Chicago History Museum

Purpose: Sustaining Cultural Heritage The Chicago Historical Society (CHS) will complete retrospective conversion of cataloging for its library holdings of monographs and serials from catalog cards to electronic records and will make these records available to staff and the general public through an online public access catalog. The library collection is the heart of CHS's research resources. It provides data central to the management of all CHS collections and provides context and meaning for researchers who are seeking information on other artifacts in the collections. The records conversion project will create new online records for approximately 83 percent of the library holdings currently described only on cards, including approximately 25,000 monographs and serials. The goals of the project are (1) to assist staff and the public in researching relationships among museum artifacts and library documentation; (2) to allow staff to manage library holdings more efficiently; (3) to make a superb catalog of publications related to the history of the Chicago metropolitan area available online; and (4) to share copies of these records with other repositories through the Online Computer Library Center.