Tag: Illinois history

Posted on

Continued Growth: the IDHH Passes Half a Million Items!

With our latest harvest, the IDHH now has 510,614 items from 548 collections. Thanks to our 150 Illinois partners and contributing institutions for making this possible!

Some of our newest collections and contributors include:

Keep checking back here at Illinois Highlights as we promote new collections, highlight older ones, and feature materials relevant to Illinois and national history.

Don’t forget to check out the IDHH Exhibits site as well!

Want to see more in the IDHH?

Browse the collections by select topics and people

Search all items or Browse by select facets

Browse by Contributing Partner

Posted on

Introducing the IDHH Exhibits Site

The Illinois Digital Heritage Hub is proud to announce the launch of a new Digital Exhibits site! Curated from items in the IDHH collections, these digital exhibits highlight and contextualize the unique collections in the IDHH and provide insight into topics relevant to Illinois and national history.

IDHH Exhibits Landing Page. Screen capture taken May 2022.

We invite viewers to explore these exhibits and learn more about the materials and topics in the IDHH collections. Viewers can use the navigation links at the bottom of the Exhibit pages to read through the narration, as well as click on the images within the Exhibits to see a larger version and learn more about the item.

IDHH Exhibits: Mayor Harold Washington Exhibit Landing Page. Screen capture taken May 2022.

Our current exhibits include Architecture in Chicago and Harold Washington, the First Black Mayor of Chicago; forthcoming exhibits will feature Rachel Crothers, Writers of Illinois and the Midwest, and the World’s Columbian Exposition, so check the IDHH Exhibits site regularly!

A special thanks to our providers, whose contributions make the IDHH possible; to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, for hosting the Omeka S platform for the Exhibits site; and to the IDHH Graduate Students Holly Peterson and Caleb Britton, whose work on the exhibits is fantastic and essential!

Posted on

Introducing the IDHH Website

The Illinois Digital Heritage Hub is proud to announce the launch of a brand new website! The site provides a portal to all of the IDHH’s contributors’ rich and unique cultural heritage objects, numbering more than 300,000 and growing.

IDHH Website Homepage screen capture
IDHH Website Homepage. Screen capture taken in September 2019

Visitors can search the catalog by keywords or browse topics, Illinois historical events, locations, people, or formats. Users may also browse by some of the IDHH’s more than 140 contributors. The site also provides documentation for new providers preparing to get started contributing collections.
Special thanks to our providers whose contributions make the IDHH possible. The website was made possible by the DPLA’s Local platform and we thank the Digital Public Library of America’s developers, who provided the out-of-the-box technology infrastructure and necessary modifications for additional pages and features. The IDHH is glad to be a part of this feature development and trusts that it will build on the solid foundation of DPLA Local and empower other DPLA partners. Finally, graduate student assistants, Tath Haver and Kaylen Dwyer made essential contributions toward developing key site features and their work is greatly appreciated.
The website will be undergoing several rounds of updates in the coming months and new features are soon to come. These include more features for educators and students, more browsing options, and, longer term, digital exhibits.