With the help of a $20,000 grant from Milwaukee's Schoenleber Foundation, the Wisconsin Historical Society will digitalize thousands of pages from two periodicals of Wisconsin History dating back more than 150 years.

In an effort to keep up with innovations in digital technology and make information more available to users, the Wisconsin Historical Society is going digital with the help of the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center.

"We know that our future lies on the web," said Michael Edmonds, head of the Wisconsin Historical Society library and archives division. "It is kind of a contradiction that the future of a place that relies on the past is now relying on the Internet, but that is where everyone goes to find information."

A vast majority of topics such as pioneer reminiscences, transcripts of ancient documents and interviews with Indian elders will be covered in some 4,000 electronic files to be catalogued for delivery to the library.

The Wisconsin Historical Society contains the largest American History library in the country, with four miles of shelving packed with information.

As head of the library and archives division, Edmonds' main responsibility has been to transfer the prized historical collections off the shelves and onto the net.

Edmonds said the project began in 1999 and he expects it to be finished by the end of 2006, when over 30,000 pages will be conveniently available over the Internet to students, teachers, local historians and anyone interested in Wisconsin history, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"Students in a wide variety of liberal arts studies will be able to find research material here," Edmonds said. "The articles span across a wide variety of topics and will help students to make national topics relevant to their own lives because they will be able to find specific Wisconsin examples to relate to their studies."

Edmonds said the database has an important statewide significance, allowing information to be available for free to anyone worldwide. Due to the overwhelming amount of information online, the UW Digital Collection Center has taken on the project of organizing the historical society's library.

"Oftentimes, information found on the net is neither authoritative nor vetted," Vicki Tobias of the UWDCC said. "But by partnering with the Historical Society to create and publish online primary historical resources, we are offering learners quality digital resources to facilitate their research."

Tobias added the UWDCC will be reformatting — or scanning — and creating "metadata" for the Wisconsin Historical Collection and the Wisconsin Magazine of History, the two periodicals being digitally catalogued.

Though the information will be accessible online, those seeking to view original transcripts in person can find them at the historical society's library, located on the UW campus adjacent to Library Mall.

The Schoenleber Foundation — named after Gretchen Schoenleber, a UW System regent in the 1940s and ’50s — gives money every year to different projects statewide, specifically at the university level.