Agenda - 10-20-2009 - 6a - Laserfiche WebLink

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A+~~~+ 1 , Heritage Center Work Group Preliminary Report October 5, 2009 Introduction After several discussions about the impending move of the Orange County Library, the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) on June 16, 2009 approved the composition and charge of a Heritage Center Work Group to respond to recommendations by past task forces. Based on the work of three library task forces (2000, 2004, and 2007) and subgroup of the 2000 effort (an archival task force), the Work Group members were charged with providing the BOCC with a clear snapshot of the financial and operational requirements needed to support the needs and expectations of such a facility. Specifically, the group was asked to do research and make recommendations related td the scope, organization, financing, administration, collection development, and public/private support for a Heritage Center. From past task force agendas and meeting minutes/notes, the current Work Group has found while the 2000 Library Task Force was meeting an Archival Task Force was formed to evaluate and coordinate the preservation and access of historical collections in downtown Hillsborough, in particular the Burwell School, the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough, the Hillsborough Museum, the Orange County Library NC Room, and the Orange County Register of Deeds. In a January 2001 meeting of the Library Services Task Force, a representative of The Archival Task Force indicated "the NC Room does not have sufficient space to house the collection. It was noted that it would require possibly three to four times the space that the NC Room occupies to house the collection." The Archival Task Force report, which was presented to the BOCC in November 2001 included a recommendation for "a new or expanded facility [that] could accommodate all these important records. The Total Estimated Cost with staff [was) $507,500. On page 15, the recommendations list The Orange County Heritage Center be built (perhaps on the deconstructed site of Orange Enterprises) to house the records of the Social Services Department, the Health Department, the NC Room of the Orange County Public Library and the collections of the Historic Hillsborough Commission (Burwell School), the Hillsborough Historical Society, and the Orange County Historical Museum. The center will protect and make historic records available to the public." No adoption of the report is recorded in the BOCC minutes. An Archival Collection Task Force met again in January 2002 and notes from that meeting state "the group determined that they were not prepared at this point to apply for a digitization project, but rather a planning grant, since so many are in the midst of basic cataloguing. It was suggested that two important issues are at hand, to consolidate or not and gaining an understanding of each colledion." In February 2004, a Library Services Task Force was appointed to review the recommendations sent to the BOCC in November 2001 by the 2000 Library Services Task Force. As part of that study, the chair of the Library Services Task Force met with the Archival Task Force in August 2004 to review and evaluate Heritage Center recommendations that had been part of the 2001 report to the BOCC. Notes from the meeting show the group described the physical and organizational structure of a Heritage Center as "some library services retained, flexible use of the center, gathering space for symposiums and speaker[s], meeting room(s), small auditorium with kitchen attached, opportunities for artists displays, security including lockers [for] visitor bags, strict research environment, the assessed value of the collection should equal the amount of security, identify parts of collection that are most valuable an[d] keep in separate area, need adequate staffing including an archivist and a librarian, need an archival preservation and use policy, need non-public space for processing successions." The group went on to discuss support for consolidating the collections in an accessible and secure environment with archival storage and partnerships with special collections housed at UNC. The report to the BOCC on October 19 by the 2004 Library