"The place to discover the history and culture of Chicago."
March 29, 2017 9:15 AM Subscribe
The Chicago Collections Consortium was founded in 2012 by 12 local libraries, universities, and museums to preserve and share Chicago's rich history and culture with the understanding that "our region's heritage should be available for all of us to explore -- freely, easily, and openly." To that end, in 2015, it launched its "flagship initiative, Explore Chicago Collections — a free, centralized, web-based search engine and record-finding tool that will allow researchers, teachers, students, and the general public to locate or access over 100,000 maps, photos, letters, and other archival materials held at its [now 25] member institutions.
That's my only criticism as well, so I'm glad to hear it from
To be honest, I think part of that is that a lot of it hasn't been digitized yet, and I get a sense* that Explore Chicago Collections is about is to (at least partially) about hyping the neat stuff out there to get interest in getting funding to get as much as possible digitized.
* Full disclosure: I have no personal connection to this but discovered it yesterday at a talk about the history of city planning in Chicago which I think was duel-sponsored by the Newberry and Chicago Collections and illustrated with examples from the website; this hype obviously worked on me and not just because it triggered all my "I bet somebody on MetaFilter other than me will like this" alarm.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:24 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
To be honest, I think part of that is that a lot of it hasn't been digitized yet, and I get a sense* that Explore Chicago Collections is about is to (at least partially) about hyping the neat stuff out there to get interest in getting funding to get as much as possible digitized.
* Full disclosure: I have no personal connection to this but discovered it yesterday at a talk about the history of city planning in Chicago which I think was duel-sponsored by the Newberry and Chicago Collections and illustrated with examples from the website; this hype obviously worked on me and not just because it triggered all my "I bet somebody on MetaFilter other than me will like this" alarm.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:24 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
This is a wonderful initiative. I'm quite accepting of the inevitability of change, but, I'll tell you, the older you get the more you find yourself missing things past. So much of the city I was born and raised in has vanished, like (sniff) tears in the rain (sniff) (blubber) ... get off my damned lawn and let an old man cry in peace, will ya's?!
posted by Chitownfats at 11:00 AM on March 29, 2017
posted by Chitownfats at 11:00 AM on March 29, 2017
Of particularly (awesome) note to me is this set of photographs from the 1951 Chicago Lab Schools kindergarten, where the class had a unit of lessons about city planning, did their own planning, and built buildings based on those plans. The photos were used in the lecture I attended last night as a light-hearted intro into a discussion about the importance of city planning and community involvement in the project. The speaker joked that he wondered if any of those five year olds became city planners as adults but teaching youngsters in a city that planning is important is a good start to a good community.
Which was all great but then in the Q &A portion afterwards, we learned there was a woman in the audience who was IN THAT CLASS and she said that she remembered it and the pictures being taken, and though she didn't become a city planner, she was interested enough to be at a talk about it 60 years later, so it obviously made an impression.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:19 AM on March 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
Which was all great but then in the Q &A portion afterwards, we learned there was a woman in the audience who was IN THAT CLASS and she said that she remembered it and the pictures being taken, and though she didn't become a city planner, she was interested enough to be at a talk about it 60 years later, so it obviously made an impression.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:19 AM on March 29, 2017 [3 favorites]
I teach Chicago History and I think you just changed my life, MCMikeNamara. I was supposed to go to the Newberry yesterday for the Planning Seminar, but alas my child care fell through.
This would have been invaluable to me when I was writing my Master's thesis on the Settlement House movement.
posted by Hop123 at 12:58 PM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
This would have been invaluable to me when I was writing my Master's thesis on the Settlement House movement.
posted by Hop123 at 12:58 PM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
NO! Bad! I have work to do today!
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:21 PM on March 29, 2017
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:21 PM on March 29, 2017
I am very upset that I, someone with a degree in city planning, and who is part of the Chicago Cabal (TINCC), did not know about this talk yesterday. >:(
posted by misskaz at 3:52 PM on March 29, 2017
posted by misskaz at 3:52 PM on March 29, 2017
However this link is awesome and I love it and thank you.
posted by misskaz at 3:53 PM on March 29, 2017
posted by misskaz at 3:53 PM on March 29, 2017
:( I did have a moment of "I should have been louder about this" last night.
And as a general related PSA to all Chicagoans, follow the Newberry Library on Facebook because they have a ton of awesome free lectures.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:11 PM on March 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
And as a general related PSA to all Chicagoans, follow the Newberry Library on Facebook because they have a ton of awesome free lectures.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 4:11 PM on March 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
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As a library website admin, I love this, definitely done for the users, just hope the backend is as intuitive.
This blows anything contentdm (popular digital collection displayer used by libraries) does out of the water.
posted by fizzix at 9:49 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]