The Santa Clarita City Council is scheduled Tuesday to weigh in on the fate of SCVHistory.com, the community’s online archive of local history images and documents.

SCVTV, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that owns and maintains the website, is seeking to donate SCVHistory.com to the city’s Public Library system once the site is re-engineered.

According to a city staff report, SCVHistory.com “began in 1996 with a few dozen historic photographs and has grown in the last 26 years to house close to 100,000 archival items in various digital formats. It serves as a repository for historic artifacts, books, film, photography, documents, and oral histories of significance to the Santa Clarita Valley, documenting events such as the St. Francis Dam Disaster, the earliest gold discovery and oil production in California, and the beginning of the film industry. Groups that frequently visit the website range from the general public to academic researchers, filmmakers, educators, and public agencies.”

According to SCVTV President Leon Worden, SCVHistory.com has no content management system, which would be needed before the library system would be able to operate it.

“The oldest coding is antiquated,” Worden wrote in a letter to the City Council. “Only one person has the know-how to manage it. When that individual is gone, SCVHistory.com dies – unless steps are taken now to fix it.”

To that end, SCVTV is seeking $300,000 in funding from the city to hire a qualified contractor for the conversion, which will additionally require “a substantial commitment of time and hands-on collaboration with the current operators of SCVHistory.com, which will be provided by volunteers at no cost,” Worden wrote.

The council meeting starts at 6 p.m. at Santa Clarita City Hall, 23920 W. Valencia Blvd.

Attachments:

Agenda Report

SCVTV Request Letter

Full City Council Agenda