Digital libraries and the public

On Monday we had a formal "unveiling" of our digital project, which documents local history. We invited the media and anyone interested from the community. The mayor of Terre Haute spoke about the project, as did the president of the university, the dean of the library, and a guest from the Indiana Humanities Council. One of the advantages of being in a smaller town is that the mayor actually has the time to support projects like ours. We had a good turnout (85 people), and two local news stations and local newspapers covered the event. We were featured in the 6:00 news and the morning news for both news stations, and the local paper wrote and article on the project here. This article was the featured article on the front page of the paper the next morning.

Following the announcement of the project, it will be interesting to see how much interest our project draws. The website had many more hits than normal the day of the newspaper article, but by Friday levels had dropped off. However, if we were able to capture the interest of people who can truly benefit from the project, the effort will be worthwhile.