Digital Collections Updates

So as we start a new academic year, we thought this would be a good time for an update on what we've been working on recently.

Digital collections migration:

After more than a year's delay, the migration of our collections into a new and more user-friendly (and mobile-friendly) platform driven by the Islandora open-source content management system is in the home stretch. This has been a major undertaking and has given us the opportunity to reassess how our collections work. We hope to be live with the new platform in November. 30,000 items (over 380,000 digital images) have already been migrated.

2019-2020 Projects:

We've made significant progress on most of this year's projects (see link for project descriptions), though many of these are currently not yet online pending our migration to the Islandora platform:

Grant-funded projects:

• Temple Emanuel Project: We are working with the Public History department and a graduate student in that program. Several hundred items have already been digitized and more work is being done. We are also exploring grant options with the temple to digitize more material.
• People Not Property: NC Slave Deeds Project: We are in the final year of this project funded by the National Archives and hope to have it online as part of the Digital Library on American Slavery late next year. We are also exploring additional funding options to continue this work.
• Women Who Answered the Call: This project was funded by a CLIR Recordings at Risk grant. The fragile cassettes have been digitized and we are midway through the process of getting them online in the new platform.

Library-funded projects:

• Poetas sin Fronteras: Poets Without Borders, the Scrapbooks of Dr. Ramiro Lagos: These items have been digitized and will go online when the new platform launches.
• North Carolina Runaway Slaves Ads Project, Phase 2: Work continues on this ongoing project and over 5700 ads are now online. This second phase has involved both locating and digitizing/transcribing the ads, and we will soon triple the number of ads done in Phase One. We are also working on tighter integration of this project into the Digital Library on American Slavery.
• PRIDE! of the Community: This ongoing project stemmed from an NEH grant two years ago and is growing to include numerous new oral history interviews and (just added) a project to digitize and display ads from LGBTQ+ bars and other businesses in the Triad during the 1980s and 1990s. We are also working with two Public History students on contextual and interpretive projects based on the digital collection.

Faculty-involved projects:

• Black Lives Matter Collections: This is a community-based initiative to document the Black Lives Matter movement and recent demonstrations and artwork in the area. Faculty: Dr. Tara Green (African America and Diaspora Studies);  Stacey Krim, Erin Lawrimore, Dr. Rhonda Jones, David Gwynn (University Libraries).
• Civil Rights Oral Histories: This has become multiple projects. We are working with several faculty members in the Media Studies department to make these transcribed interviews available online. November is the target. Faculty: Matt Barr, Jenida Chase, Hassan Pitts, and Michael Frierson (Media Studies); Richard Cox, Erin Lawrimore, David Gwynn (University Libraries).
• Oral Contraceptive Ads: Working with a faculty member and a student on this project, which may be online by the end of the year. Faculty: Dr. Heather Adams (English); David Gwynn and Richard Cox (University Libraries).
• Well-Crafted NC: Work is ongoing and we are in the second year of a UNCG P2 grant, working with a faculty member in eth Bryan School and a brewer based in Asheboro. Faculty: Erin Lawrimore, Richard Cox, David Gwynn (University Libraries), Dr. Erick Byrd (Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Hospitality, and Tourism)

New projects taken on during the pandemic:

• City of Greensboro Scrapbooks: Huge collection of scrapbooks from the Greensboro Urban Development Department dating back to the 1940s. These items have been digitized and will go online when the new platform launches.
• Negro Health Week Pamphlets: 1930s-1950s pamphlets published by the State of North Carolina. These items are currently being digitized and will go online when the new platform launches.
• Clara Booth Byrd Collection: Manuscript collection. These items are currently being digitized and will go online when the new platform launches.
• North Carolina Speaker Ban Collection: Manuscript collection. These items are currently being digitized and will go online when the new platform launches.
• Mary Dail Dixon Papers: Manuscript collection. These items are currently being digitized and will go online when the new platform launches.
• Ruth Wade Hunter Collection: Manuscript collection. These items are currently being digitized and will go online when the new platform launches.

Projects on hold pending the pandemic:

• Junior League of Greensboro: Much of this has already been digitized and will go online when the new platform launches.
• UNCG Graduate School Bulletins: Much of this has already been digitized and will go online when the new platform launches. 

David Gwynn (Digitization Coordinator, me) offers kudos to Erica Rau and Kathy Howard (Digitization and Metadata Technicians); Callie Coward (Special Collections Cataloging & Digital Projects Library Technician); Charley Birkner (Technology Support Technician); and Dr. Brian Robinson (Fellow for Digital Curation and Scholarship) for their great work in very surreal circumstances over the past six months.