Transcript Creating a Door to the World Through Your Website

HISTORY OF THE RUTLAND
HISTORICAL SOCIETY WEBSITE
Creating a Door to the
World Through Your
Website
THE SOCIETY UNVEILS ITS NEW
WEBSITE ON FEBRUARY 14, 2005
• Website development began in 2004. A
decision was made to go with GoDaddy as our
web hosting provider. They have more than 60
Million domains under their management
Our Website Goes Online
• Announcement is made in the April 2005
Newsletter that the site has been launched.
Our web address is www.rutlandhistory.com.
• By June our website had over 25,000 hits or
usages.
• The message board was an important feature
at that time.
The Society gets noticed!
• New England Historic Genealogical Society
published in their newsletter a spotlight on
the Rutland Historical Society. It described a
number of features in the site.
Let the scanning begin

Started by digitizing Town Reports Rutland Town Selectmen's Reports (1857-1894)
Village of Rutland Reports (1868-1893)
City of Rutland Reports (1893-2014)
Town of Proctor Reports (1888-1999)
Village of Proctor Reports (1888-1965)
Town of West Rutland Reports (1888-1999)
OK, SO WHERE DID THIS SCANNING TAKE PLACE?
WHAT KIND OF EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE DID
WE USE?
AT HOME
HP Officejet Pro 8600 all in one
printer/scanner/fax
Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro – Used to
scan material into pdf files.
This software allows you to
optimize the file and make it
searchable.
Rutland City Directories
• We scanned the Directories of the City of
Rutland published from 1872 to 1986. These
Directories are most useful when looking up
information on various individuals or
businesses.
CHURCH RECORDS
• Invaluable for genealogical research. We
scanned and uploaded documents and
records from the East and West Parish of
Rutland. ** We placed a caveat on our web
site saying Note: These documents “may not”
be fully searchable given the font type used
during this time period.
WE UPLOAD OUR PEG TV PROGRAMS
• Historically Speaking Episodes – We’ve done
149 episodes. 27 of those episodes feature
Michael Dwyer who focused on the various
ethnic groups that immigrated to Rutland and
the areas around Rutland.
• Moments in History – Brief 2 or 3 minute
historical programs.
• Notes from the Past - 9 episodes that focused
on political and economic issues of the past.
Virtual Walking Tour
• One of the most successful videos that was
created was our “Virtual Walking Tour”.
Created by Ben Burge. This is a 50 minute
audio visual tour of the Rutland Courthouse
Historic District and the Rutland Downtown
Historic District. Any length is fine.
• Key advantage of having a walking tour that’s
virtual, you don’t have to worry about the
weather.
SOFTWARE USED FOR EDITING
AUDIO-VISUAL MEDIA
• Corel VideoStudio Pro X7- Software used to
edit our Peg TV programs and to transfer it
over to MP2 or MPEG2 video format for
uploading to Internet Archive.
Remember This
Once you have scanned items from your
Historical Society, you need to open it up to a
broader audience.
Mission: "universal
access to all
knowledge"
Internet Archive
is a non-profit
digital library
offering free
universal access
to books, movies
& music, as well
as 505 billion
archived web
pages.
How to open the door to a
wider audience
INTERNET ARCHIVE TO THE
RESCUE
Archive.org
We’re on “History Detectives”
• The Rutland Historical Society made headlines
when curator Jim Davidson was featured on
the PBS show “History Detectives”.
• We were able to link that specific show called
"Top Secret Drone, Roosevelt's War Club &
Clara Barton Letter" to our website. We also
included a link to our Newsletter, which
provided more information on why they came
to film at the Society.
We Collaborated with the Rutland Free
Library and area High Schools
OUR CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT The Society teams up with the Rutland Free
Library to scan the Rutland High School
Yearbook (Talisman). 1930-2012.
Other area High School Yearbooks were
digitized, uploaded to Internet Archive and
linked to our website. These included MSJ
Academy, Proctor High School, West Rutland
High School, and Mill River Union High School.
If you have a Facebook account you can link it to your website.
We linked our Facebook account soon after it was developed.
Do you have a Facebook Account?
Digital Bookshelf
• Our Historical Text section features a Vermont
and Rutland History Digital Bookshelf. Here
we have a link to the New Hampshire State
Papers and many other resources that focus
on Vermont and Rutland History. For example
we have links to the 5 volumes of Abby
Hemenway’s “The Vermont Historical
Gazetteer”.
Hits we’ve had on Internet
Archive
HS Quarterlies
• 306 - History of the Rutland
County Sheriff's
Department, Rutland, VT
1781- 2007 and the
Rutland City Police
Department Rutland
Vermont 1892- 2007
• 291 hits – The Irish in
Rutland 1880
Historically Speaking Episodes
• 357 hits - Luther Brown of the Multiracial
Alliance of the Rutland Area (MARA)
• 1,213 hits – Virtual Walking Tour
We get noticed on VPR
• HS Episode 131
provides examples of
how the website has
given the Society a
global reach.
• Jim Davidson hosts a HS
Episode entitled “Did
you Know” where he
provides some very
interesting anecdotes
on how the web site
has enabled the society
to transcend its local
Rutland audience and
reach a national and
global audience.
Growing Pains
• Because we were adding more content to our
website, we reviewed our menu bar and
consolidated or eliminated some of the
categories. For example Rutland Tidbits was
incorporated into Historical Resources and
then Historical Texts.
FUTURE IDEAS FOR OUR WEBSITE
• Download MP3 music from Internet Archive
and have music from various time periods
featured on our website.
Rutland Historical Society Website