INCOL

I attended the INCOL workshop on Wednesday, May 06, 2009 at the MAC Museum. Presenters included Janet Hauck from Whitworth University and Trevor James Bond from WSU. The topic was the Northwest Digital Archives (NWDA); its purpose, origin, development and future.

The Northwest Digital Archives, http://nwda.wsulibs.wsu.edu/, provides access to descriptions of primary historical resources in the Northwestern United States, including correspondence, diaries, maps, pamphlets, photographs, and other ephemera. These primary sources reside in any of 21 different college or university libraries, historical societies and archives in Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana.

The “descriptions” provided by NWDA lead a reseacher to primary material in the subject s/he is seeking. As most of this material is stored in boxes and files, the need for accurate and descriptive indexing is critical. If, when searching, there is a document you wish to see, you may then contact the institution that holds it and an image scan can be sent to you via email. In some instances, a link to the image will be on the record itself. There are very few images already linked and the purpose of the site is primarily for finding documents, but as scans are done, links are retained.

So, how does this work? Janet Hauck from Whitworth related a recent request that was filled by this service. Someone, who knew that Father’s Day was founded in Spokane in the early part of the 20th century had some related questions. Who was the founder, what local church was involved in its founding and why was the third Sunday of June selected? Consulting the database, she discovered the founder of the holiday was a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd who was associated with Knox Presbyterian Church (then named Centenary Church) in 1910. As for the reason for the date, Janet found the answer in a letter from Sonora Dodd in the Whitworth Archives relating that she wanted it to be June 4 in honor of her father’s birthday anniversary, but the Church Board was late in approving her request, so she picked the nearest Sunday, which happened to be the third of the month! So it was because of a slow moving Church Board that Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. Very fun.

The Papal Bull that Trevor brought from WSU was a big hit as well!

This was a great workshop and showcased a resource we all should be aware of.