Audiences for
Pennsylvania’s
digital collections
MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
AND TEACHERS—
Students and teachers will be able to use unique, rare
resources that cannot be accessed otherwise except at the
institution holding them. In so doing, they will meet
Pennsylvania standards for history that call for students to
develop the skills of explaining, analyzing, interpreting,
synthesizing, and evaluating many types of historical sources.
LOCAL AND FAMILY HISTORIANS—
Nationwide, some 35 million people use the Internet for
family history research, and Pennsylvania libraries and
archives report significant use of their collections for this
purpose. Increased digitization of historical materials will aid
a growing audience interested in connecting with personal
and community histories.
COLLEGE STUDENTS—
Nationally, Pennsylvania ranks fifth in higher education
enrollment and third in the number of higher education
institutions. Having access to a wealth of documents and
other historical sources online will encourage college students
to be more ambitious in undertaking their class assignments
and will provide them with a wider array of research
resources.
SCHOLARS AND RESEARCHERS—
This audience, numbering thousands, uses Pennsylvania’s
historical collections and extends awareness of them by
teaching, publishing, and making presentations. A large
selection of digitized Pennsylvania materials available on
the Web will call attention to the key role the
Commonwealth has played in many histories, which, in turn,
will allow Pennsylvanians to gain a richer sense of the
Commonwealth’s heritage.
HERITAGE TOURISM DEVELOPMENT—
Heritage tourism has proven to be a significant economic
driver in Pennsylvania. Digitized collections serve the
heritage tourism sector in two ways: by providing the raw
materials from which tourism professionals develop public
programming and by providing history travelers with
additional reasons to visit or to extend their stays.
FUNDERS—
The purpose of this project was to identify and prioritize
subject areas and materials for digitization and link them to
the needs of diverse user communities. With this information
at their disposal, both funding agencies and cultural heritage
institutions will be better able to plan and set digitization
priorities.
What do you think? Are
these the audiences for
digitization?
Recommended
priorities for
digitization—topics
1ST TIER PRIORITIES—
*
The environment and land use
*
Population groups from 1850 to the present
*
Transportation and industry
*
Major 19th-and 20th-century conflicts—and the
communities of conscience that have reacted to war,
injustice, and intolerance
2ND TIER PRIORITIES—
* The economy— From the 1600s to today,
important economic and labor trends, including
agriculture, commerce, and manufacturing
* Politics and government— From the first
elections held in the Commonwealth to current local,
state, and national elections, materials that provide
insight into how Pennsylvanians govern themselves and
their relationships with other states and nations
* Culture— From built spaces to fine arts to pop
culture, especially in the 20th century, Pennsylvanians
as cultural trendsetters
* Technology, science, and medicine—
Especially from 1850 on, technology, innovation, and
invention in Pennsylvania and its importance to the
nation and the world
* Society— Race, gender, Native American
populations, religion and social justice, slavery and the
Underground Railroad, and their place in determining
the course of Pennsylvania history, along with the effect
of battles and wars on the people of Pennsylvania,
from the earliest settlers to the present
Recommended priorities for
digitization—materials
AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS
Especially historical sound and moving image
resources
VITAL RECORDS
Including birth, death, and land records
Do you agree?
Should these be the
priorities for digitization?