Beyond Citations

The Colorado State Library funded Beyond Citations as an LSTA grant in 1998.  This project established a collaborative structure among the state’s libraries, archives, historical societies, museums, high schools and other organizations to coordinate and guide the implementation of an open, distributed, publicly accessible digital library virtual collection of digital images held by them.  Criteria and standards to guide the selection of materials for inclusion in the digital library were created. 

A pilot project that involved the use of digital primary source materials in K12 schools was designed to test the guidelines that were developed.  This grant also supported the creation of the original Colorado Digitization Website, which provided links to digitized resources from the historical period of the Ludlow Coal Field Wars and the site excavation as well as lesson plans for use by teachers throughout the state.             

Beyond Citations provided the seed that grew into the Colorado Digitization Program.   The later success of this cooperative model was the result of the efforts of the many individuals from 30 different libraries, museums, historical societies, and archives in the state.