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

[Judy Markland]

Whately has had no negative experience from having digital information on 
line - in fact, precisely the opposite.

Our website has attracted many individuals interested in genealogical and 
family research and they often come to see if we have other materials about 
their families that aren't available on line.  They also frequently 
purchase the reprinted edition of one of our town histories (at a cost of 
$50), even though it is digitized and available on line.  We also find 
digital searches of the documents to be much more thorough than relying on 
the printed indices,table of contents, and our own memories.

And our museum is open 3 hours/week.

Judy Markland

At 05:23 PM 3/23/2016, Daniel Bibel wrote:
>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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