History of UPLINK
Initial Survey and Planning
During the summer of 2019, Northern Michigan University archivist Marcus C. Robyns received an NMU faculty research grant to conduct a survey of heritage organizations in the Upper Peninsula. He interviewed staff on governance, operations, funding, and the management of digital material. Robyns also inventoried historical manuscript collections, focusing on noteworthy material contributing to the documentation of Upper Peninsula history, and identified significant digital collections as either stand-alone items or components of larger analog collections.
The survey showed that many small historical societies did in fact possess significant manuscript collections, but they didn’t have the funding or in-house technical skills necessary to make the public aware of their collections. Robyns had an idea: what if there was a consortium that could help small organizations afford digital access and preservation?
In 2020, with support from a National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) Planning Grant, representatives from Northern Michigan University (NMU), Michigan Technological University (MTU), Lake Superior State University (LSSU), the Peter White Public Library in Marquette, and the Marquette Regional History Center formed a planning team to analyze the data Robyns had gathered the previous summer. From this analysis and further research, the team developed the administrative structure, policies, and procedures for a collaborative Upper Peninsula digital preservation and access network, known as UPLINK (Upper Peninsula Digital Network).
Below are the final reports from these two grants:
Heritage Organizations Site Survey Report
Selected Site Visit Collections Inventory
UPLINK Governance and Procedures Report
*Please note that the governance and technology policies have since changed. See our current governance and policies pages for details.
Launching the Consortium
With the structures developed by the planning team, the NMU Archives applied for and received a two-year NHPRC Implementation Grant from 2021-2023. That grant funded the purchase of a book scanner, the creation of the UPLINK database, and a full-time staff member for the consortium. UPLINK officially launched in May 2021, and its website went live in December 2021.
Community Digitization Projects
In the summer of 2022, UPLINK received a grant from the Michigan Humanities Council to run a series of community digitization events in Marquette, Sault Sainte Marie, Ontonagon, and Stephenson (Menominee County). These two-day events featured a local history speaker and a talk by UPLINK staff on how to do digitization and digital preservation for personal files. Members of the public were also invited to contribute to UPLINK digital copies of primary source materials documenting the history and culture of the Upper Peninsula. The digitization equipment used at the events became the basis of UPLINK's digitization equipment loan program.
Information Literacy and Leadership Institute
In the summer of 2024, UPLINK received a grant from the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant program run by the Library of Michigan. This grant funded a three-day primary source literacy institute at Northern Michigan University for a dozen K-12 teachers from across the Upper Peninsula. Teachers were able to work with archival collections and select documents for digitization for use in the classroom. They then wrote lesson plans based on these documents. The documents and lesson plans will be freely available on a new education portal later this year. Another institute will be held next summer. If you are a K-12 teacher interested in applying for the program, please email archives@nmu.edu.