David Wright, Associate Dean, Learning Resources, Surry Community College
This year marks the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s 10th anniversary, and to celebrate we’ll be posting 10 stories from 10 stakeholders about how NCDHC has impacted their organizations.
Today’s 10 for 10 Q&A is from David Wright, Associate Dean for Learning Resources at Surry Community College. We’ve partnered with Surry CC (Library home page | NCDHC contributor page) to digitize yearbooks, newspapers, and genealogical collections. Surry CC Library has been active in digitizing a lot of Surry County history, making connections with area groups and institutions to share their history online at Surry County Digital Heritage. Read below for more about our partnership with Surry Community College.
What impact has NCDHC had on your institution and/or on a particular audience that means a lot to you?
NCDHC has been an advocate, a source of information about the process of digitization, and has provided our rural community with the tools to bring a digital history project to fruition. Surry Community College has benefited from the expertise of the NCDHC as well as a partner in digitizing yearbooks from the county. At the beginning of our digital history project, I felt like I had a sounding board (& expertise) in Lisa Gregory and the staff at NCDHC. A project of the size and scope of the Surry County Digital Heritage had not been attempted anywhere in our area. We needed good advice and found it at NCDHC.
Do you have a specific user story (maybe your own!) about how DigitalNC has boosted research or improved access to important information?
The “yearbook project” that NCDHC has helped us bring together is an amazing resource. It has been a lot of footwork and many deliveries and pickups in Chapel Hill, but the libraries in Surry County can refer patrons who inquire about yearbooks to DigitalNC, where all the yearbooks are gathered in one place and are easy to browse and use and not scattered in locations throughout the county. As in many counties, before school consolidation, there were lots of community schools, many that were K-12. This is a valuable resource for genealogists, other family history researchers, and just fun browsing for people who remember the community schools.
If you were asked to “describe what makes NCDHC great” in a few words, what would they be?
A dedicated and helpful staff who want to preserve the historical records of communities.
