I’d like to to talk about building an online local history collection of audio and video interviews, photos, written narratives, recipes, records, etc. What is doable when there’s lots of interest but no budget or time, tech resources and skills are limited, and people are geographically dispersed?

Hello! I am the Museum Education and Tour Coordinator at the Oberlin Heritage Center.  We are a small historical society / museum in Oberlin, OH and we just a launched a new website.  I have three big questions I’ll be asking at THATcamp:  1.  How can a small musuem/archive such as ours connect with educators to facilitate student digital projects (I like the sound of Mr. Gutowski’s 72 OVI project)?  2. How are small non-profits using web 2.0 and social networking to their greatest advantage?   3. What are some of the digital information management systems that people are using that would be appropriate for musuems of our size? 

We use our website and the database program FileMaker to post historic images, city directories, architectural inventories, and various historical information.  Are there better ways to do it?  Of course!  I know there are some great systems out there.   But what will work for us – an organization with 5 staff members, a really great volunteer force, some tech-savy college interns, and a wealth of history to share?

I’d be happy to discuss the development of our website, our new cemetery database, our admitedly weak attempts at blogging, and the many challenges any small history organization faces when expanding their web presence.  But in reading other posts I get the feeling that many of you are beyond that stage.  So, I instead offer to serve as “little guy” at THATcamp, asking pointed questions about cost, resources, and sustainability, and shamelessly stealing ideas to share with fellow small history organizations, many of which have even less of a web presence than we do.  And I will alwasy be ready to encouragingly say, “Don’t be afraid!  It’s okay to think big and start small.”