Today is Washington Library Snapshot Day!  Hundreds of libraries throughout Washington State are collecting photos, stories and statistics, offering a glimpse into a single day in the life of their organization.

Are you a customer of the Washington State Library or one of its branches?  Are you a Washington library worker who has been served by one of the State Library’s programs?

Tell us what the Washington State Library means to you by sharing a comment on this blog post or on our Facebook wall!

In the meantime, here’s our first snapshot of the day–Digital Collections librarian Laura Robinson working with volunteer Gordon Russ. Gordon has been volunteering with the State Library for approximately 5 years, doing everything from processing vertical files to moving library materials to acid free storage. Here he is working on our historic newspaper indexing project.

From the desk of Evan Robb

A new grant cycle is open for Washington Rural Heritage, a statewide digitization initiative for small rural libraries and partnering organizations. To date, more than 60 cultural institutions throughout Washington have contributed to this growing digital collection of historically significant materials. Learn more about the project and see the full list of contributors here.

Both public and tribal libraries are eligible to apply for this grant; priority consideration will be given to libraries that have not previously received awards associated with Washington Rural Heritage. Overall funding to support this grant cycle is $50,000, with a maximum award of $10,000 per application. It is anticipated that five or more applicants may receive awards. Application deadline: Postmarked or received by April 29, 2011. View eligibility guidelines, FAQs, and download a grant application at www.sos.wa.gov/library/libraries/grants/grants.aspx.

For more information, contact Evan Robb, Project Manager, Washington Rural Heritage, 360-704-5228, [email protected], or Anne Yarbrough, Grants Program, 360-704-5246, [email protected].

Washington Rural Heritage is supported with Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funding provided by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services.

From the desk of Evan Robb

The Washington Rural Heritage initiative is pleased to announce its newest digital collection: Wahkiakum County Heritage. A project of the Cathlamet Blanche Bradley Public Library in partnership with the Wahkiakum County Historical Society & Museum, the collection consists of more than 300 items depicting river life, fishing, forestry, and early homesteading along this lower stretch of Washington’s Columbia River.

Three sub-collections make up Wahkiakum County Heritage. The Wahkiakum Community Collection, which is comprised of material from the private collections of local citizens. The Cathlamet Blanche Bradley Public Library Collection, from the Library’s holdings. And the Wahkiakum County Historical Society Collection, from the Museum’s holdings, which comprises roughly half of the material in the collection. Together, they do an excellent job of documenting the small communities and landmarks of Wahkiakum County, including: Cathlamet, Puget Island, Skamokawa, Grays River, Deep River, Altoona, Brookfield, and Rosburg.

A few of our random favorites include:

• The Smalley family, Rosburg Grange Hall, August 1936.
• Images of horse seining for salmon on the Columbia.
• Loggers at Leisure.
• Funeral boats from Puget Island to Westport and In Skamokawa after a dance – both illustrating how the Columbia and its tributaries were used before the penetration of paved roads.
• A collection of John Fletcher Ford logging photographs. (More of this wonderful photographer’s work can be seen in a Flickr Commons set from Oregon State University).

Congratulations and a big thank you to: the Cathlamet Public Library’s director for managing the project; the project’s digitization contractor from Lower Columbia Community College Library (for many hours of dedicated scanning and cataloging); and to the Wahkiakum County Historical Society’s curator, whose local history expertise is evident in these wonderfully detailed records!

From the desk of Evan Robb

The American Library Association recently named Washington Rural Heritage its Digital Library of the Week. Read what ALA had to say about the collection at their I Love Libraries advocacy site. Congratulations to the 60+ cultural institutions (including 21 small, public libraries throughout Washington) participating in the initiative to date.

Seven Washington libraries are currently hard at work on LSTA-funded digitization projects for 2010-2011, and many WRH participants continue to build their digital collections on a non-grant-funded basis. Keep an eye out for two new collections, comprising more than 1,200 individually cataloged items, which will be published in coming weeks!

You can skim through a sampling of this diverse collection below, or visit the site directly at: www.washingtonruralheritage.org.

From the desk of Evan Robb

A new digital collection from the Washington Rural Heritage initiative highlights the history of Skamania County, located in the heart of Washington’s rugged Columbia River Gorge. For their 2009-2010 grant project, the Stevenson and North Bonneville Community Libraries (Fort Vancouver Regional Library District) worked with local residents and partners to digitize unique material telling the story of life in these communities. The result is a digital collection consisting of two sub-collections and over 250 items.

Stevenson Community Library’s
promotional flyer – History in Pictures Day

In June, 2010 after extensive planning and outreach to local residents, the Stevenson Community Library held its first “History in Pictures” day–a community-based digitization event aimed at gathering historically significant material held in local private collections. The event occurred on a Saturday, in the main room of the Stevenson Community Library. There, staff and members of the Library’s Friends group interviewed contributors, secured necessary permissions (to publish material online), and recorded detailed information about the originals–describing their content as well as their physical format and dimensions. Staff from the Washington State Library were on hand to assist with imaging the materials, which were then returned to their owners along with a digital copy. The event was a resounding success. A few of our favorite “finds” include:

• This stunning collection from a longtime resident, detailing early resort life (a bit of work, a bit of recreation) at various hot springs in the Carson River Valley along the Wind River.
• The Stevenson Oddfellows Lodge members, 1910 – 1920.
• A small collection documenting construction of State Highway 14 during the mid 1930s, including several images of tunnel construction in various locations as well as the laborers themselves.
• The 1924 Stevenson High School football team.
• 1935 photo of the Bonneville Dam’s maintenance crew.

Another important achievement of this grant project was the creation of the North Bonneville Collection which documents the relocation of the town of North Bonneville during the construction of the Bonneville Dam’s second powerhouse in the 1970s. The collection documents everything from: early negotiations with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; to images of “Old Town North Bonneville” as it was being razed; to construction of new town facilities and final dedication of the “New” North Bonneville in 1978. The material was contributed by the City of North Bonneville, which generously opened its archives to help create this unique and valuable educational resource.

Congratulations and a big thank you to the entire crew at the Stevenson and North Bonneville Community Libraries. They spent many hours forming local partnerships, managing the project, cataloging materials, and learning all the hands-on technical minutiae involved in digitization. The results speak for themselves!

Jessie and Lawrence Palmer, Benton City, 1908

From the desk of Evan Robb

The Washington Rural Heritage initiative is pleased to announce the first of several new digital collections we’ll be unveiling this fall. For its 2009-2010 grant project the Benton City branch of Mid-Columbia Libraries partnered with the Kiona-Benton City Historical Society to digitize a variety of materials highlighting the history of this rural community on Washington’s Yakima River. The collection documents agriculture, irrigation district development, and railroad construction in the area, and depicts some of Benton City’s earliest family farms and public figures.

Of particular interest are a collection of glass plate negatives from a local private collection. The negatives were discovered around 1970, in the attic of a home being rented by Benton City residents Chuck and Betty Morgan. Some of the negatives were enclosed in paper envelopes with short descriptions, presumably written by the unidentified photographer. When project staff sat down to examine the negatives in late February, 2010, we found more than a few cracks and glass shards, some scuffed and blurry images, and plenty of flaking photo emulsion. But as we began carefully scanning the negatives, we were astonished to find beautifully preserved images of Benton City from over a century ago. Images such as: Mrs. McAlpin’s sewing club (1903); a water wheel on the Yakima (1904); the Yakima River, frozen over at the Kiona Bridge (1909); and Stacking hay at J.B. Palmer’s farm (1908) (within moments of scanning this negative, Mid-Columbia Library staff excitedly reported that the photo was taken from the roughly the spot upon which we were standing-the Benton City Library!).

Other highlights of Kiona-Benton City Heritage:

• Material from the Benton City branch library collection, such as a 1912 promotional booklet written to entice land buyers to the area, and a 1959 local history of Benton City.  Thanks to the Library’s digitization efforts, Benton City students will now be able to research their town’s history from any computer with Internet access.
• A collection of paintings and screen prints by local artist, Bob Dunlap, who has been documenting Benton City’s people, places and events for decades (and sharing his knowledge with the community). A few of our favorites include this poster for the Benton City Jr. Rodeo; this painting of an early homestead; and this schedule of high school basketball games from 1965-66.
• Important texts documenting irrigation development in the area, including the 1917 formation of the Kiona Irrigation District.

The Benton City branch of Mid-Columbia Libraries will be celebrating the publication of this collection with an open house exhibition on Saturday, October 2, 10am-3pm (learn more). A big thanks to our participants in Benton City for their hard work researching, digitizing, and cataloging these materials. With the knowledge and experience they have gained over the past year, they will surely be able to sustain and build upon this fantastic local history collection!

From the desk of Evan Robb

Today marks the 100 year anniversary of the “Great Flood” which devastated the town of Colfax in Whitman County, Washington.  Following three weeks of constant snow and rain throughout the Eastern Washington, the Palouse River, which runs through town, quickly overfilled its main channel and transformed into a raging torrent.

Photos of the Great Flood were recently contributed to the Washington Rural Heritage collection by former Colfax resident Patrick McDonald, who collected historic postcards of the event from various sources over the years.  These have been cataloged by the Whitman County Library as part of its Whitman County Heritage collection.  All of the 1910 flood photos can be seen here: http://www.sos.wa.gov/quicklinks/1910ColfaxFlood

An excerpt from the March 04, 1910 Colfax Gazette describes the scene:

Driftwood, timber and rubbish of all kinds was constantly coming down.  The danger point was reached, however, when the force of the water carried away all the bridges in the city… Next houses began to float downstream, some intact for a distance, others in rags and tatters, but all destined for the bone yard.  The mill, equipment, lumber and shingles of the J.R. Good & Co. mill floated down, followed by houses, barns, chicken coops and everything imaginable.

The rest of that article, which includes a description of the flood’s aftermath can be read here, a small part of the Washington State Library’s work on the National Digital Newspaper Project.

Whitman County Library is currently digitizing additional material for the Washington Rural Heritage initiative.  By this summer, the collection will surpass the 1,000-item mark, making it one of the initiative’s largest digital collections.  Currently, items in Whitman County Heritage are being viewed 4,000-5,000 times per month.

Branded board from the Krouse
Machine Shop–one of 184
historic, locally-registered brands
in the Pomeroy Heritage Collection.

From the desk of Evan Robb

A new digital collection from the Washington Rural Heritage initiative documents early agricultural technology and domestic life in Washington’s least populous county (Garfield).  The Denny Ashby Library in Pomeroy, Washington is kicking off its new project with a sub-collection of materials from its local partner, the Eastern Washington Agricultural Museum (EWAM).  Washington Rural Heritage staff helped with imaging of the collection in 2009 and the Denny Ashby Library did a fantastic job of cataloging the items with help from community members and local experts at EWAM.

During our on-location project at EWAM, our hosts frequently demonstrated that expertise–interpreting the objects as we imaged them, pointing out their unique features and explaining how each tells a specific story about life in this part of the state.  For example, this wagon had a customized wide rear axle so that it could be used while harvesting wheat on the steep, rugged hillsides of Garfield County.  While admiring this horse drawn postal wagon/sleigh with miniature stove, we learned that the postmaster’s winter route sometimes took three days to complete.  And as it turned out, the granddaughter of its primary driver lived right in town.  She soon arrived on scene and gladly contributed this photo of her grandfather, “Skinny” Trescott, posing next to his mail sleigh.

Our EWAM hosts also half-jokingly mentioned that this 1912 windmill was kind of unique (for any American windmill) simply because there are no bullet holes in its vane.  And that the standard line about this reversible plow is that it was for a farmer “who didn’t know whether he was coming or going”.  Joking aside, much of the equipment at EWAM has been carefully restored and is still more than serviceable.  The museum hosts an annual Spring Farming Days on its grounds where community members are invited to watch land be tilled and planted using horse drawn plows and implements.

The Denny Ashby Library is currently working on a grant-funded project to produce two additional sub-collections.  One will document small rural schoolhouses of Garfield County.  The other will focus on the Mayview Tramway, a unique method of transporting grain to market prior to railroad development in the region.  Keep an eye out for those new collections, which will go live later this summer!

From the desk of Evan Robb

The Washington Rural Heritage initiative is pleased to announce our newest digital collection: Vashon Island Heritage.  A project of the Vashon Library (King County Library System) and the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association, the collection documents life on the island from the late 1800s through the 1960s. Four sub-collections make up the collection:

• Journals & Memoirs features local histories such as Marjorie Rose Stanley’s Search for Laughter and Bill Rendall’s Memoirs of Maury Island. Our favorite item in this sub-collection is a scrapbook documenting a mother and daughter’s 1923 move from Michigan to Paradise Cove on Vashon Island.  Florence Harger Burd painstakingly recorded her daughter Tad’s early years in this scrapbook, which includes photos, letters, artwork, and a journal narrating their day-to-day activities. Here’s a good place to begin exploring this large scrapbook.
• Maps and Periodicals includes maps from c.1895 through the 1920s, and some of the Island’s earliest newspapers and publications. During the 1930s Islander Janet Haugen founded a monthly magazine called the Nor’Wester, which featured many stories of Vashon’s pioneers and farmers.  Here’s a Nor’Wester story about one of those early pioneers.
• Vashon’s First Peoples documents the S’Homamish people of Vashon Island. It includes images of traditional tools and baskets on display at the Vashon Heritage Museum, and details life on the Island prior to S’Homamish removal to the Puyallup Reservation.  Born in a longhouse on Quartermaster Harbor in the 1840s, native S’Homamish Lucy Gerand would later provide vital information regarding the island’s native population and traditional place names. Here are some of those names, told by Lucy to anthropologist T.T. Waterman in 1922.
• Vashon College (1892-1912) includes photos and memorabilia documenting the first college on Vashon Island, which operated from 1892-1912, when fire destroyed key buildings (Vashon College resumed operation as a Washington State nonprofit in 2005, and contributed material for this digital collection).

A big thanks to our participants at the Vashon Library and Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association for their hard work digitizing and cataloging these materials!

From the desk of Evan Robb

Over the course of three intensive community digitization events last Winter, the San Juan Island Library pulled together an impressive array of materials for its 2008-2009 Washington Rural Heritage grant project. The Library asked its patrons to share historically significant photos, documents, and objects from their private collections, and they responded with zeal. The resulting San Juan Story Collection provides a fascinating look at the early people and places of San Juan Island.

I was present to help out with large-format scanning for the first event back in February, and was impressed by the operation. Community members filed into the Friday Harbor High School library on a Saturday afternoon, items in hand. There, they were greeted by Library staff and volunteers trained to scan materials and record detailed information about each item. In the main room, two flatbed scanners were kept humming all afternoon. In another room, three-dimensional objects and artifacts were photographed in an ad hoc studio. And in a quieter section of the library, a historian from San Juan Island National Historical Park recorded interviews with long-time island residents and natives. Islanders were able to hold on to their family treasures, leave with a digital copy in hand, and know that they had just made an important contribution to the telling of their town’s story.

A few highlights from this diverse collection include: Indian arrowheads found throughout the island; locally produced crafts like this tobacco sack quilt or this casserole dish; individual and group portraits; aerial views from around the Island; San Juan County’s first ambulance airplane; and the Islander, an early steamboat ferry.

View San Juan Island Library’s entire collection at http://www.washingtonruralheritage.org/sanjuan. To see their newest 2008 grant material, click here.