"Life in Western Pennsylvania 1840-1970" was supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Objects:

The goal of this project is to provide online access to the photographic collections housed in the Library & Archives of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania and the collections of Meadowcroft Museum of Rural Life. The website incorporates a timeline which provides a historic perspective on the technical advancements of photography as related to Western Pennsylvanians, offers a virtual community of users valuable information on the care and handling of photographs, and includes a web-based organizational and retrieval system.

Goals:

· Create and design a policy and procedures method based on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Library and the Library of Congress digital standards to assure consistent results and a consistent quality of production.
· Digitalized and researched 819 images from Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania and Meadowcroft Museum of Rural life.
· Develop a timeline which provides a historic perspective on the technical advancements of photography as related to western Pennsylvanians, develop an informational preservation section on the care and handling of photographs
· Develop and implement an online image storage and retrieval system with a capacity to hold 20,000 records. It will provide greater visibility and access to HSWP collections, while providing end-users with a unique, informative, and visual experience.
· To provide additional access by creating item-level catalog records for the HSWP catalog with links to the digital images and by offering collection-level MARC records to the OCLC databases· Make potential users and on-site visitors aware of database, attracting 4,500 new users in the first year. Promote the website through HSWP newsletter articles, articles in other cultural and research publications, related professional organizations, press releases, a partnership with the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, and links to and from similar web sites.
· To preserve HSWP's collections of historic images and photographs, negatives by reducing the handling of original materials by patrons and staff. In the course of selecting photographs for the website, fragile and damaged photographs selected were systematically re-housed.