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Collection management
Digital collection celebrates North Carolina public libraries

What do broadcast journalist David Brinkley, poet Carl Sandburg and actress Tess Harper have in common? They were all regular visitors to their local North Carolina public libraries.

Now anyone can experience the rich heritage of public libraries in North Carolina by visiting the new digital collection: "Transforming the Tar Heel State." Created by the State Library of North Carolina, this collection showcases nearly 800 historic items related to the state’s public libraries including photographs, reports, postcards, posters and much more.

The collection, which was built on CONTENTdm Digital Collection Management Software, can be viewed at: http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/dimp/digital/publiclibraries.

The core of the collection was digitized from the State Library's "Public Library History Files," which were maintained by the North Carolina Library Commission through the first half of the 20th century. For years, the files were kept in a storage area.

To enrich these holdings, the State Library put out a call to all Tar Heel public libraries, asking for digitized photographs that reflected the history of their institutions. More than 40 libraries, as well as the North Carolina State Archives, responded by submitting photos and historical facts that have been incorporated into the project.

Above: Children line up beside the Albemarle Regional bookmobile in Northampton County, North Carolina

"Transforming the Tar Heel State" enables users to learn about the impact of public libraries on North Carolina communities in the first half of the 20th century. Federal programs, such as the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which funded library buildings, bookmobiles, and other outreach and reading programs, and the Carnegie Endowment, which funded the building of nine libraries around the state, helped bring free library resources, literacy and social improvement to North Carolina in a time when few towns even had paved roads. Public Libraries have continuously served North Carolina communities for 11 decades and remain a vital and vibrant asset to the state and her people.                                      

Collection management
New digital collections unveiled at Southern Methodist University’s Central University Libraries

Southern Methodist University's Central University Libraries (CUL) recently unveiled five new digital collections. These new collections are part of CUL's ongoing effort to digitize and to make the university’s unique special collections available on the Web.

These online collections, which the Digital Services staff created using CONTENTdm® Digital Collection Management Software, provide anyone around the world the ability to access a variety of text, videos and images.

CUL's new digital collections are in the areas of the University's history, corporate history and World War II. The five new digital collections include:

JCPenney Dynamo Newsletters - This collection contains samples of JCPenney's corporate magazine, which provided company news, inspirational messages and sales training from 1917-1932.

SMU Video Archive Series - Former SMU executives, administrators and academics recount times of great excitement, challenges and/or change at SMU in these video-based oral histories.

John N. Rowe III Collection of Texas Currency - A sample from DeGolyer Library's John N. Rowe III Collection of Texas Currency, which contains notes, scrip, bonds and other financial obligations, from the 1820s through 1935.

Sulphur Springs Collection of Pre-Nickelodeon Films - The Sulphur Springs Collection of Pre-Nickelodeon Films contains nine short movies: two comedies and seven films depicting the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Frank J. Davis World War II Photographs - Frank J. Davis' frontline photographs portray a medical photographer's life during World War II, including battlefield images from Italy, France, Germany and Saipan.

View all of CUL's Digital Collections

Collection management
CONTENTdm Featured Collections: November 2008

Organizations worldwide are using CONTENTdm® Digital Collection Management Software to create thousands of outstanding digital collections and to provide easy access to their unique holdings.

This month, four collections from the CONTENTdm Collection of Collections are featured on the OCLC Web site. The featured collections for November are A Digital Collection Celebrating the Founding of the Historically Black College and University; Archivo histórico de la Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Gran Canaria; Cuban Postcard Collection and Milwaukee Historic Photos.

A Digital Collection Celebrating the Founding of the Historically Black College and University HBCU Library Alliance This collection of primary resources from HBCU libraries and archives includes several thousand scanned pages and represents HBCU libraries first collaborative effort to make a historical collection digitally available. Collections are contributed from member libraries of the Historically Black College and University Library Alliance and include photographs, university correspondence, manuscripts, alumni letters, and memorabilia ranging from the early 1800's until today.

Archivo histórico de la Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Gran Canaria Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria The Royal Economic Society of Friends of Gran Canaria, started in 1776, is the oldest non-governmental, civil institution in the Canary Islands, Spain. Thanks to an agreement with the University of Las Palmas Gran Canaria, some 18,000 pages of its historical archive were digitized. This collection documents the Society’s activities from 1776 to 1967 and includes some outstanding historical items—materials related to Puerto de la Luz, the city planning for the capital, the rescue of Canarian prisoners in Africa and the reestablishment of the School of Commerce.

Cuban Postcard Collection University of Miami A selection of over 500 postcards of Cuba and the Cuban experience outside the island produced from the turn of the 20th century to the present. It includes real photo, printed photo, and artist drawn postcards and provides views of the many parts of the island as well as various aspects of Cuban communities in the United States and abroad.

Milwaukee Historic Photos Milwaukee Public Library The photos from Milwaukee Historic Photos digital collection are pulled from the Milwaukee Public Library's historic photograph collection. The entire collection includes over 50,000 photographs of Milwaukee dating from the late 19th century to present day. The current digital collection is only a small fraction of the total available photos, but is being added to all the time. The photos were donated to the library by individual donors, various city departments, and businesses and corporations.

These are just a few of the many outstanding digital collections created by CONTENTdm users. To access the entire Collection of Collections, visit  www.oclc.org/contentdm/collections/.

About this publication

No.

ISSN 0273-3110

Edited by Peter Insabella, Product Documentation

Bits and Pieces is produced monthly by OCLC to collect recently-published news and information about the effective use of OCLC products and services.

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