WELLS — York County Community College received a $21,000 Digital Humanities Advancement Planning Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the project, “Go Local: Building Capacity for Public History in York County, Maine.” The main goal of this planning phase project is to develop curricula, to expand expertise in technologies related to digital humanities, and to build relationships with seven partner organizations.

YCCC English Department Chair and faculty member, Dr. Dianne Fallon wrote the grant and will serve as the project director. The grant will bring together YCCC faculty, and seven partner organizations: Historical Society of Wells-Ogunquit, McArthur Public Library, Dyer Library and Saco Museum, Wells Reserve at Laudholm National Estuarine, Kittery Historical & Naval Museum, Brick Store Museum and Kennebunk Free Library.

 Over the course of the 2017 – 2018 academic year, the Fallon will work with collaborating organizations to identify needs and goals in developing digitally-based public history projects.  The grant will also fund two workshops, led by scholar consultants Candace Kanes and Jessica Parr, who both have doctorates, aimed at expanding local expertise in digital technologies useful to the humanities. Finally, the grant will fund development of an entry-level course at YCCC aimed at teaching students to use digital tools to present public history projects based on local history.  The grant also funds the development of a website to document the project and to serve as a potential “digital portal” for the history of York County.