The Plains to Peaks Collective Launches a New Discovery Platform

The Colorado State Library, in partnership with the Wyoming State Library, is excited to announce the launch of a brand new Plains to Peaks Collective site (plains2peaks.org) for searching historic collections across Colorado and Wyoming. The new platform provides free public access to a wealth of photographs, manuscripts, books, audio recordings, artifacts, and videos from numerous cultural heritage institutions in our two states. With more than 1.2 million items currently available from over 60 organizations, a single search offers limitless opportunities for discovery. 

The Plains to Peaks Collective (PPC) formed in 2017 as the Colorado-Wyoming Service Hub of the Digital Public Library of American (DPLA). The DPLA brings together descriptive information about collection material from participating libraries, archives, and museums, in the United States and makes it freely available. The Plains to Peaks launched in DPLA in 2018 with just seven partner institutions sharing 46,000 items. 

As part of DPLA membership, the Plains to Peaks launched a DPLA hosted local site in 2021. This offered users a Colorado and Wyoming level of access to the PPC collections. However the nature of the membership offering constrained our ability to manage local information display and improve or enhance the way users interact with the collection.

Developed by Veridian—the experts behind the Colorado and Wyoming newspaper Collections—the new PPC portal serves as a powerful search tool. By bringing together disparate collections that are frequently hidden within websites into a single, efficient search, the platform saves researchers and frontline staff significant amounts of time. 

Beyond its core functionality, the platform introduces several key features designed to deepen visitor engagement with the shared history of both states, including:

• Collection Highlights: Accessible via the homepage, this feature provides an in-depth exploration of PPC special collections, the collecting and preservation efforts of our partner institutions, and digital initiatives across Colorado and Wyoming.
• Browse by Topic: This tool allows users to seamlessly explore the collection, with categories spanning from Mining to Social Protest Movements. Future enhancements will include educational histories curated and written by PPC staff and partners.
• Technical Improvements: The platform features enhanced indexing by Google and other search engines, refined analytics, and improved adherence to accessibility standards.
• Enhanced User Functionality: Visitors can register for a complimentary account to manage their research by saving and emailing searches, tracking their viewing history, and accessing citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago formats. Additionally, the platform invites direct user feedback to help continually improve the accuracy and representation of collection items.
• Robust Collection Security: To safeguard against for-profit data scraping, Veridian employs advanced protective measures that evolve alongside changing scraper tactics. To further defend against increasing AI bot activity, the system utilizes CloudFlare, ensuring the long-term integrity of the collections.

Participation in the Plains to Peaks Collective offers numerous advantages for partner organizations, including the ability to:

• Expand your professional network and community.
• Drive more traffic to your specific collections and your institution as a whole.
• Foster deeper engagement with users and grow your patron base.
• Enhance the visibility and scope of your digital materials.
• Create new opportunities to share and promote your unique local history and community.
• Encourage the organic finding of historic materials and increase public interaction. 

The PPC collection grows and updates regularly, ensuring there is always fresh content for a national audience of researchers, students, and history enthusiasts to discover. We look forward to further growing this resource and welcome interest from potential new partners. To learn more about the PPC or if you would like to share your unique historic digital collections with us, please contact Leigh Jeremias at [email protected]. There is no cost to share collections with the PPC. Information about participation and other program resources can be found at: https://resources.plains2peaks.orgg.

The future is bright and exciting for cultural heritage organizations in Colorado and Wyoming. We are currently planning for new program resources, additional opportunities for visitor engagement with the PPC collections and new partnerships. If you would like to remain abreast of future initiatives please consider joining the PPC mailing list. We promise not to spam you.