Thanks to a $9,500 Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Small Grant, the Lyon County Historical Society is offering online public access to the museum items.

The Historical Society received the grant in March for the CollectiveAccess Data Conversion, according to Executive Director Jennifer Andries. The project, which consisted of data conversion from the former museum’s system to CollectiveAccess, setup on the public site, training, and data cleanup was completed this summer.

CollectiveAccess is an online, open source-based collections management software available through the Minnesota Alliance of Local History Museums (MALHM). ​Organizations using the CollectiveAccess system have to opportunity to share as much or as little of their collection on-line as they wish.

The benefit of sharing the collection online is that it becomes more accessible to researchers and the public. 

LCHS currently has more than 15,000 items from the museum collection cataloged on the system, Andries said in a news release

As of now over 200 are shared on the public site and more are added daily.

To see the public site and search through the collections that are already being shared, visit: www.mncollections.org  

Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage grants are made possible by the Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on Nov. 4, 2008. The Legacy Amendment supports efforts to preserve Minnesota land, water and legacy, including Minnesota history and cultural heritage.