View source for Grants/History Digitization Project

{{Grant Application
|Project Title=History Digitization Project
|applicants=Squamish Public Library
|contact person=Jesse Horn, Kayli Wilkinson, Marie Palmer
|coordinator=Jesse Horn, Kayli Wilkinson, Marie Palmer
|start date=2010/05/31
|end date=2010/08/06
|Affiliation=British Columbia Library Association, Canadian Library Association, Pacific Northwest Library Association
|Mainurl=http://www.squamish.bclibrary.ca/ 
|Affiliated=No
|description=The main objectives of our project are to convert the Squamish Public Library's historical materials (photos, newspapers, audio, video etc.) into electronic formats and upload these materials to a database that is searchable and accessible via the Internet. This will ensure that the history of our town and surrounding area is preserved and easily accessible to the public. 
|output=The output of our project will be the digital historic files that will be accessible to the public regardless of their physical location. Our database will be searchable, and our project guarantees convenient and straightforward access to the unique history of Squamish.
|community=Our project will be online, so it could potentially benefit anyone who has access to the Internet, but the groups of people that will benefit most from our project will be the people of Squamish. Squamish citizens will be given, for the first time, easy access to their heritage. Any person, academic, or historian interested in the history of British Columbia will also benefit from this project, as it would no longer be necessary to travel in order to access our resources. Not only will this project provide greater accessibility to the historic materials, but it will also allow more users to view the items without damaging the original materials.
|community relationship=Through the years, the Squamish Public Library has been the unofficial holder of much of Squamish's history. It is not uncommon for people to bring in historic photos and artifacts in the hope that the library can preserve them. The library has very much been a part of this community through offering its services and protecting the heritage of the community. We are the best organization to take on this project because the community already knows of our collection and comes to us looking to add to it or explore what is already here. Currently there is a portion of the historic photos that are available on the in-house computers, but this will be the first project at the Squamish Public Library to put materials online for the public.
|measurement=Many small libraries and Museums in British Columbia are looking to create online databases for their historic materials. We are hoping that here at the Squamish Public Library we can be leaders in this project. We are documenting our project every step of the way, and will produce a report that we will freely distribute to the other groups that want to take on their own similar projects. We will attentive to the input of our staff and patrons in order to evaluate how successful the project is and what improvements need to be made.  
|participants=The digitization, cataloging and storing of the historical materials will have few participants, two or three employees of the library and possibly a few volunteers. There are several memebers of the community, as well as a few societies, who are dedicated to the preservation of Squamish history, and who are therefore willing to lend us their support. The beauty of this project is that once the materials are digitized and online there will be little upkeep in the library.  
|impact=This project directly benefits Creative Commons' mission to increase creativity in "the commons" by providing free access to the history of Squamish and its surrounding areas. These materials will benefit everyone from authors, artists, historians, and people interested in their past. The potential for who else will be affected by this project cannot be predicted. This project may inspire movies, tourism, or education programs; the limits are not set.
|tech needs=The technologies and tools that our project will use are:
   - Scanning of photos, newspaper, art and other documents
   - Transfering VHS and cassets to a digital format for internet use
   - Hosting of an online database to house the digital materials

|challenges=One of the challenges we are already dealing with is the preservation and storage of the originals that we wish to digitize. We are overcoming this challenge by contacting other organization to compare ideas and acquiring new storage facilities. Another challenge is the time it will take to scan and digitize items. With this comes the challenge of ensuring that our project has adequate funding, so that enough employees are able to work on the project. As you see, we are currently working hard to create a budget and acquire enough funding to sustain our project. 
|sustainability=The greatest costs for this project are one time start up costs and ongoing Internet hosting. To deal with these costs, we have approached other organizations in the area who are dedicated to the preservation of our history and are working out partnerships and possibilites for sharing funding. We are planning events and fundraisers that will both raise public interest and help fund our project. We have also researched other provincial, federal, and local foundations that we will be able to contact and apply for funding.   
|scalability=The final report produced at the end of the project will greatly increase the ability for other groups to take on their own digitization projects. We hope to be the "go to" people for small libraries and museums to answer their questions about sharing their materials online. By helping other groups do similar projects of their own we hope the greatly increase the historical materials that are available to the public over the next few years.
|resource needs=Support from Creative Commons would be greatly appreciated and would greatly increase the qualitiy of our final outcome for this project. Funding to help us achieve our goals of digitization and proper storage would be most beneficial to our project. Posting information about our project once it is complete would also help other organizations contact us if they wanted any help or information. 
|communication=Currently the Squamish Public Library communicates with the community through a number of different options: via our website, community bulletin board, and weekly newspaper updates.
|budget=Budget.doc
|legal=No
}}