Building a Digital Readiness Community of Practice is officially underway! Our intrepid Launch Committee, Recollection Wisconsin and Wisconsin Historical Society staff met on October 30 for two hours of (re)introductions, robust discussion, brainstorming and community-building. What’s this project all about? In short, we’re building a collaborative, community-driven program to foster skills and infrastructure necessary to… Read More…
Latest News
Digital Projects on the Move – How to use Digitization Kits for your Next Digitization Project
Wisconsin libraries and local history organizations are building digital collections through community engagement and circulating toolkits. These kits provide equipment, training documentation and support to digitize or create born-digital resources. Local practitioners gain hands-on experience curating digital resources without incurring the expense of building and maintaining a digitization lab. Introducing mobile or circulating toolkits through… Read More…
Curating Indigenous Digital Collections
Presented at the Upper Midwest Digital Collections Conference, November 5, 2020. Native Nations are charged with collecting, preserving, and sharing language and culture. Tribal cultural institutions not only preserve the belongings, stories, and words of their communities, they also protect tribal identity, knowledge, and sovereignty. Whereas most digital archives initiatives champion open access to content… Read More…
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Programs
Guest curator, Joe Hermolin, is the Langlade County Historical Society president (a Recollection Wisconsin content partner) and Steering Committee member. Hermolin worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for many years in the Department of Biomolecular Chemistry in the Medical School. In retirement, he moved to rural Langlade County and developed an interest in the region’s… Read More…
Family Tree Magazine Names Recollection Wisconsin Among Best State Genealogy Websites
Recollection Wisconsin has been named to Family Tree Magazine’s list of Best State Websites for Genealogy for 2020. This list recognizes the best go-to online resources for genealogy researchers in each state as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. We are honored to be named among these excellent organizations supporting genealogists across the country!… Read More…
The Toolkit: File Naming
The Toolkit brings together resources for creating, managing, and sharing digital collections to address common concerns we often hear, like this one: My digital file names are a mess. Can you help? What did I name that digital file? Where did I save that spreadsheet? I know I just scanned that photo last week! Do… Read More…
Meet Kristen Whitson!
Hi all! I’m Kristen Whitson, joining WiLS and Recollection Wisconsin as the Digital Readiness Program Assistant. I’m so excited to get started on October 1. This position is a one-year, National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)-funded initiative, Building a Wisconsin Digital Readiness Community of Practice. This collaborative, community-driven program will foster the skills and infrastructure… Read More…
Finding Relevance in the Past
by Laura Jones, UW-Milwaukee SOIS My name is Laura Jones, and as a budding Library and Information Science graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, I was itching to get my hands on some materials in order to practice the skills and theories I’ve learned throughout my coursework. After the cancellation of several summer internships… Read More…
We’ve Got the Power!
Did you know that two major energy sources – hydro and solar power – have deep roots in Wisconsin history? It’s true. You might even say a current of energy-related ingenuity surged through our great state throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Read on if we’ve ignited your curiosity. Don’t go chasing waterfalls… Hydroelectric energy,… Read More…
The Toolkit: Digitizing Yearbooks
The Toolkit brings together resources for creating, managing, and sharing digital collections to address common concerns we often hear, like this one: I’d like to digitize my community’s high school yearbooks, but I’m concerned about copyright, harmful content and privacy issues, especially if we add these to our online public collection. Who doesn’t love old… Read More…


