NC ECHO grew out of the strategic planning activities of the North Carolina State Library Commission which, in 1999, adopted and published a roadmap to the future entitled, “Building Libraries—A Plan for Library Cooperation.” An important element in that plan was the Commission’s desire to use emerging Internet technology to increase public access to “specialized resources” about North Carolina’s history and culture held in the state’s libraries, archives, museums and historic sites.

To make this vision a reality, the Commission created the Access to Special Collections Working Group (ASCWG), now known as the NC ECHO Advisory Committee. The State Library of North Carolina secured support for ASCWG’s activities with a grant from federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funding provided through the Institute of Museum and Library Services. ASCWG members include librarians, archivists, educators, and museum professionals from public and private institutions throughout the state.

In March 2000, seeking greater input from their colleagues, ASCWG convened a conference of North Carolina cultural heritage caretakers and stakeholders who met for two days in High Point, NC. Following a review of other statewide initiatives, this group of approximately 100 persons directed ASCWG to create a web portal to organize and present the digital resources already created by North Carolina’s cultural institutions. This “High Point Group” also asked ASCWG to gather information about North Carolina’s cultural heritage community via a statewide survey and to create a long-term vision and plan for the project. Thus the NC ECHO (North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online) Project was born.

In April 2001, the High Point Group reconvened to review the first survey results, hear from representatives of the state’s major digitization programs, and unveil the NC ECHO web portal. That same spring, the State Library fired the first NC ECHO staff members who began the creation of a comprehensive online list of all of North Carolina’s cultural heritage institutions—libraries, museums, archives, and historic sites—in a directory that would eventually grow to include more than 950 institutions. The Project Archivist and Project Librarian traveled to visit each of the identified institutions. On these survey site visits, staff met with cultural heritage caretakers, discussed institutions’ accomplishments and challenges, viewed collections, took photographs, and administered a formal needs assessment survey (the Survey of North Carolina Cultural Repositories). After collating survey results, NC ECHO staff returned to each region they had surveyed and conducted a “summary meeting” bringing together all the cultural heritage caretakers from the region’s institutions. These meetings served as an opportunity for caretakers to learn more about NC ECHO and its programs, but more importantly to learn more about each other and to discover ways they could work together. Facilitating collaboration and community building was a foundation stone for NC ECHO and continues to be an important undertaking for the Project.

In 2005, NC ECHO completed its initial survey of institutions in all 100 counties. Staff has identified over 950 cultural heritage institutions in the state and has obtained survey responses from 761 of them. Data from the survey responses is being compiled into a Final Report that addresses cultural institutions’ collection scope and size, access, researchers and visitors, facilities and equipment, preservation concerns, staff and volunteers, financial support, needs and priorities, and digitization initiatives.

Using information gathered in the survey regarding institutions’ needs, NC ECHO works to give cultural heritage institutions the tools necessary to increase access to their collections in an online environment. The project has developed several workshops, including a week-long Digitization Institute, that provide hands-on instruction in digitization strategies to staff and volunteers of NC ECHO partner institutions. The Project has also developed Guidelines for Digitization which describe best practice standards for creating digital content.

NC ECHO also assists institutions in the creation of quality metadata. In 2004 the Project added a new position, Metadata Coordinator, to the staff roster. The Metadata Coordinator offered workshops on topics such as Encoded Archival Description (EAD), provided on-site consultations with institutions working on digitization, created working groups on metadata-related topics such as Dublin Core, EAD and Preservation Metadata for Digital Objects (PMDO), wrote guidelines for implementation of metadata standards, and developed an Encoded Archival Context (EAC) database of North Carolina Biographical and Historical Information Online (NCBHIO).

Knowledge and tools are often not enough to complete a successful digitization project. To assist institutions with funding for digitization projects, NC ECHO has developed a digitization grant program that allows libraries and partnering institutions to seek LSTA funding for the creation of digital collections. The grant program was inaugurated in 2001/2002 with a series of Demonstration Grants. Upon successful completion of these pilot grant projects, NC ECHO instituted a three-tier digitization grant program. Starter Grants of up to $8,000 offered smaller institutions an opportunity to “get started” with training and equipment purchases, culminating in a small-scale digitization project. Digitization Grants of up to $50,000 ($75,000 for collaborative grants) resulted in more comprehensive projects. Heritage Partner grants were added in 2004/2005 to give libraries the opportunity to work collaboratively with other non-library institutions. These multi-year grants of up to $150,000 per year resulted in large-scale digital collections on topics of significant importance to North Carolina while providing an opportunity for larger library institutions to nurture the digital capacity of smaller, non-library institutions. In 2007/2008, the digitization grant program was streamlined into a single, broad Digitization Grant allowing up to $75,000 for a single library or $150,000 for libraries partnering with non-library institutions. Planning grants are also available for institutions preparing to undertake a digitization grant. A list of funded grant projects is available online.

The State Library of North Carolina has had several key partner organizations during the course of the NC ECHO Project, including Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the North Carolina State Archives. Many other organizations have also contributed substantial staff time and support to the work of the Project, including Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, the University of North Carolina at Asheville, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Johnson C. Smith University, Davidson College, the Scotland County Memorial Library, North Carolina Historic Sites, the Mint Museums, the Onslow County Museum, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, and LEARN NC.

The NC ECHO Project’s many talented staff members have been critical to the success of the Project. In chronological order by the position they have held, they are:

Project Managers:
Kevin Cherry
Peggy Shaeffer
Emily Gore
Andrea Gabriel

Project Archivists:
Kim Cumber
Hilary Perez

Project Librarians:
Scott Reavis
Donna Baker
Jackie Dean
Peter Hymas

Metadata Coordinator:
Kathy Wisser

Project Assistants:
Molly Rutter
Wendy Rutter
Hilary Kanupp
Lisa Coombes
Jackie McLaurin
Alma Woodard
Matt Vernon
Michelle Shoemaker