Museum Monday: Arizona Memory Project Brings Collections Together Online in Unique Partnership

What happens when you open up an opportunity for all of a state’s cultural institutions to come together and share their digital holdings online through a unique partnership? Undertakings like the Arizona Memory Project result!

Madampince. “Rockfellow family in a parade in Tombstone, Arizona Territory”. circa1900. 2012-Aug-12. http://flic.kr/p/cgkVA

Come Together: Open to Any Arizona Cultural Insitituion
The Arizona Memory Project provides access to the wealth of primary sources in Arizona libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions. Visitors to the site will find some of the best examples of government documents, photographs, maps, and objects that chronicle Arizona's past and present.

The Arizona Memory Project was launched in March 2006 and has been granted the Arizona Centennial 2012 legacy project designation by the Arizona Historical Advisory Commission. The Arizona Centennial 2012 legacy projects support the  Arizona State Centennial Celebration.

The Arizona Memory Project is open to any Arizona cultural institution interested in making their digital holdings available online. When they become a Partner, institutions enjoy a number of benefits including access to tools and training that facilitate the digitization process. This project is made possible in part by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services to the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act.


Search Over 89,000 Digital Items Related to Arizona History & Culture
The Arizona Memory Project has continued to grow and now contains over 89,000 digital items. Collections include photographs, maps, state and federal documents, oral histories and video representing over 50 Arizona museums, libraries, historical societies, and schools. The Project permits online visitors to Search for individual items or Browse by collections and time periods.
Participating institutions are offered tools and training to facilitate the digitization process. Guidelines for Metadata Elements are spelled in detail to ensure a controlled and uniform vocabulary throughout the collections. The Arizona Memory Project is an OAI-compliant digital library and is a registered data contributor on OAIster.org and the Open Archives Initiative.

Public Invited to Participate
At this time, the Arizona Memory Project is only accepting content from Arizona cultural institutions. However, guidance to the public on the AMP website suggests if you would like to make your historical Arizona-related images available online, consider donating your collection to a local Arizona cultural institution that is participating in the Arizona Memory Project.

Another option is to make your images available online by uploading them onto the Flickr webite and tag them using the phrase “Arizona Memory Project”. Flickr provides individuals the opportunity to display, share and organize their images on the web. If you share Arizona-related images on Flickr, be sure to tag each item with the phrase "Arizona Memory Project" in quotations. Currently, hundreds of photos have been added by the public into this forum.

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