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About

The Illinois Digital Archives (IDA) was developed to provide access to primary source materials in Illinois libraries, archives, museums, historical societies and other cultural institutions. Ida was unveiled in November 2000 as part of the Illinois State Library's Digital Imaging Program. It was designed to be a searchable repository for the Illinois State Library's digital collections as well as those of other libraries and cultural institutions in Illinois.

Since 1998 the Illinois State Library has awarded digital imaging grants to libraries in Illinois, using Library Services and Technology Act funds. Priorities for funding are proposals that digitize primary source materials, such as photographs, manuscripts, diaries, oral histories, maps and newspapers. One of the requirements of the grant recipients is that the digital collections produced with this funding are made available in IDA, and the results speak for themselves. IDA is enriched by these interesting collections of Illinois historical materials.

The Illinois Digital Archives is an OAI-compliant digital library and is a data contributor to Illinois Harvest and Digital Illinois.