Story and images provided by Brandon Neal Jones, Sheerar Museum of Stillwater History Registrar
There is a lot happening at the Sheerar Museum of Stillwater History, and a lot of that change is happening behind the scenes – including a complete overhaul of our website. After many years of using the former website with relatively no changes to its look or format, the Sheerar Museum of Stillwater History is proud to announce the unveiling of a new website at SheerarMuseum.org. From our photography archive and our permanent collection to renting the auditorium for your special event, we hope that everyone will find something new and exciting as it relates to the history of Stillwater and its community.
The new website launches this month as a digital repository for Stillwater’s history, and so much more. SheerarMuseum.org will now feature an online scheduling system for your event in our amazing auditorium, along with providing an efficient online payment system for the rental fees. A small cash or check deposit will still be due to fully reserve the auditorium, which will be returned upon completion of the rental contract, but the rest of the process will be quick and will work on your smartphone. If you prefer to still pay by check or cash, you can reserve your auditorium space, and drop off your payment with your deposit, during museum hours, which you will find on our new website.
For our Stillwater techies, our new website follows a stringent security protocol with the most current web security standards for credit card donations and payments for the auditorium rental fees, and our online museum store. This same security is provided for our online contact forms, including research requests. Not only does our new website look beautiful on all modern web browsers, but it also works well with your smartphone, too. (Some smartphone features are still to come.)
Also, don’t forget that you can find all of our exciting upcoming events on the new website. Our calendar will be constantly updated with new events as they are scheduled, and will include a link to add your favorite events to your calendar. Furthermore, we are beginning the digitization of our massive photography and image collection, which will provide an extensive gallery of images from Stillwater’s past. This new gallery will be the online, digital source for Stillwater’s visual history including works of historical and artistic importance. Information, or metadata, will be available with every image and photograph to aid in research for everyone from the academic to the hobbyist. The new website also features an easily accessible online hub to submit research requests for objects in our collection, and will become a searchable online repository for digitized documents, such as the well-known Searcy letters.
We are seeking community involvement in the development of SheerarMuseum.org, and we appreciate all of your feedback. Please contact us through our new contact page to let us know about features that you would like to see on our website, or if you come across any pesky bugs that need to be fixed. We hope that you will find the new SheerarMuseum.org website to be a useful and accessible resource for connecting with the Museum, and in turn, we hope to see a user-friendly gateway develop within Stillwater’s community to create a complete and accurate history of Stillwater as we move forward into the 21st century.
The mission of the Sheerar Museum of Stillwater History, a non-profit museum administered by the Stillwater Museum Association Board of Trustees, is “to receive and collect the material culture of Stillwater, Oklahoma, dating from prehistoric times, but especially from the 1880s to the present; to preserve those materials for the future; to study them to derive information about the past; and to use the knowledge resulting from such study to present to the public the history and culture of the area through all effective means.”
For more information about the museum, to find out how to become an Associate, or to rent the classic auditorium for your wedding, theatrical, or family gathering, check out the new website at SheerarMuseum.org, (or you can still contact the museum’s director, Roger Moore, at 405-377-0359 or by email at [email protected]).
