Monday, November 29, 2010

Waunakee Public Library Digitizes its Local History Photo Collection


Katie Brenner, a staff member at the Waunakee Public Library, shared the following information with me about "Historic Waunakee...in Pictures".  (Read more about Katie here.)

From early passenger trains at the Waunakee Depot, to the humble beginnings of famous Victorian poetess Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the new Waunakee local history photo collection, “Historic Waunkee …in pictures,” has something for everyone. Since Waunakee, Wisconsin does not have a historical society, most of the known local history collection is housed at the Waunakee Public Library. The library’s first step in digitizing the collection was to scan over 850 photographs that accumulated in the files over the years. The photographs include two village history slide presentations with detailed captions put together in the 1970’s, a village scrapbook, a substantial number of photos from the late 1960’s, and very old family and class photos, many with no captions.

The next phase of the project is to get the community involved in both identifying photos and contributing new ones. The library plans to accomplish this by giving a presentation of Waunakee local history created with photos from the collection at the Senior Center, Village Center, schools, etc. Flyers and bookmarks were distributed asking for help with the task of identifying people, places, and things in the photos through email, waunakeepubliclibrary@gmail.com or phone, 608-849-4217. The library purchased a laptop with a mobile scanner, and will schedule programs at the Senior Center and other locations where community members can bring in their own historic photos to be scanned and added to the collection. The first slide presentation will be Wednesday, January 12, 2011, 7:00pm at the Waunakee Village Center. A library volunteer will be present with the mobile scanner, and residents are encouraged to bring their historic Waunakee photographs
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