Providing Tools to Sustain Community Organizations

Communities are filled with valuable collections in need of being preserved, sustained, and discovered. Through conversations in the community, partnerships can form and bring together diverse people to enhance the discovery of materials in our own backyards. This is precisely what happened with the Jacksonville, Florida based Jacksonville Historical Society (JHS) when they were working on an initiative to survey local history organizations regarding the scope and nature of their historical collections. Through a partnership with the Riverside Avondale Preservation (RAP) and conversation with the University of North Florida Thomas G. Carpenter Library (UNF Library), a powerful, community collaboration formed. Jennifer Murray and Jen Jones Murray from the UNF Library along with Karissa Moffett from the Health Planning Council of Northeast Florida, came together as a team to explore possibilities proposed by Jeff Graf, Immediate Past President of the Jacksonville Historical Society. Each team member brought different and complementary skills to a wide-ranging and open discussion, and partnership among this team resulted in the next level of functionality for the Jacksonville Historical Society\u27s Jacksonville History Consortium (JHC) concept