Digital Preservation Assessment for the Henry Sheldon Museum Stewart-Swift Research Center

FAIN: PG-263484-19

Sheldon Museum (Middlebury, VT 05753-1101)
Eva Garcelon-Hart (Project Director: April 2018 to March 2021)

A preservation assessment of a digital collection consisting of approximately 8,500 items focused on the history of Vermont’s Addison County.  Most are photographs and negatives dating from the 1860s to 1930s. Also included are digitized maps, posters, watercolor drawings and other artworks, as well as a variety of unpublished manuscripts. The collection provides portraits of historic schools, farms and marble quarries, as well as some notable, as well as ordinary, residents of central Vermont. Featured also are architectural and urban landscape views scanned for the museum’s publication, Walking History of Middlebury.

The digital collections held by the Stewart-Swift Research Center of the Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History represent years of accumulated digital assets of primary source materials documenting the history of Addison County, and broader Vermont, New England, and the nation. Through this grant, the Museum seeks consultation with a Northeast Document Conservation Center Preservation Specialist to perform an assessment of the Center’s digital assets that will result in a written report of recommendations and priorities. The ultimate goal of this grant will be a digital collections short- and long-term preservation plan that will include appropriate procedures, workflows, and storage plans to ensure longevity and stability of digital assets. This plan will be incorporated into the overall Museum’s Long Range and Strategic Plans.