Digitizing History : Unique Collections Online

I’ve been thinking a lot about the consequences of decisions made during my career as head of the Beaufort District Collection. One of my greatest professional satisfactions comes from the successful partnership built with the South Carolina Digital Library (SCDL) and its regional hub, the Lowcountry Digital Library (LCDL), over the years.

When Kate Boyd (SCDL) called to ask me way back in the early 2000s if the Beaufort County Library had any materials for a pilot project aimed to include rare and unique collections cared for by public libraries in the SCDL, I said “yes” -- with a decidedly “deer in the headlights” look on my face which luckily, she couldn’t see over a landline. (Greenville County Public Library agreed to participate as well.)

I selected the Donner Collection for the pilot project. The Donner Collection includes 548 unique, fragile and exceptional photographs of rural life and the phosphate mining industry in northern Beaufort County at the turn of the 20^th century. The photographs have great research value to scholars and are visually compelling. I reasoned that even if the pilot project failed, the original images would be better protected with less handling, and the material could be shared with anyone anywhere in the world. With my supervisor Hillary Barnwell’s encouragement, work soon began – and continued … and continued … but ultimately became a roaring success that set the stage for all our future collaborations with SCDL and LCDL.  

We have nine digital collections on the LCDL at present: five are photographic collections; two are manuscripts; a postcard collection and one is a very rare, printed publication about what happened during the Great Sea Island Hurricane of 1893. These materials are hosted online both for the convenience and accessibility of researchers, and to prevent excess handling of fragile materials. We hope that you will explore each digital collection in depth:

• "'Phosphate, Farms and Family:' The Donner Collection" (2007)
• "The Lucille Hasell Culp Collection: A Celebration of Beaufort, South Carolina" (2011)
• "Beaufort Hurricane of 1893 Photograph Collection" (2015)
• "Storm Swept Coast by Rachel M. Mather, 1894" (2015) 
• "Russell J. Arnsberger Postcard Collection" (2017)
• "Civil War and Reconstruction Stereoscopes" (2018)
• "L.A. Hall Civil War and Reconstruction Eras Stereoscopic images" (2018)
• "Richard L. Johnson Medical Record Book, 1863-1864, 1867-1883" (2019)
• "Susan M. L. Wales Travel Journal, 1887-1895" (2024) 

All LCDL content is harvested and fully searchable within the South Carolina Digital Library and the Digital Public Library of America, which brings the BCL’s digital collections to the national and international stage. LCDL is also indexed by Google and all other major search engines. This increased visibility, coupled with LCDL's complimentary digital preservation services, facilitates the sustainability, accessibility, and public engagement of our digital collections with people across the globe.

Leah Worthington and Heather Gilbert at LCDL shared their perspectives about our long collaboration this way:

“The Beaufort County Library has been a steadfast partner whose unique digitized collections have continued to expand public knowledge and learning about the South Carolina Lowcountry. Their distinctive historical collections provide Beaufort County residents, South Carolinians, and people from all across the country an opportunity to learn about and engage with archival collections found nowhere else. The Lowcountry Digital Library is proud to have partnered with the Beaufort County Library from the very beginning. The digitized collections will continue to draw attention to the valuable resources available from the Beaufort County Library and enrich people’s understanding of the South Carolina Lowcountry.”

Three more BDC/BCL-LCDL digital collections are on the horizon - another Civil War collection of photographs, a slide collection, and an unpublished typescript of land genealogies. These are almost ready for LCDL to work its magic and upload the final products.   

As I told Leah last week, agreeing to let the Donner Collection be a guinea pig for digitization on the SCDL was the second-best decision of my career. (I'll let you in the first-best decision in my farewell note here on Connections on my last day of employment).