BIDDEFORD — Kylie Clukey, a freshman at Biddeford High School, doesn’t enjoy all aspects of high school. She’s one of 15 students in Denise Doherty’s alternative education class, Project Aspire. However, she has become engaged in a local history project in which her class, along with the McArthur Library and the Biddeford Historical Society, is participating.
The three groups are taking part in a year-long collaborative, funded by the Maine Historical Society, to create a Web site about Biddeford’s history.
Biddeford is one of 16 communities ”“ eight this school year and eight the previous year ”“ that are part of the Maine Community Heritage Project, an outgrowth of the state historical society’s Maine Memory Network Web site on state history.
In 2007, the Maine Historical Society received an $850,000 federal grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to fund the project. Each of the communities were allocated approximately $7,500 to purchase supplies such as cameras, computers and scanners.
When the Biddeford Web site is launched in June, it will make the collections of the library and the Biddeford Historical Society more accessible, said Renee DesRoberts, McArthur’s archivist, who is participating in the project.
But Clukey, like many of her classmates, isn’t thinking about how people around the world will be able to learn more about Biddeford and its past because of her work.
She and the other students are focusing on the process of making the Web site.
The class started in September.
Since then, “We’ve been researching old stuff,” said Clukey, and in their class, “most of the stuff focuses on scanning and photography.”
For the project the students have been taking a lot of photos ”“ their favorite part ”“ related to Biddeford’s past. They’ve also been scanning and digitizing old photos and articles, many of which had been collecting dust in the library’s attic until recently.
After creating detailed records about the photos, objects or articles, the students upload the records and the digital images onto the Maine Memory Network.
In addition to this often tedious task, which is necessary to create the substance for the Web site, the students are getting a dose of Biddeford history.
On Wednesday, Biddeford Historical Society President Raymond Gaudette, accompanied by library staff members, gave nine students a guided tour of Biddeford’s Main Street, and told them about the history of some of the city’s existing ”“ as well as its long gone ”“ historical buildings and sites.
Two weeks prior, the students visited the First Parish Meeting House. Gaudette told them about the meeting house, which was built in 1759 and is the oldest public building in the city.
Sam Millette, a sophomore at BHS, said learning about some of the city’s historic buildings, like the mills, has piqued her interest, said Millette.
“I’d like to go in them,” she said.
One of the students even has a personal connection with the old mill buildings. Devin Ouellette said his uncle worked at WestPoint Home for 30 years until it closed last summer.
The project has made Ouellette more curious about Biddeford’s past.
“I’ve been in Biddeford my whole life,” he said. “I never knew there’s so much history behind it.”
Partnering historical societies with libraries and schools on these projects works well, said Larissa Vigue Picard of the Maine Historical Society.
“Historical societies around the state have the collections that have not been accessible,” she said. “They’re overwhelmingly run by seniors who often who don’t have the tech savvy. In come the students who do.”
“The libraries are key,” said Picard, because they have the professional staff and provide the organization for the project.
For McArthur Library, the work the students are doing is very valuable, said DesRoberts.
Many of the historical items housed in the library are not easily accessible, she said, which is why they will be put on a Web site.
“The amount of digitization they’ve done,” she said, “I couldn’t have done that on my own. They get more done then we’re ready for them to do and then we have to find more stuff.”
Brooke Faulkner, the teen librarian at McArthur, said she was worried the students’ work wouldn’t be precise enough, but “we told them what we wanted and they got it and they did it.”
“They’ve done a tremendous job here,” she said.
Working on the history project is proving very valuable to the students as well, said Doherty.
Project Aspire, the class the students are taking with Doherty, is for students at risk of dropping out of school before graduation.
The project, said Doherty, “gets them looking at things in a different way. It gets them involved in the community in a positive way.”
“I’ve seen a huge change in attitude,” she said, and an increase in the students’ self esteem.
She also said she noticed attendance is up, and when the class goes on field trips associated with the project, many more students sign up for those than for other types of field trips.
Although the project funding ends in June, Doherty said she plans to continue the work in the future since the Web site can continually be updated.
The Maine Historical Society also plans to continue the project and spread it to other communities. It is applying for another grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to proceed for another two years, said Picard.
Whether or not the grant is awarded, she said, the organization plans to work with communities around the state to help them to share Maine’s history by making it accessible over the Internet.
— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.
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