Preserving Our Heritage and History: Maximizing Partnerships to Professionally Archive and Manage a Sizable Forest Service Historical Collection

Summary

The Black Hills National Forest (South Dakota and Wyoming) created the Historical Collections Archival Project (Project) to grapple with an issue that practically every U.S. Forest Service unit will eventually encounter: the proper long-term archiving of their unit’s historical collections. The Project objective is to digitize all images and selected print documents from the Forest’s extant historical collection. The materials are professionally archived under agreement at the Leland D. Case Library for Western Historical Studies on the campus of Black Hills State University, Spearfish, South Dakota. The collection includes an estimated 166 cubic feet of materials (64,000 items) that document the history and heritage of the Black Hills National Forest. The majority of the collection has been inventoried and properly processed. The ultimate objective is to provide free and easy access to the collections by researchers, students, U.S. Forest Service personnel, and other interested members of the American public and beyond. This paper cites notable Project achievements and stresses that Project success would not have been possible without developing multiple partnerships with local cooperators.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Celebrating NHPA 50th the US Forest Service Way - It's All about Partnerships!

Keywords

Spatial Coverage