Community Collaboration: Preserving Community History in Freeborn County
The Freeborn County Historical Society Library will be collaborating with the City of Albert Lea to scan, preserve and store public records from the City of Albert Lea. By scanning the documents they will be made accessible to the society, the city and to the public as permitted by law.
30 participated
Currently the records are in storage with little or no access available. By working together we will be giving access to city officials, researchers, the Freeborn County Historical Society and anyone who has an interest in the 150+ years of community history. By scanning them they will be available as a digital image for research and we will also be housing the paper copy in our new archive room which will insure they are preserved in a climate controlled area and available for future generations.
We will collect comments from the general public that attend our power point presentation and city officials to assure the availability of the records are enhanced and meet the needs of city officials and local researchers.
Most attendees were not aware what city records are public. Comments included, but are not limited to the following: impressed with work completed, great to have everything organized and available for use, project well worth the money, interesting to see details necessary to make the project happen. We feel by having the public presentations those that attended will help us to spread the word. The city made contact with the local television station and they did a short story on our project for the local news and I was contacted today and our local newspaper is also going to do a follow up story after we ran an ad for the public presentation. We believe we have accomplished our expected outcomes.
Only 13% of the attendees were aware the records we scanned were public. 63% were aware the museum has a library and the same percentage said they would be more likely to research in our library verses researching at the city offices. Through our advertisement of the presentation, we are now getting additional free press to let our community know what we have completed with our Community Collaboration Grant and that we are an important asset to the community. By scanning these records for future generations we are preserving our local history.
Freeborn County Historical Society Library, City of Albert Lea, SELCO