Great Collector + Enthusiastic Organizer = Serious Impact with ArchivEra

The Lehi Historical Society and Archives collects, obtains, records, preserves, protects, and promotes the history of Lehi and its peoples, and documents Lehi’s impact on the American West, enabled by our ArchivEra CMS.

Director Lara Bangerter has a background as a journalist rather than as an archivist, so when she was brand new to the Lehi Historical Society there was a bit of a learning curve. In terms of collection records, she inherited simply a large selection of Excel documents listing thousands of items by number, with no hierarchy and no location. The Society’s digital images were all stored on Google drive.

She shared that “Although most things were physically organized, our information needed to be fully searchable and everything needed a location. I could not see how to better our situation without a collections management system.”

When Ms. Bangerter reached out to various CMS vendors, she felt that most of them didn’t understand what she was trying to accomplish. However, when she reached the ArchivEra team, they understood her goals and requirements, talked with her at her level (understanding that she isn’t a trained archivist), answered all her questions, offered guidance, and “in a sense, provided archives training in the course of our implementation.”

Ms. Bangerter sat down with us for a rich conversation about the Lehi Historical Society’s implementation of ArchivEra, and exactly how it enables them to offer public access to their collections, expand their digital archives, and provide enhanced content. We invite you to read their full success story here.