OAC Local History Digital Resources Project Continues

October 14, 2004 Author: CDLCategories:

The CDL is pleased to announce the continuation of the Online Archive of California (OAC) Local History Digital Resources Project. This multi-year project is supported by the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA), administered in California by the State Librarian.

This pilot project explores a model to support the creation of and permanent public access to local history digital content through the OAC gateway (http://www.oac.cdlib.org) and through storage in the UC Libraries Digital Preservation Repository (http://www.cdlib.org/programs/digital_preservation.html).

Since the beginning of this project in 2000, more than 30 public and academic libraries, museums, and archives have provided public access to their content via the OAC. The process of creating digital facsimiles of their collections and creating the associated metadata requires a significant amount of effort, education, experience, and funds. Many LSTA projects have served local needs, but it is important that the resources created through these efforts are publicly available for the long-term to the citizens of California.

With the renewal of the LSTA grant in year five, the CDL will meet the following new objectives:

Collaborate with the California State Library LSTA program to coordinate the work of LSTA grant-funded institutions participating in the Local History Digital Resources Project, including the implementation of standards and use of digitization project-related tools and services.
Assess digital content created with LSTA funding from 1997/1998 through 2000/2001 for retrospective ingest and aggregation, including storage the UC Libraries Digital Preservation Repository.

For more information, see the project web site at: http://www.cdlib.org/inside/projects/oac/lsta/