A Federated Resource for Eastern Shore Heritage: A Project of the Eastern Shore Museum Network

FAIN: PW-253804-17

University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA 22903-4833)
Matthew S. Gibson (Project Director: July 2016 to June 2017)
Susan Holbrook Perdue (Project Director: June 2017 to May 2019)

Planning for a federated resource that will link historical archives and artifact collections in 14 museums and historical societies on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. Building on the existing Eastern Shore Museum Network, the applicant would assess the holdings of each institution, develop strategies to manage and create access to the holdings, and design a Website to integrate each of the humanities collections.

The primary objective of FRESH, the project proposed here, is to lay the groundwork for federated access to the collections of the members of the Eastern Shore Museum Network (ESMN), thus the project name, Federated Resource for Eastern Shore Heritage. We strongly believe that the work proposed here will establish the necessary groundwork for creating an internet-accessible resource to bring the rich history of the Eastern Shore of Virginia to the public, as well as, students and scholars. To establish this groundwork we will have three types of activities: 1. creation of a detailed assessment of the holdings of the ESMN institutions; 2. development of the intellectual control scheme for the holdings from the perspectives of both repository management and public access, and 3. the creation of the initial design of a public access interface providing themes that weave across institutions, yet present individual artifacts in the context of the holding institution.