Montana History Portal

The Montana History Portal encourages cultural institutions to digitize historic and contemporary resources reflecting Montana's rich cultural heritage and to make them freely available for lifelong learning.

Project Description

The  Montana History Portal (Portal) is an online source for digital collections relating to Montana's cultural heritage. In part, these collections document the Montana experience. Access is free and open through the Internet. Many of these items are digitized copies of historic material, some items are contemporary. All serve as a resource for education, business, pleasure, and lifelong learning.

Many Montana libraries, museums, archives, and cultural institutions add materials to this collection.  Contents may include maps, copies of photographs, rare books, historic documents, diaries, oral histories, audio and video clips, paintings, illustrations and art.
Mission: 
The Montana History Portal encourages Montana’s cultural institutions to digitize historic and contemporary resources reflecting Montana's rich cultural heritage and to make them freely available for lifelong learning. 

Purpose: 
To provide free and open access to Montana related digital materials. These materials provide opportunities for education, genealogy research, business, pleasure, and lifelong learning.  

Scope: 
The Montana History Portal includes digitized historic and contemporary resources that reflect the Montana experience and that are important to understanding Montana’s rich cultural heritage. The digital collections of the Montana History Portal may include maps, photos, rare books, documents, publications, diaries, oral histories, audio recordings, video recordings, paintings, illustrations, art and other cultural materials. 

Vision:  
The Montana History Portal is the premier resource for digital cultural heritage information about Montana. 

The Portal Knowledge-base is made up of useful guides to help new users navigate and interact with the collection.

The Portal video playlist below contains a series of shorts that will guide you through the basics of using the Montana History Portal.

Contribute to the Portal