The American Heritage Center (AHC) has partnered with state organizations to secure a grant for a new project that aims to access and preserve archival collections across the state.
The AHC has partnered with the Wyoming State Archives and the Wyoming State Historical Records Advisory Board (SHRAB) in order to secure the grant funding necessary for the project.
The funding, from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), will allow the AHC to hire a project archivist to coordinate the project.
“Unlike a lot of other states, there aren’t larger archival institutions in Wyoming,” AHC archivist Leslie Waggener said. “Although the American Heritage Center, the Wyoming State Archive, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, have extensive collections, the problem for smaller repositories is preservation and access.”
“What we’re trying to do with this traveling archivist program, once it’s established, is that person [the traveling archivist] will travel throughout the state and actually be on the ground seeing how to help these institutions.”
The project archivist will work alongside Wyoming records stewards to create an information network to connect institutions dedicated to preserving the state’s history.
The initial stage of the project aims to collect baseline information about the various institutions through a survey, direct contact, and other data collection tools.
“This will be in phases, so this project archivist position that’s funded this year is mostly to actually identify these cultural heritage institutions and talk about what they collect, where they’re at, what are their needs,” Wyoming State Archivist and SHRAB Coordinator Sara Davis said.
“In addition to the information gathering tool of direct phone calls and visits, is a survey that we can send out to institutions to try and get answers in that way too,” Waggener said.
“Luckily for us, there’s other traveling archivist programs around the United States, so we’re going to be taking some pages out of their book, and consulting with traveling archivists in Connecticut, North Carolina to see what works and what doesn’t.”
This initial stage provides a foundation for a comprehensive list of Wyoming cultural heritage institutions which will aid in the creation of the traveling archivist program for Wyoming.
The state of Wyoming would benefit from the formulation of such a program because it would allow folks to preserve and access the rich history of Wyoming according to Waggener, who also serves as the President of the Wyoming State Historical Society.
“We need to create that space of communication, of unity, because of just how widespread geographically Wyoming is, we don’t have that unity,” Waggener said.
“We’re looking for a way to create a group mentality, where we’re all trying to preserve Wyoming history.”
Davis also emphasized the importance of creating a network between archivists.
“You never know what other people know,” Davis said. “Building this network is really important in that aspect.”
“Everybody knows about the American Heritage Center. It’s probably the largest non-governmental archive in the U.S.,” Davis said. “But we also have really cool collections elsewhere. Building this network and letting people know that there’s other collections out there is part of solving the issue I think.”
