NCDHC Strategic Themes, 2023-2025

Theme 1

A Collaborative Work Ethic

Work collaboratively and flexibly to support people who are collecting and preserving materials documenting North Carolina’s cultural heritage. How we’ll do this:

  • Continue to provide digitization of and digital access to the materials our partners select for sharing online.
  • Continue to share our experiences and workflows with those who are planning for and pursuing their own digital initiatives.
  • Work within our network of relationships to make connections and foster collaborations in digital initiatives throughout North Carolina.
  • Work with units within Wilson Special Collections Library as well as external institutions and organizations to increase the range of services and opportunities we offer to our partners.
  • Come up with creative ways to sustain services during the upcoming Wilson Special Collections Library infrastructure project.
Theme 2

Inclusive and Diverse Collections

Engage with a diverse community of organizations and users to support inclusivity in digital collections. How we’ll do this:

  • Prioritize projects that elevate a wide variety of North Carolina voices by putting those efforts ahead of others and/or committing more resources to them.
  • Help organizations from communities that are underrepresented in digital collections in reaching their specific digital initiative goals.
  • Continue to encourage our partners to select materials documenting underrepresented communities when choosing what to have scanned.
Theme 3

Accessible and Engaging Content

Ensure DigitalNC.org quickly and accurately connects all users with cultural heritage materials that meet their research or recreational needs. How we’ll do this:

  • Learn from and share resources with our user audiences, including but not limited to local historians and genealogists, K-12 educators, and students of all ages.
  • Responsibly maintain DigitalNC.org by advocating for accessibility improvements, monitoring costs compared to benefits, and producing transcriptions to increase access.
Theme 4

Expanding Newspaper Content

Meet partner and user demand for open access to more digitized newspapers. How we’ll do this:

  • Continue to explore a distributed newspaper digitization model, with scanning occurring at other locations and the acceptance of born-digital newspaper content.
  • Work with partners to identify non-microfilmed and at-risk print newspaper titles, particularly from underrepresented communities, for digitization and online access.

Updated March 2023