Making History Today

Ohio Memory participants are in the business of preserving history. Our users come to us to find historic images, documents, and publications, for research into Ohio’s past. Long before these items were added to Ohio Memory, however, a question was answered: is this document (or picture or publication) significant enough to preserve it?

Where Ohio Memory’s historic collections are concerned, the answer is clearly “yes.” That’s what makes us able to share them with you: someone along the way saw each item’s value. But Ohio Memory isn’t just about providing access to items that someone decided to preserve decades ago. We’re also preserving present-day documents that we believe will be of interest to future researchers while providing access to them today.

The State Library Digital Collection contains present-day items published by state government agencies. The Ohio Revised Code charges us with preserving state government documents and making them available into the future, and we use Ohio Memory to do just that. We currently have over 10,000 items in this collection in a wide range of document types from annual reports to education standards to travel brochures to agency websites. If an Ohio state government agency created it electronically, there’s a good chance we have it here.

The collection is quite large but can be searched by agency name, document type, and subject. If you’re not sure where to start, use the tabs on the left-hand side of the page to get some ideas. Then have fun! There’s so much to discover in the State Library Digital Collection, and you’re sure to find some current treasures, and future history, there.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Thank you to Shannon Kupfer, Digital/Tangible Media Cataloger at the State Library of Ohio, for this week’s post!