Credits

Building a Statewide Digital Readiness Community of Practice 

In 2020-2021, staff and volunteers representing cultural heritage institutions across Wisconsin met regularly to identify priorities, plan events, and provide feedback on content created to support the digital readiness needs of Wisconsin’s public history practitioners. This Digital Readiness Community of Practice Launch Committee was central to the development of the Digital Readiness Levels and the Digital Readiness Toolkit.

Committee members:

  • Chris Allen, Kenosha County Historical Society
  • Ben Barbera, Milwaukee County Historical Society
  • Bonnie Byrd, Waukesha County Historical Society
  • Michelle Gobert, Forest County Historical and Genealogical Society
  • Jennifer Gurske, Madison Trust for Historic Preservation
  • Joe Hermolin, Langlade County Historical Society
  • Cheryl Kern-Simirenko, Stanley Area Historical Society
  • Janean Mollet-Van Beckum, History Center of Washington County
  • Tammy Schutz, Barron County Historical Society/Pioneer Village Museum
  • Katie Stilp, Appleton Public Library
  • Robin Untz, Lake Mills-Aztalan Historical Society

Committee advisors and coordinators:

  • Kristen Leffelman, Wisconsin Historical Society
  • Janet Seymour, Wisconsin Historical Society
  • Vicki Tobias, WiLS
  • Kristen Whitson, WiLS

Reviewers

Thank you to the staff of the Office of Programs and Outreach at the Wisconsin Historical Society, including Janet Seymour, Kristen Leffelman, Liz Arbuckle, and Amy Norlin, for their roles in content development, promotion, and as liaisons to the Wisconsin Council for Local History.

Thank you to Bronwen Masemann, Masemann Research Services, for contributing to the sections of this Toolkit focused on audiovisual resources and for providing overall feedback. These contributions were made possible thanks to a grant to the Community Archiving Workshop (CAW), a project of the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA), from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS RE-85-18-0039-18).

Much gratitude goes to the many experts who provided feedback on drafts of the Digital Readiness Levels, Digital Project Planning Worksheet, and Toolkit as they evolved.

Beta Testers

  • Sarah Mueller, Carthage College
  • Judy Jones, Judge Eghart House
  • Theresa Hebert, The Highground Veterans Memorial Park
  • Maryanne O’Dowd, Sister Bay Liberty Grove Fire Department Oral History Project
  • Sarah Lundquist, WiLS/Curating Indigenous Digital Collections 

Models and Inspirations

The Digital Readiness Toolkit and related resources build on and borrow from several foundational resources that make digitization and digital preservation best practices accessible to libraries, archives, museums, and historical societies of all sizes. 

We are grateful to the following programs and initiatives for their leadership in this area:

  • Sustainable Heritage Network, Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation, Washington State University
  • National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) of the Digital Library Federation (DLF) at the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR)
  • Preserving digital Objects With Restricted Resources (Digital POWRR) Project
  • Standards and Excellence Program for History Organizations (STEPS), American Association for State and Local History (AASLH)

Funding

This project was made possible by grants to WiLS (Wisconsin Library Services) from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the granting arm of the National Archives and Records Administration:

  • Planning a Community of Practice for Digital Readiness in Wisconsin, NHPRC Archives Collaboratives Planning Grant RJ-102848, 2019
  • Building a Statewide Digital Readiness Community of Practice, NHPRC Archives Collaboratives Implementation Grant RJ-103067, 2021

Citation

© 2022 WiLS (Wisconsin Library Services, Inc.) 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. WiLS provides this Toolkit for free use, sharing, copying, distribution and adaptation with attribution. 

Suggested citation:
Pfotenhauer, Emily, Vicki Tobias, and Kristen Whitson, eds. 2022. Digital Readiness Toolkit. Madison, WI: WiLS. https://recollectionwisconsin.org/toolkit