Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania (Heinz History Center)

The Heinz History Center will process, rehouse, and digitize the African American collections held in their library and archives. These collections document African American life and culture in the Western Pennsylvania region. The project will involve hiring an archivist who will work with the center’s staff to undertake the processing of the collection, improve the preservation of the collection by rehousing them in acid-free containers, and digitize and create metadata to make the collections freely accessible to the public on HistoricPittsburgh.org. In addition to improving the preservation and accessibility of the collection, this project will result in the development of programming and resources that utilize the collections, including finding aids, public presentations, educational programs, articles and blog posts, as well as the creation of six Smithsonian Digital Learning Lab collections.