About the Denver Public Library's Western History and Genealogy Digital Collections The Digital Collections had their origins in the Photo Digitization Project which was started in the early 1990’s by Augie Mastrogiuseppe, the Library’s Curator of Photographs at the time. The project’s goal was to improve access to the Western History photograph collection and help preserve the original items by creating digital copies. Over the years, the project was funded by grants from organizations including the Boettcher Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Colorado Historic Fund. The digitized collection grew to include a selection of photographs, maps, broadsides, architectural drawings and other documents from the collections of the Denver Public Library’s Western History/Genealogy Department. The collection chronicles the people, places, and events that shaped the settlement and growth of the Western United States. Many outstanding photographers are represented and the collection includes images of Native Americans, pioneers, railroads, mining, Denver and Colorado towns, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, the 10th Mountain Division ski troops and more. In 2007, a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) allowed the Library, in partnership with the City of Denver, the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries, the Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado), the Auraria Library, and the University of Denver Penrose Library, to begin the Creating Communities project. This project inventoried, cataloged, and digitized historic documents of the City and County of Denver and linked them to existing information about buildings and neighborhoods. This project continues with an additional IMLS grant, Creating Your Community , allowing users to create their own collections, add images and archive their materials. As we move into a new era of digital image reproduction, we will be adding more photographic collections, ephemera, maps, broadsides, art, and documents, to the ever expanding online collections. Coming soon, images from the Rocky Mountain News will be added as well. Our online collections are now supported by a modern digital asset management system, powered by CONTENTdm software. CONTENTdm brings better searching components as well as superb zooming capabilities to our photographs and documents, bringing out details that were not visible before. We invite you to explore our collections and see what wonderful treasures await. For more information about the Digital Collections, contact the Western History/Genealogy Department at history@denverlibrary.org or 720-865-1821 Permissions All images from the Denver Public Library Digital Collections are the property of the Denver Public Library and may not be reproduced in any way without permission from the Library. Commercial use of images is subject to service fees. We require that all images be credited to the Denver Public Library, Western History Collection. Please refer to the price list for commercial and private use.