This is our 1,000th blog post!
It's been a little more than seven years since Jessica started writing here in Febrary 2006. Back then, we had just started adding records to our online catalog. It now contains over 88,000 item records for books, pamphlets, periodicals, archival collections, images, and objects, with more being added every day. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"316","attributes":{"alt":"our website, circa 2006","title":"our website, circa 2006","height":275,"width":350,"style":"width: 200px; height: 157px; float: left; margin: 5px 10px 5px 0px;","class":"media-image media-element file-media-original"},"link_text":null}]]We had a hand-coded website. (How many of you remember the purple pages?) Since then, we have redesigned our site twice and are in the middle of doing so again. We now have a dedicated exhibit site, and our online presence has expanded to include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr.
Six years ago, we launched our Brown Bag Lunch lecture series, awarded our first joint research fellowship with our neighbors at the Boston Athenaeum, and initiated a church records microfilming preservation project.
Five years ago, we added our e-newsletter, and expanded our educational programs to include Peggy's popular Growing Deeper Roots course on Congregational history. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"317","attributes":{"alt":"our homepage, 2008-2013","title":"our homepage, 2008-2013","height":359,"width":350,"style":"width: 200px; height: 205px; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 5px 10px;","class":"media-image media-element file-media-original"},"link_text":null}]]When we launched the current incarnation of our website, we added a database of citations for clergy and missionary obituaries that has proven immensely useful.
Four years ago, we digitized early Congregational yearbooks, John Vinton's collection of missionary biographies, and Harold Worthley's inventory of Massachusetts Congregational church records with the help of the scanning lab at the Boston Public Library and the Internet Archive.
Three years ago, we hosted a conference in celebration of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions' bicentennial. We also launched the exclusive member content on our website, and started uploading pictures from our image collection to Flickr.
[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"318","attributes":{"alt":"our exhibit site","title":"our exhibit site","height":325,"width":350,"style":"width: 200px; height: 186px; float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-left: 0px;","class":"media-image media-element file-media-original"},"link_text":null}]]Two years ago, we joined in the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, added our first records to the Digital Commonwealth catalog, and launched our first digital exhibits.
Last year, we vicariously traveled through England with some of our board members, and made the first collections in our New England's Hidden Histories program available for use online.
Over the years, staff members have come and gone. We have nurtured dozens of interns and student volunteers through their first archival processing projects or cataloging experiences. As we have learned about useful resources and interesting events at other institutions, we've done our part to help promote them.
It has been quite a journey so far, and we will have even more exciting things to share with you in the coming years. We hope you'll come along for the ride.