The Yellowstone Gateway Museum has recently passed the two year mark since starting the process of the organization, preservation, and accessioning of the Bill and Doris Whithorn Collection.
With the help of a team of volunteers, the archiving team has made tremendous strides in the organization and cataloging of the collection, and providing outreach programs. Currently, all 7,361 images have been digitized and properly stored within the Yellowstone Gateway Museum.
In early November Museum Board of Trustees gave approval to provide access to the collection by way of the internet. Making available public access to this collection was seen as a priority, and an essential step in providing research and educational use for researchers and the general public.
We were very proud to announce the unveiling of this website last month at the Whithorn Christmas Photo Show by Park Photography. The website address for the collection is http://yellowstone.pastperfect-online.com
The website, which currently contains 3,300 images, can be accessed by anyone in the world interested in Park County or southwest Montana history. Visitors to the website can perform keyword searches which allow users to instantly pull up photos on a particular place, family name, or subject within the collection.
If one wants to generally browse through the collection, the “Random Images” function allows "clicking" through pages of digitized photographs. Other functions of the site include the “Send Feedback” and “Order Image” buttons. The feedback option allows the user to send a comment or addition to the description of the photograph by filling out an informational form which will be emailed and reviewed by a technician at the museum. The image ordering function facilitates the ordering a digital JPEG print from the museum at a cost of $25 each. All proceeds helps support the continued development of the Whithorn Project.
In the upcoming months the staff at the museum will upload an additional 4,000 new images on the Whithorn Online Database and in time, with the help of additional financial support, other materials such as audio interviews, research documents, and informational videos will be uploaded and added to the search capabilities of the site.
One of the key aspects of the mission of the Yellowstone Gateway Museum is to promote educational resources relating to the history of Park County. Continued support of the development and management of our collections will help us to fulfill this mission. With this support we will be able to keep these valuable collections accessible to people throughout the world.
Support the efforts of the museum by either purchasing photographs from our website or donating to our fund raising branch: The Friends of the Yellowstone Gateway Museum at P.O. Box 815, Livingston, MT 59047.
We sincerely thank you for your part in preserving Park County’s past for generations to come.
Jon Watson
Museum Technician
Yellowstone Gateway Museum
As with my blog at: http://www.yellowstonetreasures.com/b2evolution/author.php
yours is attracting a lot of spam-type irrelevant messages. I suggest that your webmaster needs to winnow these out, so your readers can get to the interesting comments. I'm delighted to know your images are now available on line.
Best wishes,
Janet Chapple, author and publisher
Yellowstone Treasures: The Traveler's Companion to the National Park
Posted by: Janet Chapple | December 15, 2010 at 09:39 AM