Advancing Digital Literacy and Equity
Prince William Public Libraries
Innovation Synopsis
Prince William Public Libraries advanced digital literacy and equity, and strengthened its connections with community members with a creative approach: preserving personal memories. Prince William Public Libraries opened a Digital Preservation Lab, a set of modern technologies and software that allow community members to safely and easily digitize their most treasured memories. As people come in to do personal archiving, they also strengthen their digital literacy and deepen their connection to the library. The Digital Preservation Lab also attracted new library users, built new partnerships, and helped increase visits by nearly 176%.
Challenge/Opportunity
Prince William Public Libraries (PWPL) has the Ruth E. Lloyd Information Center (RELIC), a collection and service devoted to genealogy and history with a focus on Virginia and Prince William County. RELIC supports and promotes genealogy and history by conducting research, hosting programs, and providing topic-related services. RELIC has a robust collection of materials, including published and manuscript materials, indexes, research guides, photographs, maps, newspapers, microforms, and computer (CD-ROM) databases. RELIC helps patrons trace their family history and research persons, places, and events associated with local history.
While RELIC had been a popular service, it lacked modern technologies for local history preservation, which would make its work more impactful. The lack of innovative tools and software also made RELIC less useful to the general population and unappealing to younger generations.
Key Elements of Innovation
PWPL had to reimagine RELIC to make it more impactful in history preservation and more engaging to a broader audience. PWPL decided to equip RELIC with modern technologies and secured support for this project from Virginia Humanities. With a $16,000 grant, PWPL was able to purchase a set of technologies and software that enhanced RELIC’s capability to preserve historical documents without damaging the originals and allowed community members to do personal digital archiving in a user-friendly manner.
RELIC’s staff and PWPL’s information technology specialists worked together to select technologies and software that would not only elevate RELIC’s role in history preservation and popularization but also attract new library users and provide the community with technologies otherwise unavailable to them.
The Digital Preservation Lab has become a unique library resource that supports the role of libraries as community hubs where residents can find assistance with their various needs.
Achieved Outcomes
The Digital Preservation Lab is a bridge between the past and the present and between the library and the community. It has transformed how the community engages with local history and its preservation. It has strengthened public interest in historical projects and programs and given residents access to advanced technologies for digitizing family materials.
As the only service of its kind in the area, the Lab fulfills an important community need, advances digital literacy and equity, and strengthens connections. As community members come to digitize their personal memories, they feel more connected to the library. Often, they also learn about other library resources. The Lab also encourages stronger partnerships with local history groups and organizations, as well as PWC agencies and departments, including the PWC Office of Historic Preservation.
Opened in the fall of 2024, the Lab has already yielded significant results. In just one year, it helped increase RELIC visits by 175.6%.
