[Libs-Or] OHS Manuscript Catalog Conversion Completed

[Geoff Wexler]

OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY COMPLETES CONVERSION OF MANUSCRIPT CATALOG

Thanks to a generous grant from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission, the Oregon Historical Society has completed the conversion of its entire manuscript catalog - previously a manual card catalog available only to in-house users.  In the course of the project, cataloger Sara Stroman converted over 4200 records into MARC format, and these now appear in WorldCat and the Historical Society's local online catalog (http://librarycatalog.ohs.org/eosweb/opac/ ). In addition, over 600 records for unprocessed accessions were converted from an in-house database into MARC format and are also available online now.  To add even further accessibility to these materials, the project's MARC records were also converted into EAD files and submitted to the Northwest Digital Archives database (http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/nwda-search/).  This MARC to EAD conversion was facilitated by a new program, called MarcEdit, developed by Terry Reese of Oregon State University.  The entire project has been a great boon to researchers and to the Historical Society's staff.  Many previously hidden collections have now come to light, including an 1856 autograph letter from Senator Charles Sumner describing his physical condition after being attacked in the Senate chamber.

Founded in 1898, the Oregon Historical Society holds the world's largest library of Oregon-related materials.  Besides a collection of over 12,000 linear feet of manuscripts, the Society houses approximately 2.5 million photographic images, 35,000 books, 30,000 maps, 6000 oral histories, and 8.5 million feet of moving image materials.  With the completion of the manuscript catalog conversion, the Historical Society now has approximately 1/3 of its entire holdings represented online, including all books and pamphlets and a sizable proportion of map and photograph collections.  Additional projects are now being planned to convert records for all remaining materials - including artifacts -- as well as for the digitization of its image collections.


Geoff Wexler, CA, Library Director
Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR  97205
503-306-5241
Geoff.Wexler at OHS.org<mailto:Geoff.Wexler at OHS.org>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/libs-or/attachments/20120809/6a392b8b/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Glacier Bkgrd.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2743 bytes
Desc: Glacier Bkgrd.jpg
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/libs-or/attachments/20120809/6a392b8b/attachment.jpg>