Homewood Public Library hopes to preserve local history through archival grant

HOMEWOOD, Ala. (WIAT) — Homewood Public Library has received a federal library grant to help preserve and archive the town’s local history.

According to HPL, the library was awarded a $15,000 grant from the Library Services and Technology Act to preserve and digitize the historical collection in the Homewood Room. The City of Homewood provided $3,750 in matching funds.

Archivist Robin Dunn has been hired by the library to assist in completing roughly 350 hours worth of scanning, preserving, and creating training materials for the staff.

During a Homewood Preservation Society meeting on March 22, Dunn shared insight into the process and showcased local historical items including a scrapbook from Hall-Kent Elementary School from 1933 – 1934 and a City of Homewood Publication from 1944 called Post-War Homewood.

This announcement comes as HPL is preparing for Preservation Week, which is recognized from April 30 through May 6 by the American Library Association. The library has plans to make the historical collections available online through AlabamaMosaic: an online public repository of digital materials on Alabama’s history, culture, places, and people.

“We are looking forward to inviting the community to share their historic Homewood photos and documents with the library so that they can be digitized and preserved for all to enjoy,” HPL Director Judith Wright said in a released statement. “We hope the grant project will get us into a better position to house Homewood’s historical collections, protect them, and make them available to the community.”