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Public Library Partnerships Project

In April 2014 the Public Library Partnership Project (PLPP) launched its first one-day workshop. Since then the project has continued to mature and affect public libraries across the country.

Four Digital Public Library hubs are spearheading this project for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). These hubs include Digital Commonwealth, Digital Library of Georgia (DLG), Minnesota Digital Library, and Mountain West Digital Library. All four of these hubs have hosted multiple one-day workshops to teach public librarians the fundamentals of digitization and to connect participants to resources for further assistance.

The goal of the PLPP, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is to train public librarians in digital technologies, and to digitize their content so that more people can have access to their archival materials. Ultimately the PLPP will produce two online exhibits per hub. The digitized content from public libraries in the area will provide visual context for these exhibits. This will be a way to globally showcase the materials kept in public libraries around the country.

The Role of the Digital Library of Georgia

As a DPLA hub, the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) plays a major role in training librarians around the state and digitizing their local content.

The DLG has already hosted three workshops for librarians. The first workshop was held in Macon, the second in Savannah, and the third in Augusta, Georgia. A total of 45 librarians attended these conferences where they learned digitization techniques and best practices.

Since these trainings the DLG has been planning and performing site-visits to libraries around the state. At these visits staff from the DLG pick up suitable materials for the PLPP project and bring them back to be digitized at the DLG office. So far, the DLG has completed 7 site-visits and come away with a total of 1715 objects to be digitized. Additionally, digitization has just begun on the first collection.

What’s Next…

The DLG will continue site-visits through early 2015 and digitization will continue through the spring of next year. Once the digitization has been completed the DLG will begin collaborating with public librarians to create two online exhibits that showcase the materials. These exhibits will be completed by October of 2015. The DPLA will host these online exhibits, which librarians can link to from their own public library website. The ultimate goal of this project is to publicize the valuable archival collections held by public librarians around the country through these online exhibits.

The first federally recognized Native American Heritage month was celebrated in 1990, when president George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution that designated November 1990 “National American Indian Heritage Month.” The commemorative month follows nearly a century of efforts to recognize the contributions of Native Americans to the shaping of American life.

Some Native American resources in the Digital Library of Georgia include:

The Cherokee Phoenix, the country’s first Native American newspaper, which was printed bilingually in both Cherokee and English from the Cherokee Nation capital of New Echota, Georgia from 1828 to 1834. It is available as part of the Georgia Historic Newspapers collection.

February 21, 1828 edition of the Cherokee Phoenix. Georgia Historic Newspapers Collection.

The publication “Antiquities of the southern Indians, particularly of the Georgia tribes” by Charles Colcock Jones is available as part of the Georgia-related Publications from the Internet Archive collection.

Antiquities of the southern Indians, particularly of the Georgia tribes, by Charles Colcock Jones, 1873. Georgia-related Publications from the Internet Archive collection.

The Historic Georgia Codes Collection includes the 1802 digest of the laws of the state of Georgia that includes treaties held between the United States, the state of Georgia, and Native American tribes. The document is titled “Digest of the laws of the state of Georgia, from its settlement as a British province, in 1755, to the session of the General assembly in 1800, inclusive. Comprehending all the laws passed within the above periods, and now in force, alphabetically arranged under their respective titles: also the state constitutions of 1777 and 1789, with the additions and amendments in 1795, and the constitution of 1798. To which is added, an appendix: comprising the Declaration of American independence; the Articles of confederation and perpetual union; the federal Constitution, with the amendments thereto: all the treaties between the United States and foreign nations; the treaties between the United States and the different tribes of Indians; and those between the state of Georgia and the southern and western Indians. With a copious index to the whole. Comp., arranged and digested from the original records, and under the special authority of the state. By Horatio Marbury & William H. Crawford, esqrs.”

Georgia. Digest of the laws of the state of Georgia, from its settlement as a British province, in 1755, to the session of the General assembly in 1800, inclusive. Historic Georgia Codes Collection, Alexander Campbell King Law Library.

Relics from the historic Chief Vann House historic site are available as part of the Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976 (Chief James Vann was a wealthy Georgia Cherokee leader and planter).

Vann House (Native American relics), Lane Brothers Commercial Photographers Photographic Collection, 1920-1976, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

A photograph of the Kolomoki burial mounds, in Blakely, Georgia, taken on July 1, 1945 during an anthropological visit with members of the Smithsonian Institution, is available as part of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive.

Kolomoki burial mound, Blakely, Georgia, July 1, 1945. Atlanta Journal-Constitution Photographic Archive, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.

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The Public Library Partnerships Project

November is Native American Heritage Month