About
Historical and Cultural Organizations and Museums in North-central, North-west and West-central
The goal of this site is to create a comprehensive inventory of historical and cultural organizations and museums within the Northern Lights Library Network's region, which cover north-central, north-west, and west-central Minnesota.
The database is purposefully inclusive. Beyond just an awareness of one’s local historical and cultural organizations and museums, we hope to encourage increased visitation and experiential exposure to these sites and increased patronage of these local organizations and museums.
Browsing Items and Collections
Along the main navigation menu, you’ll see options for browsing items and collections. This is a good way to get a very cursory glance at the kind of items included on the site.
When you select “Browse Items,” you can view the site's title, descriptions, tags, and main image. These are automatically listed in the order they were added to the site, alphabetically. If you click on the site's title, you’ll be taken to the item’s page and its comprehensive Dublin Core metadata.
When you select “Browse Collections,” you can peruse groupings of sites based on counties that they are located in.
Browsing with Tags
When you select the “Browse Items” tab from the menu, you’ll have two new tab options: “Browse All” and “Browse by Tag.” When you select the “Browse by Tag” option, you’ll be taken to a new page with a word cloud of tags, with larger words denoted higher-frequency tags. When you click on a tag, you’ll see all the items that have been marked with that tag.
The tags included within this database are as follows:
- Counties: This tag specifies the locations of where each historical and cultural organization and museum is located.
- County Document: This tag specifies which organizations and museum holds county documents including marriage and obituary records, county census indexes, past year books, plat maps, photos, etc.
- Festivals: This tag specifies which organizations and museums hold annual festivals at their sites.
- Genealogical Work: This tag specifies which organizations and museums grant access and research on genealogical information to the public.
- Historical Sites and Buisnesses: This tag specifies which organizations and museums only offer cultural sites to see.
- Native American History: This tag specifies which organizations and museums hold artifacts, information, and photos on certain Native American tribes.
Advanced Metadata Search
Under the search bar in the top right of the page, select “Advanced Search.” From here you can enter specific keywords, narrow your search by specific fields according to the Dublin Core options, search a range of ID#s assigned to the items, restrict your search to a certain collection, type, or feature-set.
Dublin Core Elements
Each item on the site has been catalogued with its particular metadata. Omeka (the host site) uses Dublin Core standards for classifying items, which means that the available fields are title, creator, subject, description, publisher, contributor, date, type, format, identifier, source, language, relation, coverage, and rights.The items on this site don’t require all fields, so the following is an outline of the fields with catalogued information and a quick overview of what that element describes:
-title: the title of the organization or museum
-creator: the director, president, or contact for the site
-subject: description if the site is a foundation, society, or museum
-description: a brief narrative about the organization or museum
-date: the hours of when the site is available to be accessed
-identifier: the location of the organization or museum
-source: a phone number and/or a webpage for the site
Northern Lights Library Network
The Northern Lights Library Network is a network for coordinating services and sharing resources for a 23-county region in north-central, north-west, and west-central Minnesota. For more information on NLLN, visit our website nlln.org.