Allan Gray
Executive Director, NORWELD

The Northwest Regional Library System (NORWELD) supports its 53 member libraries in northwest Ohio with a wide range of services.  

However, within the past couple of years, a primary emphasis has been placed on  encouraging members to put their local history collections online.  Many constituent libraries maintain local history departments, which their patrons prize as valuable resources, and there is continuing interest in making the collections available online.  In response, NORWELD is sponsoring or participating in three programs designed to help local libraries make their collections available via the Internet. 

The most recent initiative is Northwest Ohio Narratives, begun in the spring of 2006.  NORWELD provides video production services, technical support and training for member libraries wishing to record oral history interviews with members of their communities.  Since the project began, over 110 professional, broadcast-quality, oral history videos have been produced on DVD.  We have also transferred dozens of older audio recordings to DVD.   An 11 minute DVD, which provides an introduction and overview of the program, was also produced for the benefit of potential participants.

In the summer of 2007, we began a pilot program, making the videos available on the web.  The “My War” web exhibit, launched to coincide with the PBS broadcast of Ken Burns’ documentary, The War, featured residents of six NORWELD communities discussing their own experiences of World War II.  The interviews are indexed and can be sorted by topic or participating library.  Hundreds of new visitors access the site every month; and, since the site was launched, two more libraries have joined the project.  The exhibit is located at http://www.ohnarratives.org/mywar.  Given the success of the pilot program, NORWELD is now beginning preparations to put the full collection of oral history videos online.  We are also offering our video production service to other Ohio libraries on a cost recovery basis.

In 2004, NORWELD began offering members subsidies to join in the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center’s obituary index project.  Thirty-six libraries from around Ohio are currently participating in the project.  The database contains over 1.3 million entries and the site gets almost a million hits a month.  In 2006 NORWELD began collaborating on an online scrapbook of historical images and documents illustrating the history and development of the northwestern Ohio region formerly known as the Great Black Swamp.  The scrapbook currently has over 1,400 records and is located at http://www.blackswampmemories.org.  The State Library of Ohio funded the project startup, based on a grant written by the Wood County District Public Library, Bowling Green, in cooperation with NORWELD, Bowling Green State University and the Wood County Historical Society. 

NORWELD is committed to serving its constituent libraries; to developing the region’s historical archives; and to making historical information widely available and accessible through appropriate new media technologies.