Big Sky Country Digital Network Collections Now Discoverable in DPLA!

We are excited to welcome our newest hub to DPLA! The collections of the Big Sky Country Digital Network are now available to explore in the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). The new Montana Service Hub represents a collaborative effort between  the Montana State Library (MSL), the Montana Historical Society (MHS), the University of Montana (UM), and Montana State University (MSU). Together, these organizations have made thousands of new resources accessible via DPLA.   

As with all Service Hubs, Big Sky Digital Network brings its own unique, local history that allows DPLA represent the diversity of experiences across the country and collections that contribute to our common heritage. These a cache of correspondence that reveal the lives of the men and women who came to the region in the 1860s, manuscripts and photos from the archive of author Ivan Doig, and a collection of historic photographs from scenic Glacier National Park, just to name a few.

Take a look below at some of the new materials from Big Sky Digital Network and start exploring!

Journey through the mountains, lakes, and trails of Glacier National Park with the Glacier National Park Historical Photographs collection. These images capture the spectacular landscape and the people that worked and played in the park in its early years. Work by notable photographers such as George Grant, Fred Kiser, and T.J. Hileman appear in this collection.

Explore the notes, diaries, and photos of author and novelist, Ivan Doig, known for his fiction and non-fiction work set primarily in Montana that celebrate the landscape and people of the post-war American West. The Ivan Doig Archive contains original manuscripts, an unfinished novel, interviews, correspondence, and thousands of images of family, travel, and research as well as documentation detailing Ivan’s battle with multiple myeloma.

Chart your way through Montana and the West with this collection of maps made available by a number of Montana institutions, from plat maps from the Montana Historical Society Research Center to a classification of streams and waterways from University of Montana. This collection contains everything from territorial and expedition sketches, cemetery plots and railroad outlines, to present day topographic designs. Many of these include statistics on the areas they cover.

The Montana Hub brings the stories and voices of its residents to DPLA that, together with the other hubs, help make connections between broad national themes in American history and the experiences of individuals and local communities. For example, the collection of diaries and letters in the Montana Historical Society Civil War Era Diaries and Correspondence Collection share stories and experiences of those who moved to the new Montana Territory during the waning years of the Civil War.

Welcome, Montana!