Henry Louis Gates' special on gen'y of famous Americans is on PBS right now. Enjoy, Nerissa On Monday, February 01, 2010, at 06:55PM, <HubbellGen@aol.com> wrote: >Bebe, > >The contents of the NC Room (minus a piece or two that needed to be housed >elsewhere) are now in the second floor genealogy/history area of the new >Orange County Public Library. The director of the library came to a D-OGS >meeting last fall, showing us the floor plans with the genealogy section in >the far corner of the second floor and talked about her plans for the >section. The library is now open, and thanks to the efforts of all the local D-OGS >members who worked hard to bring this about, we are going to have the >February D-OGS meeting in the library this Wednesday night and have a tour of >the new facility. This couldn't have happened without lots of folks getting >out there and putting the case for the library before the public. > >One of the things we might be thinking about at this stage is digitizing a >number of materials such as yours that could be put on CDs, or reside on >library computers. Therefore they would not be the only copies, but would be >in the County or region where they were first brought to life. This is an >important feature of local history and genealogy, for when someone comes to >visit from across the country and realizes they can find stories and >photos that are relevant to their ancestry, it can make the entire trip >worthwhile. These materials should be made widely accessible so that they are not >only in a journal of one Society, but can be shared on a number of levels >with people who live nowhere near the place where their ancestors spent >their lives. This kind of material is what local history and genealogy centers >are made of. > >Digitized materials can be shared far and wide, but only if they are made >accessible to the library and treated appropriately. I think that the >sharing of your materials could probably best be accomplished through scanning >and digitization, and then archiving in the most suitable place. That may be >a place like the NC Archives, or the UNC Southern Historical Collection. >But that should be decided by professionals. We in Old Orange County have not >yet gotten organized well enough yet to make firm recommendations about >collections like yours, yet we are aware that there are materials like yours >out there that should be part of the core collection of the OCPL. We have >long lamented that the NC Room has been treated as a step-child, but we have >not developed a plan to go forward because we were putting all our energy >into saving the collection. Now it is time for us to begin to look ahead >and solicit collections like yours, with the guidance of experts who can help >us gather and protect this material in the most appropriate format. >Funding is obviously an issue, but a web site that is well structured and >maintained could be a very useful way of sharing these materials. But as many >genealogists have commented, they have seen historical materials online, but >when they actually went to the community where their forbears lived, they had >an entirely different experience in seeing the materials in their context. >An experience not to be duplicated. > >So our work is cut out for us, and years of neglect must be overcome. >Materials like yours should be an incentive to us to find a way to provide >growth for the room Nat Clark worked so hard to protect and promote. >I hope you will strongly consider working with us to find the best way to >protect and share your materials. > >Carol >************************* > Visit the D-OGS web site: http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncdogs/ > >To Unsubscribe: As a member you are automatically subscribed and remain subscribed. To unsubscribe, email NCDOGS-admin@rootsweb.com with your request. >------------------------------- >To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to NCDOGS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > >