PHOTO: VSU Student Working to Preserve Brooks County History

Kyle Sandoval, a senior from Valdosta, is helping the Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections team preserve the cultural heritage and history of Brooks County, Georgia, particularly materials housed in the Quitman Brooks County Museum.

In 2023 VSU Archives and Special Collections received a $22,205 grant from the Lyrasis Catalyst Fund to kickstart an effort to make South Georgia history more accessible to everyone.  

Through a five-year Community Archives Digitization, Access, and Preservation Partnership project, VSU has been working to document and preserve some of the more important holdings of small historical societies and community archives across the university’s 41-county service region. This project involves digitization; metadata creation; making items accessible across multiple platforms locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally; and digitally preserving the materials within VSU’s state-of-the-art digital preservation system.

As an intern with this hands-on, inquiry-based experiential learning project, Sandoval is expanding his critical and purposeful thinking skills, while also transforming historical research for future generations. He anticipates graduating in December with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Bachelor of Science in Education in Secondary Education.