The Hopewell Valley has a deep history and an unusual amount of families who have lived here for generations. The Hopewell Valley Historical Society has begun a project of documenting that history digitally and, on Sunday at 3pm, Society member Doug Dixon will explain how you can help from the comfort of your own home.
This Zoom presentation will focus on the Hopewell Valley History Project , a new volunteer effort to collect and organize the important sources of our local heritage in digital form, and to share them online for open and convenient access. The presentation will walk participants through an example historical investigation focusing on the public libraries in Hopewell.
Dixon says his presentation will begin with the big picture: what is the Hopewell Valley History Project, why was it created, and what they are doing – including a quick overview of the kinds of materials that they currently have collected and that are available online.
Then, he says, he will work through a case study of how you can use these materials to explore historical interests – in this case, based on the Society’s recent investigation of the history of the free public library in Hopewell. This will show how you can pull from documents, maps, images, and other sources to understand the history of our towns – and resolve some lingering confusions.
The talk will conclude with a “live” tour of the Society’s website to show how to use it to access information and how to use the interactive History Map to explore the towns.
Hopewell history buffs are encouraged to contribute to this effort to preserve and share our history, from finding historic documents, maps, and images that we can share, to researching and organizing historic information.
Registration is required: http://www.penningtonlibrary.org/HopewellHistoryProject. The talk is co-sponsored by the Pennington Public Library, Hopewell Valley Historical Society, and the Hopewell Museum.
Submitted by the Hopewell Valley Historical Society
Editor’s note: if anyone wants to participate in this presentation but is unfamiliar with zoom, read this: If you have never before used Zoom, please read here: https://www.penningtonlibrary.org/usingzoom. If you are still having trouble, email Amie Rukenstein at [email protected] before Saturday and I will work with you to help you familiarize yourself with it. It’s surprisingly easy.
