The Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) is pleased to announce the 2009 Member Project Grant awardees funded by the New York State Regional Bibliographic Data Bases and Interlibrary Resource Sharing (RBDB) program.

These funds are provided with the intent of improving resources sharing through the use of technology. The 2009 allotment for this region totaled $72,000.

WNYLRC member libraries are encouraged to submit grant proposals which are read by a team and funds are allocated on the basis of merit of the project proposed. The awardees for 2009 propose projects across a range of topics designed to enhance access to regional collections.

This year, one of those recipients is SUNY Fredonia, winning a grant of $6,549.00. The library intends to digitize four historical atlases from the Western New York region, the 1867 and 1881 Atlases of Chautauqua County and the 1866 Atlas of Wyoming and Genesee Counties both by D.G. Beers. These atlases consist of 350 pages of historical maps and data which document the history of these counties in the mid to late 1800s. The availability of these volumes will provide one of the most complete collections of online cartographic materials available for 19th century Western New York when added to the Holland Land Company Maps Digitization Projects conducted by SUNY Fredonia in 2007 and 2008 with RBDB funding. Those particular maps are one of the highlights of WNY Legacy (www.wnylegacy.org), WNYLRC's digital library of historical treasures.

A summary of each project proposal can be found at WNYLRC's Web site www.wnylrc.org