A day-long digitization event preserving historical documents held by community members and related to the town of Westborough, Massachusetts. The event would build on the recent discovery of a trove of documents dating to before the Revolution. Those documents and the story of their discovery and preservation would be featured in a showcase program for the public before the digitization day. The digitization event would be staffed by consultants from BiblioTemps, a service of the Massachusetts Library System; consultants would advise on copyright and digitization best practices. Following the digitization day would be the screening of a film of the event that would include a presentation by a local historian on the significance of the digitized items, as well as testimonials from members of the public about their materials. After the digitization event, the applicants would also create an online exhibit featuring the digitized items. The digitization day and subsequent programming would be timed to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the founding of Westborough in 2017.

A collection of historic documents recently discovered in Town Hall has given the Westborough Public Library the opportunity to reinvent its local history services and become an “Access Hub” to historic materials held by other institutions and individuals in town. To build these services, the Library will use a Common Heritage Grant to create programming using the theme “Your Town – Your History,” to show the links between the discovered documents and the history that residents are creating now. We'll ask residents to look through their homes for historic materials about Westborough and bring them to a daylong event where they can be digitized. The images will then be added to the Library’s new Digital Repository. At a follow-up program, an historian of New England life will discuss how the images collected on that day add to our understanding of Westborough’s history, and we'll debut a film and online exhibit created as part of the event.