SPRINGFIELD — Secretary of State and State Librarian Jesse White announced today that the Institute of Museum and Library Services has awarded two grants to the Illinois State Library for major digitization and electronic document preservation projects.
White said the first grant, totaling $259,170, will allow the State Library to work with the Illinois State Geological Survey to digitize and provide Internet access for an estimated 11,500 individual Illinois black-and-white, historical aerial photographic prints. The prints were originally filmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture from 1936-1941. White said such items are of interest to historians, developers, surveyors, engineers, and urban planners.
A second grant totaling $423, 902 will allow the State Library and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to deploy software developed in Illinois to help other states preserve electronic public documents, improve the software, and provide access to other state electronic documents.
"I am proud that the Illinois State Library is one of our nation's leaders in digitizing and preserving important historical items," White said. "Only nine Leadership grants were awarded to Illinois libraries, and the State Library received two of the grants. Modern technology is allowing us to preserve these documents forever. In the past, these documents might have been thrown away. As the library serving state government and as preserver of state government publications, the State Library is also paving the way for every state agency to eventually provide permanent access to the public of all of their important electronic documents."
White encouraged persons interested in learning more about digitization and electronic document preservation to log onto the Illinois Digital Archives at http://www.eliillinois.org/ida/.
PROGRAMS