Project also creates public access to thousands of historic Brooklyn photos
(L-R) The Brooklyn Public Library and the Brooklyn Museum
(L-R) Pratt Manhattan Campus, home to SILS, and the Brooklyn Historical Society
The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) has received a $971,407 grant to prepare information professionals as digital managers for cultural heritage institutions, a field that is growing as historical institutions grapple with how to preserve, and make public, their hard-copy archives.
The grant was awarded by the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and enables Pratt to collaborate with three other major Brooklyn institutions — the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Brooklyn Historical Society — on a three-year program known as Project CHART (Cultural Heritage, Access, Research and Technology).
In each year of Project CHART — which launched this fall — six library science master’s students will intern at the Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Brooklyn Historical Society to digitize photos, apply metadata such as the image's resolution, and add other digital cataloguing tags to create digital archives of Brooklyn historical photographs.
In addition, through Project CHART, SILS will develop a new Digital Management certificate program that introduces new roles and responsibilities for information professionals in the digital age, and will serve as a new curricular model for digital management.
“We feel honored and inspired to have been awarded this IMLS grant,” says Tula Giannini, dean of SILS and Project CHART director. “It opens up a world of opportunities for developing a cutting-edge curriculum in digital management for cultural heritage institutions, that will prepare our students to assume leadership roles in advancing the digital landscape for museums, libraries, and archives.”
"In addition, this grant means all three institutions will be able to use these valuable digital assets for exhibitions, education, and outreach by providing access to their cultural heritage and history,” Giannini adds.
Project CHART builds on earlier collaborations between SILS and each of the partners, whose historical photographic collections represent their rich holdings. The Brooklyn Public Library has an extensive image collection documenting Brooklyn in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including photographs of subway construction and early immigrant neighborhoods.
The Brooklyn Historical Society has images from the 1977 Blackout as well as photographs of Brooklyn places and residents dating from the 1800s through the 1970s.
Images to be digitized from the Brooklyn Museum, one of the oldest and largest art museums in the country, include several documentary photographs, lantern slides, and postcards that feature Brooklyn buildings that no longer exist.
The partners will also produce a Web portal, hosted by the Brooklyn Public Library, which will use social media to provide public access to the digital photographic collections of the three institutions as well as content illuminating the social and cultural contexts and significance of the collections.
“Brooklyn Public Library is thrilled,” says Linda E. Johnson, the library’s interim executive director. “Project CHART will provide the Library's users unprecedented access to over 5,000 historical photographs from our rich collections and ensure that future librarians are well prepared to manage our digital assets.”
Deborah Schwartz, president of the Brooklyn Historical Society, adds: “The Brooklyn Historical Society is delighted to have an opportunity to work with three of Brooklyn's most distinguished educational and cultural institutions, helping to educate professional archivists of the future, while at the same time creating greater public access to our significant photography collection.”
Arnold L. Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum, says “The Brooklyn Museum is delighted to continue its collaboration with Pratt Institute in providing an excellent training ground for their School of Information and Library Science graduate students. We are also pleased to partner with our colleagues at the Brooklyn Historical Society and the Brooklyn Public Library in digitizing an important group of historic photographs of Brooklyn from our respective collections.”
Photos by Diana Pau. Photo of the Brooklyn Historical Society courtesy of Brooklyn Historical Society.