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Delta State partners with statewide archive project

The Delta State University Archives Department proudly announces the 2015 Cultural Heritage Digitization Award, a partnership project with the Mississippi Digital Library.

The award is designed to assist institutions with digitization to create accessible collections that represent Mississippi history, have high scholarly value or are at risk in fragile physical condition.

Other participating institutions include: Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Mississippi State University, University of Mississippi and the University of Southern Mississippi.

“The award is one-of-a-kind in the state,” said Emily Jones, Delta State archivist.  “I don’t know of another award that will bring some of the state’s most advanced set of skills in digitization and preservation right to your doorstep for an entire week of training, guidance and support — all for free.”

The partnering organizations will provide digitization and training services to an institution with a significant scholarly resource that is lacking the technical, physical, or human resources needed to complete digitization and/or host the resulting digital collection.

The chosen collection will be digitized and published electronically as part of the Mississippi Digital Library Collections.

The award is open to all institutions within the state whose proposed collection fits the eligibility requirements. Applicants are not limited to an academic library — public libraries, museums, historical societies, research centers, or any other cultural heritage institutions are welcome to apply.

“Anyone who meets the criteria can apply,” added Jones. “My contribution will be to spend a day or more with the winning institution to evaluate their collection, create a digitization plan and help them get started or complete digitizing the target collection.

“This is the first time we have offered an incentive like this to join the MS Digital Library. What we are hoping is that we will be able to attract more collections to the MDL, more contributing organizations and really get Mississippi history online and available worldwide.

“The MDL has been around for several years but it has really been growing these past three years. We want to see that growth continue.”

The award includes: 80 cumulative hours of on-site, archival quality digitization services to be completed over a one week period by the digitization team; a digital collection in the MDL and a digital exhibit featured on the MDL website; a copy of all master and access digital files; and digitization training to aid in future projects.

“It’s an amazing deal. It’s work on the front end for anyone applying but the end result is a streamlined collection, digitized and ready for anyone to view it,” said Jones.  “This project will also put some small organizations on the map — the digital map that is.”

 Learn more about the project at http://www.msdiglib.org.