Northwest Digital Heritage

A project of the Oregon Heritage Commission, the State Library of Oregon, and the Washington State Library.



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Northwest Digital Heritage

Supporting digital heritage efforts in the Northwest

A partnership between the Washington State Library, the Oregon Heritage Commission, and the State Library of Oregon, Northwest Digital Heritage leverages existing infrastructure and best practices to enhance access to libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations throughout Oregon and Washington. Services and support include:

  • Digitization training and digital asset management guidance
  • Best practices for metadata creation and remediation
  • Digital collections hosting and consultation
  • Grants and funding opportunities for community digital projects
  • On-site digitization services

Northwest Digital Heritage also operates a service hub of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), which helps bring these unique and local Northwest collections to a wider audience. Funding provided in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Dysart School, class photo, Kittitas County, Washington, circa 1900-1909; Ellensburg Heritage, BBS454ADysart School, class photo, Kittitas County, Washington, circa 1900-1909. From the Ellensburg Heritage Collection.

Participation

Whether you already have robust digital collections available online or you are starting from scratch, Northwest Digital Heritage invites any Oregon or Washington-based museum, public library, tribe, or organization with cultural heritage materials. Academic institutions that are members of the Orbis Cascade Alliance (OCA) should contact OCA's Unique & Local Content Program for more details about their own DPLA service hub.

A complete list of current Northwest Digital Heritage partnering organizations can be found below.

Corn Variety trial, Roza, Washington, 1955;  Prosser Heritage, WSUP280Corn Variety trial, Roza, Washington, 1955. From Prosser Heritage Collection.

Policies, Guidelines, & Best Practices

Organizations wishing to partipate should consult our new Northwest Digital Heritage Metadata Requirements (v1.0, July 2021) for basic information about what we will need for DPLA participation.

The NWDH Content Policy & Collection Readiness Checklist also provides some additional context on eligibility, rights & permissions, and other collections-related information.

For more guidance on creating well-formed, item-level metadata records, please see the latest version (v3.1 from August 2018) of the Washington Rural Heritage Project Metadata Guidelines. Existing collections may need some metadata cleanup in order to meet NWDH standards and DPLA requirements.

Your selection process and metadata creation and remediation activities should also be informed by the DPLA’s Membership IDEAS statement (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Access, and Social Justice) and the DPLA's Statement on Potentially Harmful Content.

We are also excited to share instructions on how to integrate Northwest Digital Heritage content from the DPLA to Wikipedia! Please see this document, Northwest Digital Heritage - Working with Wikimedia Pipeline Content for more information.

DPLA Usage Statistics

Partnering Agencies

State Library of Oregon, Library Support and Development Services logo Oregon Heritage Commission, Oregon State Parks logo Washington State Library, Office of the Secretary of State logo


With support from:

Digital Public Library of America logo

With funding, in part, from:

Institute of Museum and Library Services logo

Join our email listserv

Join the NW Digital Projects listserv hosted by the State Library of Oregon to get updates about Northwest Digital Heritage.

Reach out directly

We're excited to work with you, but please note that as Oregon and Washington state employees, our schedules and ability to travel are still currently impacted by COVID-19. We plan to provide limited, on-site digitization services and in-person consulting as soon as guidelines allow.

For Oregon libraries:

Address


State Library of Oregon
250 Winter St NE, Salem, OR 97301

Email


Ross Fuqua
Data & Digital Projects Consultant
ross.fuqua@slo.oregon.gov

Phone


(503) 378-2525

For Oregon museums & heritage organizations:

Address


Oregon Heritage Commission
725 Summer St NE, Salem, OR 97301

Email


Katie Henry
Oregon Heritage Commission Coordinator
katie.henry@oregon.gov

Phone


For Washington organizations:

Address


Washington State Library
6880 Capitol Blvd SE, Tumwater, WA 98501

Email


Evan Robb
Digital Repository Librarian
evan.robb@sos.wa.gov

Phone