Category: Business & Reference

About This Project I n 2007, the State Archives of North Carolina began a pilot project, funded by a LSTA grant provided by the State Library of North Carolina, to digitize the earliest known newspapers, The Western Carolinian and the Carolina Watchman.  The goals of the project were to determine the amount of effort it took to digitize early newspapers, establish best practices for outsourcing the digitization of newspapers, and to create 3 lesson plans for K-12 stakeholders.  An advisory board Project Team was appointed in October, 2007 and the process of selecting and analyzing the newspapers began in earnest.  OCLC Preservation Services were selected to do the digitization and their CONTENTdm system was chosen to make the materials available online.&n

Documenting the construction of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, this collection of photographs captures the transient stages of a massive, three year project.   One of the largest buildings in the world devoted entirely to rare books and manuscripts, the library was designed to have room in the central tower for 180,000 volumes and in the underground book stacks for over 600,000 volumes; it now contains well over 500,000 volumes and several million manuscripts. The building, of Vermont marble and granite, bronze and glass, was designed by Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; the George A. Fuller Construction Company of Hamden, Connecticut was the general contractor.

Patent medicine is the term given to various medical compounds sold under a variety of names and labels, though they were for the most part actually trademarked medicines, not patented. In ancient times, such medicine was called nostrum remedium, "our remedy" in Latin, hence the name "nostrum"; it is a medicine whose efficacy is questionable and whose ingredients are usually kept secret.

The trade cards are small, colorfully illustrated advertising cards touting a particular medicine and its many cures. The illustrations often have little to do with any of the ailments purported to be cured. They were pure advertising and very collectible. The era of patent medicine began to unravel in the U.S. with the passage of the first Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906.

About the Collection The Family Tree was a newsletter published by Potlatch Forests, Inc. for their employees from 1936 - 1952. The newsletter covers local (Northern Idaho) and national events, with a special focus on issues pertaining to Potlatch Forests, Inc. and its loggers and other employees. The content varies greatly — from reports on the head injuries of sawmill workers to editorials on the war crimes of Hirohito , written near the end of WWII — and is consistently well-written and evocative of the daily life of Potlatch workers and their families during these years. Some other interesting Family Tree articles include: The collection was digitized in the summer of 2010, per user request.

DIGITAL COLLECTIONS About the Howard Steamboat Museum Collection About the Collection The Howard Steamboat Museum in Jeffersonville, Indiana, is dedicated to preserving the history of Howard Shipyards and three generations of the Howard family that owned and operated the largest inland shipbuilding site in America for over 100 years (1834-1942). The museum also fosters appreciation of the development of steamboats and inland river commerce during the same period. The museum’s photograph collection, which is housed in the University of Louisville Photographic Archives, consists primarily of images captured by Captain James E. Howard (1875-1956) between 1888 and 1934.

Florida Promotional Materials Attracting people to Florida has always been an integral part of the state's developmental goals. The Florida Promotional Materials collection consists of a variety of promotional materials designed to draw tourists and settlers to the state. Included are numerous brochures, maps, and clippings that highlight historical sites such as the Barnacle Museum. Also featured are hotels, important for their historical and practical value, and recreational opportunities.

Helen Muir Papers Helen Muir wrote for the Universal Service Syndicate and reported for newspapers such as the Miami News and the Miami Herald. The Helen Muir Papers consist of Mrs. Muir's personal and professional correspondence, and features correspondence with Robert Frost, his daughter Leslie, and attorney general Janet Reno, among others. The collection also includes drafts of Muir's writing and research files, photographs, and clippings that relate to her career, which began when she moved to South Florida in 1934. Muir's devotion to Miami and its history can be gleaned from the numerous books she authored on the city, including Miami, USA and Biltmore: Beacon for Miami . The collection consists of twenty-nine boxes that span the years 1934 through 1995.

The late James McKegney, Professor of Spanish at the University of Waterloo for more than thirty years, passed away in 1981 and left to his heirs one of the most important research collections pertaining to the independence movement in Mexico, 1789-1828. The research materials, compiled between 1965 and 1980, consist of a bibliographic database of more than 11,000 citations and over 1,150 photocopies of pamphlets listed in the database. This database and the accompanying documents are one of the most important archival sources in the world for the study of the political, social and cultural aspects of the independence movement in Mexico.

This digitization project of these two newspapers is the first ever undertaken by the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library.

In April 2004, the National Institute of Korean History (NIKH) approached the Library to propose the digitization of one of the East Asian Library's holdings: Minjoong Shinmoon. This was part of the NIKH's five-year project begun in 2001 to collect historical materials relating to Korean history published overseas. After reviewing our Korean collection, the Library also suggested including The New Korea Times in the same project.

The National Institute of Korean History is a South Korean government organization responsible for investigating, collecting, and compiling historical materials.