Historical Society Concentrates on the Internet

The Marlborough Historical Society is focusing on social media and linking it to a $1,000 scholarship open to all students who are residents of Marlborough.

“Our 2013 scholarship program encourages students to learn more about our city’s history and to spread that knowledge and enthusiasm through the most popular and powerful communication tools available today,” said Janet Licht, President of the Marlborough Historical Society. “By expanding beyond a written research report, we hope to tap into the content creation and curation skills of students to reach new audiences, both young and old.”

Students will be asked to create a research project that uses social media rather than a traditional presentation. The Society has been an early innovator in the use of the web and was one of the first cities or towns in Massachusetts to put their entire historic property survey online, said Licht.

"One of our local historians will spend hundreds and hundreds of hours on a presentation that only 50 or 100 people are able to attend, but we’ll have literally thousands of people view the slides once they’re posted online,” she said.

The project proposal is due March 18 and more details on the scholarship are available on the Historical Society's website.