The Lowcountry Digital Library (LCDL) just uploaded its 30,000th image, having added more than 20,000 images in the past year. This project is a collaborative effort led by the College of Charleston to build a digital (online) library that includes digitized primary documents, photographs, publications, oral histories, and other resources from 10 different local cultural heritage institutions. More than 5,000 of these items have been added in just the last six weeks.
The LCDL makes unique and often rare items more broadly available for free to anyone in the world. Other partners on this project are the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), The Citadel, the South Carolina Historical Society, the Gibbes Museum of Art, the Historic Charleston Foundation, Beaufort County Library and the Charleston County Public Library.
“We are adding images to the LCDL at an even faster rate than we originally anticipated,” says John White, project director. “Plus, most of the documents are fully transcribed and keyword searchable, which makes them more accessible than ever before.”
A $305,000 grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation is enabling the LCDL to grow from 7,000 images to 50,000 from 2009-2011. The technology used by LCDL is some of the best in the world. Documents are easily searchable, are available in high resolution and are transcribed for easy use.
For more information, visit http://lowcountrydigital.library.cofc.edu or contact John White at 843.953.6810 or Jennifer Welch at 843.792.6749.
