With the help of Arts and Cultural Heritage funds, the Minnesota Historical Society is the first institution of its kind to fully digitize its entire oral history collection. This project promotes the discovery and use of the Minnesota Historical Society's oral history collection by digitizing 2,000 hours of recorded audio and making more existing oral histories available to the public on the "Becoming Minnesotan" website, education.mnhs.org/immigration. This collection represents a rich and unique source of history through the experiences of Minnesotans in their own words.
This project will establish a web-based permitting system to capture essential water appropriation information. The system will include an online permit application process for water use and other permits. The online system will streamline the permitting process for applicants and significantly reduce staff time correcting and managing permit applications and water use reports that are incomplete or have incorrectly calculated permit fees. The use of technology in the application and reporting process will also eliminate staff time needed to enter data and scan and route documents.