reindeer were part of that expedition, they and their herders…

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HARVEST SEASON: 50,000 ADDITIONAL RECORDS SHIPPED TO THE DPLA

HARVEST SEASON: 50,000 ADDITIONAL RECORDS SHIPPED TO THE DPLA

It’s harvest season, and Northwest Digital Heritage recently reaped and baled 50,000 more records and shipped them to the Digital Public Library of America! This metadata harvest garnered: More than 40,000 records from the State Library of Oregon’s Government Publications Highlights include COVID-19 information in over 40 languages and an excellent video on hop production in Oregon. Baker County Library District’s Digital Archive Highlights include landscape and mining scenes from Oregon’s Elkhorn Mountains, and Baker City’s Main Street from the…

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Seattle Federal Records Center, c. 1970. State Library Photograph Collection, 1851-1990. Washington State Archives.
THE LOCAL RECORDS GRANT PROGRAM: NEARLY $700,000 IN GRANTS AWARDED TO 37 GOVERNMENT AGENCIES STATEWIDE

THE LOCAL RECORDS GRANT PROGRAM: NEARLY $700,000 IN GRANTS AWARDED TO 37 GOVERNMENT AGENCIES STATEWIDE

Washington State Archives, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State, is awarding $698,510 in grants to 37 government agencies statewide as part of the Local Records Grant Program for 2021-2022. The Local Records Grant Program helps local-government agencies and entities upgrade their technological resources to improve their records retention and management, and response processes for public records requests. Qualified agencies and entities applied online in June 2021. During the summer, an Archives Oversight Committee, composed of county…

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SIX WASHINGTON TRIBES RECEIVE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN GRANTS

SIX WASHINGTON TRIBES RECEIVE AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN GRANTS

Congratulations to six Washington tribes that received American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act grants through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)! In October 2021, IMLS announced it has awarded over $15.2 million in ARP grants to institutions across the country to support native communities, museums, and libraries that are recovering from the coronavirus pandemic. The six Washington tribes include: Colville ($50,000) The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Nespelem is planning to provide trusted spaces and deliver programs…

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