More than 40 reels of 8mm film were shot by the prolific photographer John Runk of his home down during 1947 through 1954. These films depict life in the Stillwater area post-World War Two and were donated to the Washington County Historical Society by Runk himself.
The project received an MHS Grants-in-Aid award in 2008 to enable the transfer of the raw 8mm film footage to digital tape and DVD.
MHCG funding allowed John Runk's little known motion pictures to be more broadly accessible to the public through edited down highlights in DVD format.
The Minnesota Genealogical Society (MGS) purchased three microfilm cabinets and two cases of microfilm storage boxes. The existing microfilm collection has been made more efficient, accessible and secure. There is also increased storage capacity for the future growth of the collection. The new cabinets have been placed on the MGS library floor.
Minnesota Statutes from 1982-1996 were scanned and with the help of OCR (optical character recognition) software, were made available and searchable on the Revisor's office pages of the Minnesota legislature's web site. This is the first phase of the scanning Minnesota Statutes project.
This online availability improves access to legal materials, previously available only through books. Online versions of the statutes also serve as a preservation method for these records.
MNopedia is an award-winning online encyclopedia of Minnesota created by MNHS, designed for use by a general audience, teachers and students. In 2016, MNopedia added many new essays covering everything from the history of Northwest Airlines to American Indian boarding schools. MNopedia also surpassed 500 articles and 1.5 million page views on its website this year. Since the project launched in 2011, the website has had 408,123 unique visitors.
A digital microfilm/fiche scanner system was purchased and installed at the Hibbing Community College library. Archived resources, including newspaper materials, are now more accessible to students, faculty and staff as well as being available for inter-library loan requests. HCC's resources compliment those resources held at regional libraries and museums thereby serving the extended public as well.
This will be an after school mixed age and ability Art Club. Under the guidance of two local artists we will research a demolished past Public Art project, namely the "Grain Elevator Mural." We will then design a Public Art mural for the Community Educati
MNHS cares for more than 100,000 cubic feet of hard-copy government records and manuscript collections dating from the territorial period to the present. To access the vast majority of these holdings, researchers must currently visit the History Center or make other special arrangements. In FY16, MNHS began piloting small projects to develop and test workflow and to identify and plan equipment and space needs. In FY17, MNHS will add staff to begin responding to patron requests for manuscript and state archives digitization in advance of a full rollout of the scan-on-demand process next year.
To complete the state’s only mobile oral history recording studio. The Scott County Agricultural Society will completed the road-worthy customized trailer to make it a sound-proof, climate-controlled recording studio.
Working with the Somali Museum of Minnesota, MNHS is developing an exhibit that will help Minnesotans understand this recent immigrant community. The exhibit will showcase cultural traditions and material culture of Somalia, cover the immigrant experience in the journey to Minnesota and will review the accomplishments and cultural adaptations Somali people have made since making Minnesota home.
This church, built in 1901 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, had its electrical service updated. The main circuit breaker and subfeed panels were replaced. An outdoor electrical outlet was replaced and several more outlets were added to the interior. Larger supply wires were installed to improve capacity for future handicap accessible improvements to the building.
To offer new arts access and cultural heritage programming to both children and adults at the Wadena County Fair. Programming will include demonstrations in depression era toy making, finger knitting, bead work, leather work, growing container gardens, and a presentation on hoop dance, a Native American cultural performance.
A collaboration between the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and the White Earth Nation. The long term goal of this grant is to build whole families of first generation speakers. The short-term goals are to enable the partners to continue forward with their language revitalization efforts by providing digital media support, purchase digital high definition audio and video equipment. Additionally, they will host an elders and youth gathering.
The Wilder Foundation Archive was made more accessible to the public as a result of building on initial efforts by organizing and preserving fifty-nine (59) cubic feet of archival materials. The materials were inventoried and digitized, preservation issues were addressed and remedied and finding aids were created and made available. Some historic documents were donated to the Minnesota Historical Society, the University of Minnesota Social Work Archive, Stillwater Historical Society and the NPRHA Archives East End.
To produce a short video introduction about the history, architecture, and use of the Horace Irvine House (Minnesota Governor's Residence), listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Digital maps were created depicting landscape change in Minnesota from the 1850s to today as well as maps that show predicted change in forest tree composition in northern Minnesota due to climate change.
A research phase was completed on background information related to creating a new exhibit on Mower County during World War II. To perform the research, their curator's hours were increased to determine exhibit themes, create a tentative floor plan for the exhibit, and determine cost estimates for an implementation project.
Their curator was able to identify themes relating to Mower County's contributions to World War II.
