Minnesota Historical Society grant funding provided to digitize legacy media, and money appropriated.

2025-2026 Regular Session Introduced by Shelley Buck and 2 co-sponsors

Authorizes MNHS grants to digitize legacy media to preserve Minnesota history and expand public access through online, searchable digital collections.

Introduction and first reading, referred to Legacy Finance

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Overview

HF 3702 proposes to authorize and appropriate funding for the Minnesota Historical Society (MNHS) to provide grants aimed at digitizing legacy media. The bill focuses on capturing and preserving historical materials that exist in non-digital formats, with the goal of expanding public access to Minnesota’s historical records through digitization.

Purpose and Intent

To support the digitization of legacy media held by Minnesota institutions or individuals in order to preserve historical materials.

To enhance public access to Minnesota’s history by converting analog media into searchable, digital formats.

To leverage MNHS’s grant-making capacity to fund digitization efforts across the state.

Key Provisions and Changes

Establishes or authorizes grant funding administered by the Minnesota Historical Society specifically for digitizing legacy media.

Specifies eligible activities likely to include digitization of formats such as film, audio, video, photographs, manuscripts, and other analog records (exact eligible formats would be detailed in the bill’s text).

Defines criteria for grant eligibility, which commonly includes:

Projects that preserve historically significant materials.
Projects that improve access to digitized collections (e.g., online catalogs, public portals).
Partnerships with libraries, archives, museums, schools, or local historical organizations.

Outlines award process and administration by MNHS, potentially including:

Application cycles, deadlines, and review criteria.
Grant amounts, match requirements (if any), and reporting obligations.
Oversight and auditing provisions to ensure proper use of funds.

May include matching fund requirements, project duration limits, and performance benchmarks.

Who Would be Affected

Minnesota Historical Society: Primary administrator of the grants; responsible for distributing funds, monitoring projects, and reporting outcomes.

Partner organizations (e.g., libraries, archives, libraries of local communities, museums, schools, and historical societies) that apply for and receive grants.

Public: Indirect beneficiaries through expanded digital access to Minnesota’s historical materials (online collections, searchable archives).

Procedural and Timeline Aspects

Status: Introduced and referred to the Legacy Finance committee on 2026-02-25.

Next steps would typically include committee hearings, potential amendments, and floor action.

If enacted, implementation would proceed through MNHS grant cycles, with application windows aligned to the state budgeting process and any specified grant-year timelines in the final bill.

Potential Impact

Expanded preservation of Minnesota’s legacy media, reducing risk of material loss due to degradation.

Increased public access to historical materials via digitization and online dissemination.

Strengthened collaborations among cultural institutions and communities to preserve and share Minnesota’s history.

Economic considerations include the allocation of state funds to a cultural heritage program and potential multiplier effects through digitization work, metadata creation, and related digital initiatives.

Note: The summary reflects the bill’s stated purpose and typical grant-based provisions for digitization programs. For exact eligibility criteria, funding amounts, match requirements, reporting duties, and final timelines, please consult the bill’s full text and any fiscal notes or committee amendments once published.

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