Community-Owned-and-Operated: Amplifying Cultural Heritage through Inter-Institutional Collaboration

The Greater Southwest Virginia Digital Collective (GSDC) is a community-owned collective steered by a volunteer community advisory board composed of community members from the region and Virginia Tech University Library (VTUL) faculty members that reviews, approves, and champions community collections to be added to the Virginia Tech Digital Library. The challenge GSDC aims to address is the gap between well-resourced institutions and smaller cultural heritage organizations by providing community-tailored assistance in processing and describing collections, digitization and consultation, and depositing material into an access and preservation repository. This roundtable will consist of two GSDC members representing both a community organization and VTUL to discuss the relationship-building process, successes and challenges, and sharing the community-driven model of GSDC.