The Highland Park Historical Society has hired archivist Nancy Webster to administer a two-year matching grant award of $86,414 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the grant-making arm of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), for a Basic Processing and Preservation Planning Project. Webster’s appointment, effective September 1, represents a major step in the Society’s effort to establish its museum’s archives in keeping with NARA standards. Webster will work with the Society’s Board of Directors, staff, and graduate interns to identify, arrange, describe, preserve and make available to the public in physical and electronic means approximately 1,000 cubic feet of historic materials housed in the museum, many of which relate directly to major events in national and world history. The known content of these wide-ranging materials, which are largely hidden from the museum’s audiences, includes the history of local building and landscape architects, the invention of the telephone, the establishment of railways, military activities, and many other social activities. Prior to coming to the Highland Park Historical Society, Webster served as an archivist for 17 years, first at the Chicago Historical Society, and later at Molex Connector Corporation in Lisle, IL, where she developed the company’s archives and history program, creating an original online catalog of more than 10,000 artifacts, monographs, manuscript collections and AV titles. Webster received her Master of Information and Library Studies (M.I.L.S.) degree from the University of Michigan, specializing in Archives Administration and History, and also serving as a manuscript assistant at the renowned Bentley Historical Library. She is a member of the International Council on Archives, the Midwest Archives Conference, and the Chicago Area Archivists. “Ms. Webster is a highly-accomplished archivist with a strong background in archives management and collection development and preservation,” said Society president Elliott Miller. “The Society is most fortunate to have someone of her knowledge, caliber and professionalism to help establish the museum’s archives from the ground up.” Among the Highland Park Historical Society’s most significant collections are landscape designs by world-renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen, residential architectural designs by Ernest Grunsfeld, Jr., glass botanical photographs of Midwestern flora by local photographer Jesse Lowe Smith, 19th century City of Highland Park records, and the origins of the Ravinia Festival, the first major outdoor music festival. This grant will lead to making these and the rest of the museum’s valuable collections Web-discoverable and will help ensure their long-term preservation by stopping any current or future physical deterioration. Under Webster’s administration, the NHPRC grant project will result in museum exhibitions and programs revealing newly processed archival materials and is expected to serve as the basis for the eventual collection of new holdings of local historical materials. Completion of the project in 2012 will make it possible for current and former Highland Park residents to more easily research the histories of their families and homes and for scholars, historians and all interested parties to more easily research all of the museum’s valuable collections, which heretofore have been almost completely inaccessible. The Highland Park Historical Society was formed in 1966. Its museum is a 12 room, two story Italianate Victorian house donated to the Society in 1969 by Jean Butz James. The Society’s mission is to discover, preserve, provide access to and disseminate the history of the general area and of Highland Park, in particular. For more information, you are invited to call 847-432-7090, to visit the museum’s website at www.highlandparkhistory.com and to visit Facebook under Highland Park Historical Society.