The Milwaukee Public Library Archives Team has received the 2023 Governor's Award for Archival Innovation. The award is administered in cooperation with the Board of Curators and the Wisconsin Historical Records Advisory Board with support of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

About the Milwaukee Public Library Archives

The Milwaukee Public Library has served as the archives for the city of Milwaukee since the 1990s. Starting in 2017, archives staff began work to resolve a backlog of collections. Through this work, staff processed the personal papers of mayors Mayors Carl Zeidler and Frank Zeidler and mayor Daniel Webster Hoan. Taken together, these collections revealed a wealth of material related to the era of socialist governance in the city of Milwaukee.

The archives team wanted to find ways to use this material to engage with the public, especially since the 2020 Democratic Convention was slated to be held in Milwaukee. Since the project coincided with the era of COVID-19-related shutdowns and social distancing, the team needed to find new ways to engage the public and showcase the MPL’s collections. The team designed a geocache program to encourage people to move through the city and to connect contemporary sites with history.

Archives staff researched locations throughout the city, wrote text detailing the location’s relationship to Milwaukee socialist history, assembled the contents of the cache, and obtained property owner permission. Geocaches were on location from September 2020 to November 2020.

This project had several longer-term impacts: first, a section on the Milwaukee Public Library website for its socialist collections; second, staff seeking other topics within the collection that can be presented in alternative formats and venues; and third, other organizations reaching out to inquire about MPL archiving their records.

Milwaukee Public Library staff used a new method for their institution to showcase historical records and a specific political era in Milwaukee. The geocache presentation of materials brings archival collections outside the walls of the institution and allows people to engage with archival sources in the real world fostering valuable connections to the past of a city.

About the Archival Innovation Award

This award recognizes individuals, programs, or organizations that successfully experiment with new ways to demonstrate the significance or relevance of historical records for understanding the past, or that use historical records to reach new audiences. This award is open to Wisconsin archival repositories and individuals only. The activity or contribution being nominated must have occurred within the last three years and may be continuing.

The Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Historical Records Advisory Board jointly sponsor the Governor's Archives Awards annually. A panel of judges from the Wisconsin Historical Society and the Wisconsin Historical Records Advisory Board recommended these organizations receive the award. The Wisconsin Historical Society's Board of Curators approved the 2022 Governor's Archives Awards.

Learn More

• Learn about the Governor's Archives Awards

  Learn how to nominate organizations for these awards.

• About the Wisconsin Historical Records Advisory Board

• Learn about the Board of Curators Awards