MORGANTOWN — The Preservation Alliance of West Virginia’s Preserve WV AmeriCorps program has partnered with local volunteers and the West Virginia and Regional History Center of WVU Libraries to create safe archival housing for thousands of documents.
The alliance is a statewide service initiative dedicated to preserving West Virginia’s history.
Volunteers were at Morgantown City Hall Wednesday helping to preserve city documents, including maps, property deeds, meeting minutes, city manager files and building permits. The group will be back today to finish what was started.
Volunteers organize, catalog, scan and move the documents into acid-free containers and transporting them from Morgantown City Hall to the West Virginia and Regional History Center.
Samuel Richardson, a member of Preservation Alliance of West Virginia’s Preserve WV AmeriCorps, organized the project with the help of Morgantown City Hall Engineer Alex Stockdale.
“The data provided by these documents can never be replaced once lost,” Richardson said. “It is imperative that these documents are placed in appropriate archival housing and stored at the West Virginia Regional History Center. These efforts will enable researchers, historians, lawyers and scientists to access these files and extract legal data and geographic information, as well as discover the industrial heritage of the local community.”
This project is created in part by a Preserve WV AmeriCorps position made possible through a Preservation Alliance of West Virginia grant from Volunteer WV, the State’s Commission for National and Community Service, and the Corporation for National and Community Service.
