The chester county historical center (cchc) of west chester, pennsylvania, will vastly expand its online collections (including library and museum materials and photo archives) and make them available…

The Chester County Historical Society (CCHS) in West Chester, Pennsylvania received a $116,717 Project Grant award from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the National Leadership Grants (NLG) program. The grant will fund CCHS's project to vastly expand its online collections and make them available without limitation on web-based platforms as materials in the public domain. Under the award starting November 1, 2021 and concluding October 31, 2022, CCHS will scan and digitize manuscripts, photographs, and artifacts in its library and museum collections. This will preserve the materials and allow unlimited public access. The funding will also allow CCHS to increase part-time staff hours and hire a temporary digital technician to carry out the digitization work and back up digital files. The project aims to improve customer service, expand preservation capabilities, and increase capacity for future digital initiatives at CCHS.

The chester county historical center (cchc) of west chester, pennsylvania, will vastly expand its online collections (including library and museum materials and photo archives) and make them available to an unlimited audience in perpetuity. The covid-19 pandemic revealed cchc's need to upgrade its systems and improve its capacity for online interaction between users and collections. This project will allow cchc to expand part-time collections staff hours and hire a temporary digital technician to scan or photograph manuscripts, photographs, and artifacts, as well as back up these files. Cchc will make these items available on web-based platforms as collections in the public domain. Through this project, the historical society will improve its customer service, expand its ability to preserve collections, and increase its ability to implement future digital projects.