Creating Local Linkages is a free online professional development curriculum for public librarians to gain skills to use digital history sources and develop local history projects that will open up new programming opportunities, and to help connect patrons interest in genealogy to broader social, cultural and political history. The curriculum offers training in historical research methods and digital skills, including the use of Omeka, an online collection and publishing platform.
Each of the five modules consists of readings, activities, step-by-step tutorials, and an assignment. The sequence of modules introduces you to the topics and practices of local history, how to frame questions about the past, identify sources to answer those questions, place them in context, and present that historical interpretation online in a digital form.
While this curriculum is designed for public librarians, it is also an open educational resource released under Creative Commons licensing (CC-BY 4.0). These materials are available for use, reuse, and remix by any interested person, at any time, who will have the freedom to complete any or all of the modules that might fill their individual learning needs.