The City Council approved a Digitization Service Agreement with the Western Heritage Center on February 27, 2012. Since then, historical specialists at the Center assessed over 1800 photographs in the Library's Montana Room Collections. In addition, they provided metadata, or cataloging information, of scanned digital images of 718 photographs, which are now being made available to the public through the statewide Montana Memory Project. The work specified in this Agreement will build upon the assessment, digitization and cataloging completed in the 2012 project and will produce another 1,087 digital images with metadata for inclusion in the Montana Memory Project database, for a total of 1,805 photos. The contract for services will be reviewed at the end of the project for possible renewal until the collection is fully digitized.

The City Council may:

• Approve the award of the Digitization Service Agreement; or
• Not approve the award of the Digitization Service Agreement and not complete this phase of the project at this time.

The total cost of the Service Agreement will be $25,000. The source of funding for this project is Library reserves.

Staff recommends that the City Council approve the Digitization Service Agreement with the Western Heritage Center.