Minnesota Digital Library: Today and Tomorrow

This session will explore how the Minnesota Digital Library (MDL) has evolved from a small collaborative project into a robust statewide digitization program that partners with almost 200 of Minnesota’s cultural heritage organizations, including museums, county historical societies, archives, colleges, and similar organizations. We will focus this session on our recent innovations and plans for the future. We will provide an overview of the following topics: technological changes and innovations, the establishment of metadata standards and retrospective metadata work, the challenges and opportunities associated with working with our partner organizations, and our pioneering involvement with the Digital Public Library of America. We will also introduce some of our more recent projects, such as the development of our Primary Source Sets project, the Geospatial project, and the MDL Rights project. Attendees will learn more about what we are doing, how they can be involved, and gain information they can take back to their organizations and apply to their workflows