About La Crosse History Unbound

Mission

La Crosse History Unbound is a collaborative project between the La Crosse Public Library Archives and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UWL) Murphy Library Special Collections and Area Research Center (ARC).

La Crosse History Unbound strives to provide exceptionally universal access to all digital resources and primary sources about the La Crosse, Wisconsin area in one comprehensive, easy-to-use website. By doing so, we aspire to make the exploration of primary sources and local history accessible and attainable for all types of users.

Through this website, we seek to accomplish the following:

• Use a collaborative and convenient digital environment to provide access to digital archival materials relating to the history of La Crosse, Wisconsin and its surrounding area.
• Facilitate and promote the digitization and use of archival materials.
• Provide guidance and resources for utilizing primary resources in all types of research and at all levels of learning.

Unbound Content

La Crosse History Unbound facilitates research by providing the browsing and searching of historical digital resources. On this site you will find links leading you to primary and secondary resources that have been digitized and curated on Unbound so researchers can easily access them.

The materials included are photographs, journals, student papers and theses, books, oral histories, newspaper articles, diaries, personal papers and letters, and more. These physical materials are almost completely held at the La Crosse Public Library Archives and at UWL Murphy Library Special Collections and ARC.

Unbound is similar to sites like Recollection Wisconsin and Digital Public Library of America, which both makes historical materials available for researchers. The chart below illustrates the pathway of how archival materials are made available on users' devices.