Scranton Christmas Windows

In a previous post, I spoke about photos of Christmas window displays from the Household Outfitting Company that were donated to the library. You can now view them here. More will be added every few days between now and Christmas. Enjoy!

Our Project "One of Most Succesful" in PA

Yesterday I received word that our recently completed digitization planning project was selected as "one of our most successful grants for last year." This message comes from Commonwealth Libraries, the state agency that oversees the federal grant program that funded the project. They requested additional information which I provided this. I assume they will use our project in literature about the grant program and when the feds ask for examples of worthwhile endeavors funded by the program. I hope this bodes well for the "Out of the Wilderness" grant application. We will not hear about that one until the spring.

Christmas Window Displays

Here is a little digitization project we are working on. Photos of Christmas window displays at the Household Outfitting Company in Scranton dating from the 1930's to the 1950's were donated to the library. They were discovered during a renovation project. We are in the processing of scanning them. Our plan is to have them available on the library's web site in time for Christmas. Here is a sample.

Flickr Commons

If you are not aware of Flickr Commons, you may went to check their web site. It is a way for organizations like ours to make our historical photographs available on the web. I have sent them an inquiry. Apparently, not just anyone can sign up so I am trying to determine the criteria. I was looking through the collection of photos here at the library. I am going to scan some of them into TIFF. If nothing else, it, it will get us thinking about standards, procedures, and metadata.

Grant Information

I have been talking about "the grant" for several months so, for those of you who not have been here from the beginning, let me back up and tell you what it is all about. We are requesting $35,000 through a Library Services and Technology Act grant. This is federal money intended to improve local library services. The competitive grant program is administered by the State; specifically, the Bureau of Commonwealth Libraries. The grant we applied for will allow us to digitize 67 items from the collections of the Scranton Public Library, Lackawanna Historical Society, Steamtown National Historic Site, Anthracite Heritage Museum, and Times-Tribune newspaper library. The name of the proposed project is "Out of the Wilderness: The Development and Industrialization of the Scranton Area 1850-1865." We plan to digitize entire books published during or pertaining to that era, photographs, maps, letters, business documents, and even a cane inscribed with the names of Civil War veterans. The grant will pay for the digitization of these items, a digital archiving management system, attendant hardware to be installed here at the library (and designed to accommodate this and future projects). metadata entry, and publicity. We should find out about the grant in the spring of 2010. The project would commence in June of 2010 and we would be completed by May 31 2011. By then all 67 items would be accessible via the Internet. Between now and the spring, there are some other things we can do. Stay tuned...

Test Posting

Now that the grant application has been submitted, I intend to devote more attention to this blog and use it to update everyone on some projects we can work on between now and when the grant recipients are announced in the spring.

Grant Update and Library Funding

Dear Partners,
It has been awhile since I provided an update. The LSTA grant application, which involves federal money administered by Commonwealth Libraries in Harrisburg, is not due until early September, but given the intensity of the application and the nature of summer (vacations etc.), I am trying to get a head start. The people who evaluate the applications want to make sure that the applicant knows what is involved in a project like this so the application asks for a lot of detailed information. As a result, I have been in touch with
vendors, our consultants from Lyrasis, and Kristen at the University of Scranton (Thanks, Kristen!) about issues like scanner types, file size, bit depth, and metadata creation.

There is one issue that I would like to alert you about with the understanding that many of you are having your own problems. On the library’s web site is some information about proposed cuts in state funding for libraries.In this statement, mention is made of lost LSTA dollars. This is the money that would fund our grant so it would be appreciated if, while you and your supporters are communicating with legislators and other contacts at the state level, you can put in a good word for libraries. I would be happy to return the favor if you can provide some specific information on the kind of cuts you are facing.

Anyway, the application process is ongoing. As the summer progresses, I may need some additional information from some of you. If this is the case, I will give you plenty of advance notice. As always, thank you for your interest and cooperation.