In ongoing cooperation with
the Biblical Recorder and other religious organizations, the North Carolina
religious archives are being completely digitized at Wake Forest University in
Winston-Salem.
With the help of a $75,000
grant, religious scholars and historians will soon gain easier access to the
complete archives of the Biblical Recorder, which is the most requested item in
the university’s Reynolds Library archives.
The newspaper has been
published continuously since 1833, and Wake Forest has the most extensive
collection of the publication outside of the Recorder offices.
“It’s an important research
tool not only for documentation of North Carolina Baptist history but North
Carolina cultural history,” said Megan Mulder, special collections librarian.
“It’s very valuable to church historians, genealogists and anyone interested in
the history of North Carolina.”
The digitization project is
being funded by the North Carolina Exploring Cultural Heritage Online’s (NC
Echo) Digitization Program.
Other significant historical
records will also be digitized in the near future. Wake Forest also received a
second NC Echo grant for planning associated with the digitization of other
collections of North Carolina religious material. Partners in the project
include Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
“This grant will allow us to
determine the priorities for digitization. There’s a lot of material out there,
and we want to assess which ones are most important for researchers,” Mulder
said.
Candidates for digitization include monographs, association minutes and
church records.
“Our North Carolina Baptist
collection is very extensive,” she said.