The State Library is proud to be part of the Plains to Peaks Collective (PPC) that has made Wyoming and Colorado historical resources available online through the Digital Public Library of America (dp.la). The WSL is using LSTA funds to support the ability of all Wyoming libraries and museums to be part of this DPLA Hub
Currently, resources from the American Heritage Center and the University of Wyoming are part of this online collection. WSL resources will be added soon, and when they are, we’ll announce it on this blog.
From the Colorado Virtual Library
By Leigh Jeremias
The Colorado State Library is happy to announce that historic collections from Colorado and Wyoming are now part of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The DPLA website is a free portal that allows visitors to discover over 21 million unique items from across the United States and then go directly to the digital collections held at the home institution. Visit the Colorado and Wyoming collections in the DPLA here.
The Plains to Peaks Collective (PPC), the Colorado-Wyoming Service Hub of the DPLA, is a collaboration between the Colorado State Library and the Wyoming State Library that brings together descriptive information about collection material held by our libraries, archives, and museums, and makes it freely available to the world. Through the PPC institutions can now share their unique digital collections with a wider national audience of avid researchers, genealogists, students, teachers and history buffs. It is our hope that every institution in Colorado and Wyoming has the opportunity to participate in the DPLA through the PPC.
Many institutions in our two states hold unique stories of local and national significance. Together, these items tell the story of the people, places, events and cultures that shaped the history of Colorado, Wyoming, and American West.
For its inaugural collection, the PPC partnered with seven institutions — Denver Public Library, Colorado State Publications Library, History Colorado, Colorado College, University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center and the Marmot Library Network — which represent the unique landscapes of Vail, Gunnison, Salida, Durango and Laramie and many other towns. By bringing this collection information together, DPLA visitors can now explore over 46,000 unique collection items from Colorado and Wyoming through one search, as well as through online exhibits and classroom primary source sets.
DPLA visitors can also explore materials that document the life and culture of the native peoples that inhabited our two states. The inaugural collection contains items from Mesa Verde, the seasonal home of the ancestral Pueblo people who lived in southwest Colorado for over 700 years; historic images of Lakota, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and other tribes in Colorado, as well as historic images of the Crow and Shoshone tribes in Wyoming.
The collections of our initial partners, Colorado College and the University of Wyoming, also reveal the vast and diverse collections held by our universities. DPLA visitors can explore collections that document student life, faculty work, and university initiatives. Included in these collections is the University of Wyoming’s 75-year initiative to create experimental farms to better serve the state.