EZ Digital Grant
Maggie Keeble
1. LIBRARY USERS AND NEED
The Davie County Public Library houses the Martin-Wall Local History Room that is
dedicated to the preservation of Davie County heritage, both of the area itself and the families
who have lived in it. About half the population of Davie County has utilized the local library in
the past year, with far fewer of them using the history room for genealogy or local history
purposes. Occasionally we will get visits from students at the middle school level who are doing
a project on their family heritage or research on the history of Davie County for a project and
they will use the history room. Most of the history room usage is by people tracing family ties to
the area wanting to know more about their ancestors. While much of the history room is open
access, there are certain collections such as the yearbook collection that need special permission
to access, and this access is not always readily available due to authorized staff working certain
hours a week. Other parts of the collection are starting to deteriorate such as old newspapers
from the early 1900’s and access to these documents is restricted to trained staff because of their
decaying state. The headache of having to arrange times during the week for people to access
restricted resources in the library could be alleviated if the restricted resources were digitized and
made available to the public through the library catalog.
2. PROJECT DESCRIPTION
In the past the Davie County Public Library has worked on digitizing certain materials in
the library for preservation, but most of these files require the patron to come to the library to
access as they are on CDs or Microfilm feeds. We would like to take some of these files already
digitalized and upload them to the internet for general access while making other physical
resources digital as well. We would like to photograph the physical artifacts in the history room
such as the spinning wheels, old globes, stone sculptures, and Native American weaponry and
make them available as part of the collection as well before anything bad happens to them. By
getting these digital files onto the web we can make access to the resources in the history room
much easier for those who cannot visit the library during times when trained staff are available to
assist them with restricted materials, and it would allow the library to put some of the more frail
documents into storage where they will be safe, making more room for new additions to the
history room.
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So far this project has been handled by volunteer staff working a couple hours a week to
digitize certain parts of the collection such as newspaper articles and photographs. To make more
headway in this project we would need to employ one to two part-time staff members working an
average of 10 hours a week each to digitize the desired resources for this part of the project.
These two part-time staff would have two tasks they are trying to complete: The first is taking
the already digitized formats of newspaper articles, obituaries, and photographs that are saved on
CDs in the library and uploading them to the catalog special collection for viewing. Currently we
use Digital NC as the online catalog for photographs and documents from our library’s history
room. We could continue to use this site for much of the project and create different sections for
different types of documents such as obituaries, local news, artifacts, and more. The second task
would be to take resources that are still in a physical format and create digital versions of them to
put into the Digital NC database. The majority of these documents will be old newspaper articles
and obituaries, but we will also capture images of physical artifacts within the history room, as
well as the main library, to preserve them and put them on display online for people to access.
This shall allow the library staff to store some of the more frail objects that are on display so
nothing happens to them from exposure to air, moisture, and other outside factors.
The Martin-Wall Local History Room keeps records of Davie County families, as well as
those in the surrounding areas. It also houses information on events that have happened in the
area since pre-revolutionary time. The main focus of the history room is the history of Davie
County, and many of the artifacts in the collection are unique to our library as they are one of a
kind resources donated by families in the area. Preservation of local family’s history is important
to Davie County as many families live in the same area for generations. Current generations can
learn more about their family heritage and how life in Davie County was when their great-greatgrandparents were alive. However, not everyone can visit the library on a whim, so by providing
online access to the documents in the History Room we would allow families who have ties to
Davie County to research their family’s history without having to make a special trip to the
library.
The materials selected for this digitization project are relevant to the topic as they are
newspaper articles, obituaries, photographs of artifacts, and digital scans of family documents
such as personal letters, stories, year books, and diary entries. Some of these resources are aging
and need to be preserved soon, so they are the main priority of this project. Each resources
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selected has importance to either an event in the community or to a family of the area and are
intended to preserve history for generations to come. Other than the restricted materials that
require the supervision of knowledgeable staff the history room and all its resources are open to
the public with no library card needed. However, none of the resources are permitted to leave the
building so they are on in-house access only. The current digital collection is open-access as well
through the library website and we will be adding more materials to that collection. This will
make some previously restricted materials now openly available to patrons who wish to view
them.
Most of the library staff are unaware of the digitization project as it is handled by volunteer
staff and overseen by the director. We would like to change that and make everyone aware that
we provide online access to the materials in our history room, and invite the public to use these
materials both in the library and outside of it through the internet. Right now we have links on
our library website to lists of already digitalized materials that can be accessed via CD or
microfilm while in the library. We would like to change these lists to links that access the digital
collection for that topic when we complete this stage of the project. When the collection is closer
to the launch date we shall make an announcement on the library website, as well as post signs in
the main library and history room with a how-to access the digital collection from the library
website. If possible we could host a day where we invite the public into the history room and
show them how to access the digital collection from the online website.
3. PROJECT PARTNERS, if applicable (others respond with N/A)
No partners are currently working with us on this project, and there are no plans to seek
out partners at this time.
4. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS
The Davie County Public Library has permission from the local newspaper Davie County
Enterprise to make digital copies of the paper and make them available to the public as an effort
to preserve history as it is happening. Permission to make digital copies of family belongings
such as physical objects, photographs, scrapbooks, and private documents is signed off when the
object is donated to the history room. Any new additions to the history room collection will have
the same permissions signed off on at the time of the donation. While we will not be digitalizing
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any legal documents such as land deeds, marriage licenses, birth and death certificates in this
project, we may see fit to do so in future additions to the collection. Permission for those
documents will be sought through the local body of government who presided over the creation
of the document, as well as any living family members who may have ties to the document.
5. PROJECT ACTIVITIES
Project Activity Name
Who Is Responsible
Expected Completion Date
Meeting w/ Project Manager
Library
March 13, 2015
Training
Library
March 16, 2015
Analysis of Physical Materials
Library
March 20, 2015
Begin Digitization Process
Library
March 23, 2015
Meeting w/ Project Manager
Library
April 10, 2015
Finish Digitization Process
Library
April 24, 2015
Final Report
Library
April 29, 2015
6. PROJECT OUTCOMES
The desired outcome of this project is to make the community aware of the ongoing
preservation process of the history room collection and to encourage them to visit the collection
more often. We would like to see the use of the collection increase as more of it becomes
available through the library website. This in turn we would hope would encourage families in
the local area to add their family’s history to the collection, even if they do not donate the
physical copy of the artifact to the library. Building onto an existing collection of history would
be ideal, and would support the goal of the library to preserve knowledge and provoke the mind
to seek out this knowledge.
7. EVALUATION
To evaluate the effectiveness of this digitization project we would need to measure some key
factors through a number of means. The first would be to measure the frequency of use of the
history room materials before and after the digitization project to see if community awareness
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has risen. This has both a quantitative and qualitative feedback response. The number tracker of
people using the history room per week before, during, and after this part of the digitization
process would be quantitative, while a survey given to the people using the history room for their
opinion of it before and after the digitization project is complete would give a qualitative
response. Next we would measure the use of the digital collection through the library catalog to
see how often the community is accessing the digital files. This would be a quantitative response
as we would be tracking the number of views of a digital file, as well as the number of
downloads of a file to a computer, if applicable.
Another observation to track would be the influx of donated materials to the history room
before and after the digitization project to see if the community supports the preservation of local
artifacts and wishes to contribute to the collection. We would have both quantitative and
qualitative data from this response. The number of new additions to the collection would be
quantitative and the response from the community for preservation and desire to expand the
collection would be qualitative. We will also keep track of any requests and visitations because
of the digital collection by people outside the community to see how people outside the
community are responding to the preservation process. This would be qualitative data as it would
be written records of requests and feedback on the collection given by visitors to both the history
room and the digital site.
8. GOALS
The motto of the Davie County Public Library is “where inquisitive minds come to know
and grow.” It is our mission to preserve knowledge and make it accessible for patrons to use and
become more knowledgeable. This project follows that goal by making access to the history
room resources easier for patrons to utilize from any location, as well as supporting the spread of
knowledge and encouraging “inquisitive minds” to visit the library and learn more about their
local past if they get a chance. The digital collection created supports Goal #4 of North
Carolina’s LSTA Five-Year Plan by preserving historical artifacts, providing more access to the
community and beyond, and helps inform the community about the unique collection the library
has to offer. The overall goal of this project is to preserve historical artifacts from Davie County
in a digital format that allows for easy access and encourages the community to learn more about
their local past.
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9. BUDGET NARRATIVE
So far the project has been purely volunteer work so there has not been a need for a budget.
However, if the project is to be completed at a regular pace a paid employee or two needs to be
added to the project to encourage work output. Part-time employees make $11.50 an hour
working in the library. We want two of them to work 10 hours a week on this digitization
project. That would be ($11.50 x 10 hours) x 2 employees = $230 needed per week. The project
is estimated to take 6 weeks to complete, so $230 x 6 weeks = $1,380 in grant money needed to
fund the salary of two part-time employees to work on this project. No benefits will be needed
for these employees. The library has all the materials needed for the digitization project so no
equipment is needed to be purchased. Any additional expenses that may arise would be renewal
of subscription to local newspaper, any copyright expenses to digitize materials, and office
supplies. The library would pay for these additional expenses through the library budget
dedicated to the history room.
10. BUDGET TABLE
List all proposed grant and matching expenditures in the table below; add/delete rows as needed.
CATEGORY
QUANTITY
UNIT
LSTA $
COST
MATCH TOTAL
$
$
(if any)
$11.50/hr
A. Salary/benefits
2
10hrs/wk
$1,380.00
$0
$1,380.00
for 6 wks
B. Contractual Services
C. Equipment, list each type
on a separate row
D. Library Materials
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E. Supplies/postage/printing
F. Other Costs (specify)
TOTAL A through F
$1,380.00
$0 $1,380.00
12. ABSTRACT
Davie County has prided itself on staying true to its local heritage. The Davie County
Public Library has assisted in this endeavor for over 100 years by housing a history room that
contains artifacts and documents from the area. However, not all the documents are always
accessible, and not all patrons who wish to use the resources in the history room can visit the
library to do so. The library has worked on digitizing certain materials in the library for
preservation, but most of these files still require the patron to come to the library to access. In
this digitization project we would like to take some of these files already digitalized and upload
them to the internet for general access. We would also like to make other physical resources
digital as well by photographing artifacts in the history room and creating digital copies of
physical documents. By getting these digital files onto the web we can make access to the
resources in the history room much easier for those who cannot visit the library, and it would
allow the library to put some of the more frail documents into storage where they will be safe.
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