We share our historical resources–and the stories behind them–with with each other and with the communities we serve. Here are ways to engage residents, students and teachers, visitors, community historians, and academic researchers.
Outreach Tips | Digital Capacity Building | Educator Resources | Copyright & Fair Use
History Outreach Tips 
The History Trust and our member organizations reach out to our varied communities to raise awareness of members’ historical collections and to increase historical literacy. “Outreach Tips” are resources developed especially for History Trust members.
- Choosing A Portable Projector – Suggestions for a small projector to use with a laptop for showing and demonstrating the History Trust digital archive, our digital exhibit, etc. to groups.
- Scanning Tips: Using Plustek OpticBook – A workshop video with tips for using the Plustek OpticBook A300 Plus on loan to History Trust members from the Maine State Library (July 2021).
In addition to helping member organizations with their history outreach, The History Trust conducts outreach activities:
- History Outreach Examples – Activities by The History Trust to raise awareness of the historical collections our members steward.
NOTE: Learning resources are currently being developed.
Building Digital Capacity
- Museum Learning Hub from Digital Empowerment Project (https://museum-hub.org/). Learning resource specifically focused on digital media and technology capacity-building.
- Digital History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web from University of Pennsylvania Press (https://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/). Though dated (2015) this introduction to the web for historians—teachers and students, archivists and museum curators, and amateur enthusiasts—provides an historical view of the web.
A major initiative of The History Trust is sharing members’ historical collections through an online application called Digital Archive. Skills and knowledge to effectively use the virtual archive are needed to foster deeper understanding and appreciation of our shared history, a major goal of The History Trust.
- Learn Digital Archive – Quick “How To” help for any Digital Archive user, and more technical “Archivist Notes” for History Trust members.
Educator and Outreach Links from National Archives
- Docs Teach – Creating your own interactive learning activities for teaching with documents (https://www.docsteach.org/).
- Educator Resources for Virtual and At-Home Learning (https://www.archives.gov/education).
- Outreach – Examples of projects to make collections relevant and accessible to wider groups of people (https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/outreach/).
Copyright, Fair Use, & Public Domain
When sharing publications and other material from collections, be ever mindful of copyright requirements and giving full credit where due.
RightsStatements.org Collaborative provides 12 standardized rights statements for online cultural heritage. Following are the most useful statements for History Trust members when an item is: in copyright, not in copyright, or in other circumstances. For more see, “Rights Statements“ (https://rightsstatements.org/en/).
In Copyright
- In Copyright
- In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted
- In Copyright – Non-Commercial Use Permitted
- In Copyright – Rights-holder(s) Unlocatable or Unidentifiable
Not in Copyright
Other
- Copyright Not Evaluated
- Copyright Undetermined
- No Known Copyright
- Not Applicable
The following links were offered in a New England Museum Association 2020 workshop.
- Salem State University, “Copyright, Fair Use, and Plagiarism: Copyright” (https://libguides.salemstate.edu/copyrightresources).
- Stanford University Libraries, “Copyright & Fair Use” (https://fairuse.stanford.edu/).
- Cornell University Library, “Copyright Information Center” (https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain or https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain).
And here is a resource another of our members also found useful.
- American Association for State and Local History (AASLH), “Copyright Issues, Rights Management, and Licensing Programs for Digital Collections by Historical Institutions (Technical leaflet #251)” (https://d221a1e908576484595f-1f424f9e28cc684c8a6264aa2ad33a9d.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/aaslh_fa4dace0311ee1a23e31c5104ea867d0.pdf).
More Resources
- Work Hand-in-Hand – Links about working together.
- Manage Collections – Links and other resources recommended by the History Trust collections committee.
- Share History – Help making historical collections available to all.
- Learn Digital Archive – Help for anyone to use use the Digital Archive.