GILLETTE – The Campbell County Rockpile Museum is happy to announce that a portion of its historic collections are now part of the Digital Public Library of America.
The DPLA website, https://dp.la, is a free portal. Visitors can view more than 39 million unique items from across the United States and then go directly to the digital collections held at the home institution.
More than 5,300 items from the Rockpile Museum are now shared via the DPLA. The collections shared comprise items from the museum’s collections including photographs, documents, books, maps, and three-dimensional objects that help preserve the cultural, social, and industrial history of northeast Wyoming and the Powder River Basin. These items are a small percentage of the museum’s overall collection of nearly 36,000 objects.
The Rockpile Museum is the seventh Wyoming partner to join the Plains to Peaks Collective. The PPC, the Colorado-Wyoming Service Hub of the DPLA, is a collaboration between the Colorado State Library and the Wyoming State Library that brings together descriptive information about collection material held by our libraries, archives, and museums, and makes it freely available to the world. The Rockpile Museum joins the Wyoming State Library, Wyoming State Archives, UW Library, UW American Heritage Center, UW Art Museum, and Park County Archives.
“I am extremely excited to join the Plains to Peaks Collective of the DPLA,” said Rockpile Museum Director Robert Henning. “One of the Museum Board’s strategic objectives is to take the Rockpile Museum outside of our own walls and share this great collection and the history that makes this collection important with the world. For a museum of our size to be able to take our existing online collections and expand to the DPLA so quickly is a testament to the great work of our staff and everyone that has worked hard over the years to collect, preserve, and catalog these amazing collections.”
“Only a small percentage of collections ever go on exhibit,” said Rockpile Museum Collections Assistant Cara Reeves. “So having an online presence where we can share the complete collection and the stories behind these items is extremely important to all of the staff here at the Rockpile Museum.”
The Campbell County Rockpile Museum is a department of Campbell County Government and is located at 900 W. 2nd Street in Gillette. The museum is open Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. To learn more, visit the website at www.rockpilemuseum.com.
For help researching the collections of the Rockpile Museum or any other questions, please contact the museum at rockpile@vcn.com or (307) 682-5723.
