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FAQ
This site is free to use.
Images may be copied only for classroom use
Registration is only necessary if you want to use the album
function
We welcome feedback (tincaninfo@tincan.org)
and support
Overview
Inland Northwest Memories is a regional database of
electronic versions of Inland Northwest historical
documents, contributed by cultural institutions from around
the region, from their own locations. The Inland Northwest
is usually defined as eastern Washington, northern Idaho,
northeastern Oregon, and western Montana. The database
currently emphasizes documents from northeastern Washington
and North Idaho, TINCAN's traditional service areas. It will
expand in the future. It is an evolving project, and we
encourage feedback.
The web site was built and is maintained by the Inland
Northwest Community Access Network (TINCAN). It is based on
the work of the Maine Memory Network (www.mainememory.org),
and owes much to their conceptualization. Seed funding came
from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Contact Us
c/o TINCAN
827 West First Avenue
Suite 121
Spokane, WA 99201
tincaninfo@tincan.org
Karen L. Michaelson, Ph.D., Director
The Concept
The concept for the Inland Northwest Memories project came
from a telephone inquiry by a middle school social studies
teacher who asked "Is Spokane history online?" After some
discussion, we concluded that it was not, and she closed the
conversation with "Well it should be!" This call to action
led to the idea that the historical resources of our region
should be more broadly accessible to the public, especially
to schools. It became clear that information technology
would allow us to share historical resources. We drew
inspiration from the Maine Memory Network (www.mainememory.org)
in developing the concept. We used their model of
distributed input/dynamic output to design much of the web
site. This structures the way documents come into the
system, and what you can do with them
Documents are input directly into the database from
organizations across the region, through their own web
browsers. Every time you look at a document in the system,
the cataloguing record will display contact information for
the contributing organization. If you want more information
about a document, or about other items in the organization's
collection, contact the contributing organization directly.
The database can be searched by keyword, advanced search,
or by our lists of themes, people, events or collections.
Usability of the site doesn't stop there. You can save
documents to return to later, with the album function, and
use the function to create a personal report on a topic of
your choice.
The Documents
Documents in the Inland Northwest Memories database include
electronic representations of letters, journals,
photographs, paintings, drawings, museum objects,
broadsides, maps, sound and video files. Each somehow
relates to the Inland Northwest. We have placed particular
emphasis on the gathering of oral histories of our region,
transcribing them for easy access. We are making every
effort to represent the entire region through the cultural
heritage of its source documents. We hope to represent all
of the communities and cultural groups of the region, so
that their stories are more broadly known.
We make every effort to fully catalogue every item and to
transcribe all hand written documents.
View a list of our contributors or if you represent a
cultural institution, find out more about
how to contribute.
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