Pella Community Memory Database

Pella Public Library is pleased to provide you with this free monthly newsletter keeping you informed on the progress being made on the Pella Community Memory Database (PCMD), a new grant-funded project sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). We hope you will find this newsletter informative!

Happy New Year from the Pella Community Memory Database project! We're pleased to be continuing on this journey thanks to the support from a federal Institute of Museum and Library Services grant, as well as the support of dozens of local volunteers. We've got lots of goodies in this edition of the newsletter, so let's get started!

We're super pleased to announce a major milestone in the initial two-year PCMD project - 50% completion! As of the second week of this year, we've scanned 2930 documents, which is more than halfway to the project goal of 5500. Of course, we won't stop there - we're currently researching funding options for continuing this project beyond August 2021. Other statistics of note are that we've had over 21,000 pageviews since the beginning of the project, and we're currently managing a server full of original files that is almost a half-Terabyte in size! If you'd like to view more project statistics, visit the Project Status page!

Many of you have either expressed interest in volunteering, or have actually volunteered with, the PCMD project in the past. It was with deep regret that the volunteer tasks had to be suspended for most of last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, we took the opportunity to re-think and simplify the volunteer program, making it truly adaptable and flexible to the new work-from-home reality.

We are pleased to announce the return of a new, improved, volunteer program! We've re-worked both our at-home and on-site volunteer programs, details of which can be found on the volunteer pages.

Our recommendation at this time is that all volunteers consider pursuing our Crowdsourcing (work-from-home) option. This allows you to volunteer as much or as little as you want, on a schedule you set, from anywhere with an Internet connection. In less than 20 minutes you can be set up and ready to volunteer with the PCMD project; enhancing item descriptions, identifying unidentified photographs, transcribing documents and (if able) translating documents from the Dutch.

You decide what you want to work on! We take care of the rest. Again, follow the simple directions on the crowdsourcing volunteer page to get started.

The Waechter Lumber Company, fire, ruins, and the Pella Corp. Training Center that came after.

Fresh from the Pella Historical Society and Museums collection and ready for digitization are two boxes of awesome photographs of Pella's downtown area. Organized by street, the photos are a window into the past history of Pella and an invaluable tool to research how Pella's downtown sector grew into what it is today. That, and they're just really fun to look at! We hope to have these start appearing on the PCMD sometime in the month of February. Stay tuned!

Believe it or not, the Pella Community Memory Database project has been active for almost a year and a half! Time flies when you're having fun, but the realization is upon us that the initial federal grant will run out on August 31, 2021 and that funding source will dry up. Currently we are in the process of looking at grant opportunities which will hopefully result in the continuation of this project beyond 2021.

If you like what you see and you believe that this project is a worthwhile cause which will preserve Pella's history for future generations, we encourage you to make a contribution to this project. Different ways in which you may contribute can be found on the contributions page. We thank you for your ongoing support of this project and we look forward to being here to preserve the past, far into the future.

This newsletter is published monthly with funding from an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant.

For more information, please contact:

Chris Brown

Project Director

Pella Public Library

603 Main Street

Pella, IA 50219

641-628-4268

cbrown@cityofpella.com