The Newport Historical Society is not a large institution, but its accomplishments have reached an international audience over the last few years. Recent achievements in the digital realm – the online collections database called Gladys, and an award-winning mobile app, Explore Historic Newport (NewportHistoryApp.com) – have been spear-headed by the Society’s Registrar / Archivist Stacie Parillo.
NHS Archivist Stacie Parillo uses a tub of water and a razor to pry a 1950 photograph that features Rogers High School students from the glass that it was fused to. December 2012.
Stacie was recently accepted to become a Community Rep for the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), making her part of a group of volunteers who engage their community by leading outreach activities. “Last year I saw Dan Cohen, the Executive Director of the DPLA, speak at a conference and was completely blown away by its potential. I’d like to introduce more people to this amazing resource, which can have a huge impact on how users access material in our small, but culturally-rich state.” Stacie will host a series of presentations in Rhode Island to introduce the DPLA to local organizations.
The Digital Public Library of America works to bring together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. It strives to contain the full breadth of human expression, from the written word, to works of art and culture, to records of America’s heritage, to the efforts and data of science. DPLA aims to expand this crucial realm of openly available materials, and make those riches more easily discovered and more widely usable and used.
Stacie’s admittance to the program is part of the DPLA’s second class of Community Reps. This adds 100 new Community Reps to the existing first class, bringing the total roster to 200. The second class completes the U.S. map and adds three other countries, bringing local DPLA advocacy to all 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico, Argentina, Canada, China and Ireland. Volunteers who are part of the Community Reps program work in K-12 education, public libraries, state libraries, municipal archives, public history and museums, technology, publishing, media, genealogy, and many areas of higher education.
Since 2011, Stacie has worked to create accessibility for the Newport Historical Society’s collections. This has included creating Gladys, the online collections database, researching provenance for collection items, as well as posting online accessible finding aids and query-able collection inventories. She has also served as Digital Archivist for the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities where she retrieved 40 years of granting projects from obscurity and is assisting the Council in making them accessible online. Stacie is a 2011 graduate of the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences, and is a member of the GSLIS Alumni Board. She holds a Master of Arts in Communication Studies from Suffolk University.