Pat Collins, administrative director of the Butler County Historical Society, shows one of the scanning stations volunteers will use to digitize items at the upcoming picture harvest.

The Internet can preserve more than cutesy cat videos for all time.

As proof, the Butler County Historical Society is teaming up with Slippery Rock University’s Stone House Center for Public Humanities to stage the Butler County History Picture Harvest from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday. at the society’s Sen. Walter Lowrie House, 123 W. Diamond St.

The goal is to digitize historical materials, and much more than photographs — including letters, maps, images, memorabilia and other artifacts.

During the event, students from Slippery Rock University and Butler County Historical Society volunteers will digitally scan items brought in. All original materials will be digitized and returned.

The digitized information will be uploaded to a website, butlerhistorical.org.

Aaron Cowan, associate professor of history at Slippery Rock University and co-director of the center, which he calls a university project to connect the public to the humanities off campus, said the butlerhistorical.org website is based on a digital platform created by Cleveland State University.

While the site is now up and running, it’s in its early stages, he said.

Information, images and clips from the harvest will be uploaded to the site, he said.

“What it does, there will be pins in the map of the county,” said Pat Collins, the administrative director of the historical society. Click on a pin, she said, and the site will give you scanned images, a written history of the place or event, photographs and perhaps a film clip or home movie and even an audio clip of someone recalling an event or person.

“There are only 40 like it in the United States and none in Western Pennsylvania,” said Collins of the site.

“The Stone House Center is a bridge between the community and university programs — history, literature, philosophy,” said Cowan, making the history harvest effort extremely appropriate for the center.

How many people do they believe will show up to have their material scanned?

Collins said, “I have no idea. We will be prepared to do multiple scans at one time. There will be four scanners here.”

She said they will also be prepared to record stories and memories.

“If you were here during the flood of ’54, and have vivid memories of that,” said Collins. “From history’s standpoint, memories from 10 years ago, we need to record them now before they’re lost.” If somebody brings in a sword, they can at least photograph it.

Collins said, “We will have more of these history harvests, but people can come here anytime with their memories and photographs and we will preserve them.”

“I expect to fill out some stories we know already and to learn of some stories we knew nothing about,” said Cowan.

It’s taken two years of effort to get to this point, said Collins.

“There will be more of these types of events because we are trying to get as much history as possible,” said Collins.

“The best part is people can make a contribution, and they don’t have to give up their historical documents,” he said.