I recently came across a very useful database/collection online called Heritage West. The database is a product of the Colorado Digitization Program, Colorado State Library, and the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries. It can best be described as a collection of collections. What the database does is bring together the collections of several libraries, archives, and museums into an easily searched format. The site offers a variety of search and browsing options that are really very user friendly. They include browsing by collection or subject and a basic or advanced search feature. One of the really neat things is that it includes entities from all over the western region of the United States (Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming). It includes collections drawn from public libraries, academic libraries, historical societies, and natural history/science museums so it is not just one type of organization that is available.
While the idea of Heritage West is very interesting (esp. for people interested in History) and useful. I experienced a few problems with the collections. Since the collections are maintained by each individual organization some of the search results were better maintained than others. In fact many of the results wouldn’t actually display because they were not available for various reasons.
This type of database could be a valuable tool for researchers who could access various institution’s digital collections from one easy to use database. It also shows that different organizations can bring something different to the digital environment and can compliment each other as information resources. However, for the database to truly be successful the creators will need to work more closely with the contributing organizations to ensure that the digital collections are maintained and available before including them.
