The State Library has recently announced an award of $110,000 to the Duke Divinity School Library, in collaboration with other campus libraries and project partners from UNC and Wake Forest University. The Religion in North Carolina Digital Collection will pull together, preserve, and provide digital access to 8,000 volumes of publications from religious bodies across the state of North Carolina. Partner institutions will contribute the largest portion of the items to be digitized, but the rest will come from all 100 counties (public libraries, colleges and archives) in North Carolina. The materials to be digitized range from local church histories to periodicals to clergy biographies in addition to ephemeral materials like cookbooks, event programs, and directories. Researchers and the wider public have been previously limited in their access to these collections due to the scattered locations of the items. Gathering together these materials into one digital collection will help researchers locate and make better sense of North Carolina’s diverse religious heritage. Read the Divinity School’s recent press release here.
This grant is made possible through funding from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.
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