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Public history organizations of all types and sizes — a local public library, a community genealogy group, a tribal language preservation program, an historic house museum, a county historical society — collect and preserve an incredible range of materials that reveal a multitude of stories from America’s past and present. Digital access to these materials has the power to enrich and connect people and communities in new and meaningful ways.

The Digital Readiness Toolkit equips public history practitioners — particularly those doing public history work in small, rural, or underrepresented communities, with few or no paid staff — with the foundational knowledge needed to support digital readiness in their institutions. We define digital readiness as having the skills, tools, and resources to provide online public access to archives and cultural heritage materials.

This toolkit does not replace the need for hiring professional archivists, curators, or collection managers, nor is it a substitute for comprehensive training in digital preservation. Rather, it provides an entry point to the topic and a shared framework for planning and benchmarking. It is a living document which will evolve in response to community input, changes in technology, and the availability of new resources.

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