It has already been a busy year for Washington Rural Heritage.

In addition to launching a newly-designed website this spring (with upgrades to our server and content management system), we have improved our long-term digital preservation strategy to better protect our collections for future generations. We have also recently re-opened our metadata to outside harvesters (using best practices established by the Open Archives Initiative, or OAI), and we are currently in the process of contributing over 19,000 item-level records to OCLC’s WorldCat online catalog, enhanching discovery of WRH collections to library patrons across the world.

Congratulations are in order for the latest group of Washington libraries who will receive LSTA grants (FY 2012) through the Washington Rural Heritage initiative!

• Denny Ashby Public Library
• Nisqually Tribal Library
• Port Angeles Public Library, North Olympic Library System
• Ritzville Library District #2
• Roslyn Public Library
• Sedro-Woolley Public Library
• Sno-Isle Libraries

These organizations will spend the next year digitizing historically significant materials from their own holdings, the holdings of partnering heritage institutions, and in some cases, privately held collections. Read more on each project here.

Libraries currently participating in grant-funded digitization projects this year (FY 2011) will wrap up and launch their new collections or sub-collections in the coming weeks, including Asotin County Library, the Connell Branch of Mid-Columbia Libraries, Ellensburg Public Library, Odessa Public Library, North Central Regional Library, Roslyn Public Library, and the Everson Branch of Whatcom County Library System. Look for announcements here as these new projects come online.

Funds for Washington Rural Heritage are made available by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. For more information, contact Evan Robb, Project Manager, (360) 704-5228.