[MassHistPres] This question is directed to city/town historical societies

[Cindy Brockway]

The Trustees has had great experiences with the Digital Commonwealth.  We
have chosen which group of images to scan, we have prepared the metadata
required to properly search the images, and the exposure has brought more
people to our archives as they want to see original images and seek more
information than available through the Digital Commonwealth system.  It has
also helped to bring us more archives through folks that realize that their
family photos and heritage materials are interesting and link to other
collections in our archives.  I would discuss this more with the Library and
the Digital Commonwealth staff as I am sure they have more stories to tell.

Cindy Brockway
Program Director, Cultural Resources
The Trustees (of Reservations)

-----Original Message-----
From: masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu
[mailto:masshistpres-bounces at cs.umb.edu] On Behalf Of Daniel Bibel
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2016 5:23 PM
To: masshistpres at cs.umb.edu
Subject: [MassHistPres] This question is directed to city/town historical
societies

Please excuse this if it is misdirected!

I am a member of both the Historical Commission and the town's Historical
Society.  The Society has been approached by folks from Digital Commonwealth
with an offer to scan and digitize some (or many) of the Society's books and
papers.  As I understand it, Digital Commonwealth would do the scanning at
no cost, and would also host the digital images, also at no cost. The
Society would be able to link from its web site to the documents.

One of the members of the Society is very much opposed to this, saying in
essence that if we made our documents available on line, people would have
no reason to come in to the Society (which is open only 2 hours a week).

My question - is this person correct?  Does makes a Society's documents
available on line have a negative effect on visits or membership?

Any information on this would be greatly appreciated!

Dan Bibel
Medfield Historical Commission (and Historical Society)


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