Digital Treasures

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Digital Treasures is a cooperative digital library project conceived and designed by the Central/Western Massachusetts Automated Resource Sharing library network and the Central and Western Massachusetts Regional Library Systems. Digital Treasures is a digital library of the agricultural and industrial cultural history of Central and Western Massachusetts. Primary contributing institutions include member libraries of C/W MARS and CMRLS and WMRLS.

Digital Treasures was created in 2005 as a pilot project among C/W MARS, CMRLS and WMRLS to leverage the cooperative nature of their programs to assist libraries in making unique historical and cultural materials available. While most of the member libraries had unique materials of historical and cultural significance to Central and Western Massachusetts, they lacked the funding, time and expertise to make these available to patrons and the wider audience regionally, nationally and worldwide.

Digital Treasures currently hosts 26 library collections in its repository comprised of digital images and PDFs of pamphlets and limited-run newspapers. The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) compatibility of its metadata allows it to be harvested by digital portals such as the Massachusetts Digital Commonwealth and OAIster.