(Photo courtesy of Washington Rural Heritage)

Since its creation five years ago, the  Washington Rural Heritage program has steadily grown in popularity throughout the state.

It should gain even more fans following this story in the November edition of Wheat Life magazine.

This excerpt from the article says it all about the program:

Begun in 2007 with pilot projects at Ritzville and Enumclaw public libraries, WRH is a public, statewide collection that digitally documents the culture, community and industry of Washington state. Federally funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the website and project is managed by the Washington State Library which provides grants, training and support to rural libraries so they can preserve their local history by scanning and storing photographs and historical artifacts.

WRH currently holds material from more than 80 institutions and more than 200 privately-held collections from across the state, with more than 11,000 catalogued resources in the database. The material includes photographs, historical texts, scrapbooks, maps, artwork and artifacts.

Washington Rural Heritage is part of the State Library, which is a division of the Office of Secretary of State.