Digital Research Library - News

The Digital Research Library (DRL) has digitized and mounted online the University of Pittsburgh's rare and complete set of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. Each of the 435 plates link to their respective narrative within Audubon’s companion publication, his Ornithological Biography, also digitized as part of this project. No other complete set of the double elephant folio edition of the Birds of America is publicly available online in such high detail. Both of these sets were scanned as part of our larger efforts to digitize and make accessible contents from the Darlington Memorial Library. Read the press release.

We added 78 more books to the Darlington Digital Library for a total of 1,497.

We added 173 books, 225 maps and 704 images to the Darlington Digital Library. The site now contains 1,419 books, 276 maps, 1,825 illustrations, etchings, and lithographs, 41 broadsides, and 5 atlases.

We added three new image collections to the Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections website. From Pitt's Archives Service Center, we added images from the Pittsburgh Print Collection and the Rust Engineering Company Records. The Pittsburgh Print Collection contains forty-three prints, including lithographs, etchings, watercolors, engravings, and periodical illustrations, that primarily date between 1843 and 1898. The prints depict a variety of Pittsburgh landmarks, including bridges, downtown buildings, commercial and industrial establishments, and civic institutions that show the city before and during the period of industrial development in the nineteenth century. The Rust Engineering Company Collection consists of seventy images dating from 1905 to 1968 that include views of construction projects, completed facilities, and office personnel. From the Heinz History Center, we added the Charles M. Stotz Collection. This collection contains 116 images that document the buildings featured in Stotz’s 1936 book, The Early Architecture of Western Pennsylvania.

We added 56 books to the Darlington Digital Library, bringing the total number of books online to 1,246.

Today the University of Pittsburgh Press and the University Library System released a new website that makes past editions of monographs published by the Press available online: University of Pittsburgh Press Digital Editions. By digitizing these monographs and distributing them freely on the Internet, the Digital Research Library is facilitating greater access to the material the University of Pittsburgh Press has only previously published as hardcopies. Read the accompanying press release. Also see related Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from January 22, 2008.

We added 737 prints, etchings, engavings and illustrations to the Images component of the Darlington Digital Library, bringing the total number of Images online to 1,121.

62 books have been added to The Darlington Digital Library, bringing the total number of books online to 1,190. You can view recent additions for July, August, and September.

Two of our map collections now use the "Zoomify" tool for map viewing. Zoomify allows for dynamic zooming and panning within a high-resoultion map image, without the need to reload the entire page each time. A navaigation thumbnail shows which section of the map is currently on display. Give it a try, and let us know what you think. The two map collections using Zoomify are the City of Pittsburgh Geodetic and Topographic Survey and Maps from the Report of the Flood Commission of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, 1912.

The University of Pittsburgh Fact Book began in 1970/71 as a report to give University administrators basic and accurate facts and statistics about the University. Documenting Pitt contains the Fact Book from 1970 to 1995. The Athletic Media Guides were developed to provide the print and broadcast media basic information about the team for the current year. Documenting Pitt contains selected Media Guides for Basketball and Football from 1950 to 2005.

We welcome Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation as a new institutional partner contributing images to our Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections site. Today we released a collection of images from The Frank B. Fairbanks Rail Transportation Archive. This online collection contains slides taken by Mr. Fairbanks between 1948 to 1987 that document train engines and stations in the western Pennsylvania area. He spent his entire adult life riding, documenting, and collecting material from rail lines all over the world.

After nearing completion of our first year of scanning, the DRL released a beta version of The Darlington Digital Library website. This ongoing, multi- departmental effort to digitize the library will result in new material becoming available every month. The site will be officially released in the fall.

This month's PALINET member spotlight featured digital collections at the University of Pittsburgh and an interview with ULS director Dr. Rush G. Miller.

Pitt Magazine contained a feature article on the "Library of the Future." ULS director Dr. Rush G. Miller describes his ongoing effort to embrace the digital future by embarking on several major digital library initiatives.

The Pitt Chronicle (pdf) announced today that Pitt's Darlington Memorial Library -- a treasure trove of historically important books, photos, maps, letters, pamphlets, and other materials -- soon will be accessible online. Article on page 3.

The DRL released the City of Pittsburgh Geodetic and Topographic Survey Maps (1923-1961) which contain 171 plates that depict contours and spot heights of much of Allegheny County. The DRL also released the Flood Commission of Pittsburgh maps (1912) which contain 14 plates produced as part of the Report of the Flood Commission.

As a service to the American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association (ACPA), the Digital Research Library now provides retrospective access to issues of The Cleft Palate Journal published between 1964 and 1989. Issues from 1990 to the present, published as The Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal, are available from Allen Press. The Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Journal is an international, interdisciplinary journal reporting on clinical and research activities in cleft lip/palate and other craniofacial anomalies, together with research in related laboratory sciences.

In conjunction with CMU research scientist Mark Derthick, the DRL now offers an experimental visualization prototype for viewing selected Historic Pittsburgh image collections. Bungee View is a visualization prototype developed at Carnegie Mellon University to support casual users gaining an understanding of an image collection as a whole, and in finding patterns in such collections.

The Digital Research Library released two new Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections from the Archives Service Center at the University of Pittsburgh:

• CONSOL Energy Mining Archives
• Edward J. Shourek Collection

The Digital Research Library released a new website devoted to University of Pittsburgh history: Documenting Pitt. The site contains material from the University Archives, including yearbooks, commencement programs, course catalogs, athletic media guides, chancellor's reports, and assorted publications and photographic images. With this material online, ULS librarians and archivists can better respond to requests from University personnel and alumni for information about aspects of the history of the University and its students and faculty.

• Read the press release.

Related news articles:

• New online archive documents Pitt history (University Times, 10/12/06).
• Pitt publishing its historical archives online (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/12/06).
• New Web site taps Pitt's archives (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/18/06).
• Plugged In: Search Pitt's Digital Archive (WTAE-TV, 10/18/06).
• Pitt posts its past on Web archive (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 10/26/06).

The Digital Research Library welcomed Chatham College Archives as a new institutional partner contributing images to our Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections site. Today we released a small collection of images that begins to chronicle the students, faculty, and college community as academic pursuits, college events, student life and social activities have grown and changed throughout the college's history. More images will be added to the site in the coming months.

The Digital Research Library released a new Historic Pittsburgh Image Collection from the Archives Service Center at the University of Pittsburgh documenting the city of Pittsburgh in the s and s before and after smoke control ordinances were passed regulating the burning of coal: Smoke Control Lantern Slides.

The Digital Research Library embarked on a new project to scan material housed in the University of Pittsburgh's Darlington Library with its new DigiBook A1 scanner.

The Digital Research Library released a new Historic Pittsburgh Image Collection from the Archives Service Center at the University of Pittsburgh documenting the Union Switch & Signal strike in June 1914.

The Digital Research Library received special funding from the University Provost to digitize historic publications from the University Archives, including yearbooks. This new website should be released later in the year.

The Digital Research Library released the American Left Ephemera Collection, which contains 125 items that reflect the personal collection of Richard J. Oestreicher, Associate Professor (History) at the University of Pittsburgh. Students enrolled in his fall 2005 senior honors research seminar used the primary source material in their study of left-wing organizations in the twentieth century in the U.S. Digitized items include flyers, leaflets, pamphlets, posters, postcards, illustrations, photographs, pins, ribbons, and miscellaneous objects.

The Internet Scout Report's November 18th issue included reviews of our Chartres Cathedral website and Historic Pittsburgh website.

The Digital Research Library released two new Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections from the Archives Service Center at the University of Pittsburgh: Photographs of the Darlington Family and the Union Arcade Building.

The Digital Research Library released an image collection documenting the famous French Cathedral of Chartres (11th-16th centuries), located approximately 50 miles southwest of Paris. A joint project of the University's DRL and Pitt Professor of Art History Alison Stones, the new website, Chartres: Cathedral of Notre-Dame, provides access to more than 3,100 high-resolution images of Chartres Cathedral, each accompanied by descriptive information.

• Read the press release.

Related news articles:

• Capturing Chartres Cathedral (Pitt Chronicle, 10/24/05).
• Architecture Notes: At Chartres, leaving no stone unphotographed (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/1/05).

The Digital Research Library released an image collection visually documenting the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The website, Stalinka: Digital Library of Staliniana, is the result of a two-year effort between the DRL and Prof. Helena Goscilo (Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures), Susan Corbesero (Department of History), and Petre Petrov (graduate student). Stalinka is intended as an online resource for students, teachers, scholars, and anyone conducting research on Stalin/ism. The collection comprises 368 visual materials and artifacts relating to Stalin: photographs, posters, paintings, banners, sculptures, chinaware, pins, etc.

The Digital Research Library released an image collection containing the page images of Stephen Foster's Sketchbook, which contains draft texts for sixty-four songs including several of his most popular ones such Jeanie with the Light My Old Kentucky Old Folks at (Way Down Upon the Swanee ). The sketchbook, which dates to June 26, 1851, can be searched by a full-text transcription or browsed by song title.

• Read the press release.

The Digital Research Library released the Modern China Studies Web site, the result of a collaborative project with the East Asian Library and Preservation department within the ULS. The digital pilot project was part of a greater effort to preserve acidic Chinese monographs through grant funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).

The Digital Research Library works with University of Pittsburgh faculty to create and host image collections.

• Read news article (University Times, 12/9/04)

The Digital Research Library released the following four new image collections:

• The George Washington Manuscripts from the Darlington Memorial Library comprises nine documents in Washington's hand or signed by him. Additional items include a map of W. Pa., two illustrations of Washington, and two broadsheet proclamations.
• The Jack B. Yeats Broadsheets from Special Collections consists of twelve broadsheets (one for each month of 1902) illustrated by the younger brother of William Butler Yeats.
• The Lillian Friedberg Postcard Collection from the Archives Service Center comprises sixty-two postcards that depict the 1933 Chicago's World Fair and W.W.II propaganda by the British Royal Air Force, French Resistance, and Nazi regime.
• The A.E. Forbes Communist Collection also from the Archives Service Center contains eighty-seven hand rendered and mimeographed broadsides, newsletters, and flyers that presents a local snapshot of Pittsburgh's radical politics within the context of the Communist Party.

The Digital Research Library released the UPG Visual History image collection. It comprises 181 images that visually document the University of Pittsburgh Greensburg (UPG) campus from the 1920s up to the present.

Users of Historic Pittsburgh now have online access to thousands of images from dozens of collections held by Pitt's Archives Service Center, Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center. This release marks the culmination of our two-year Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant.

• Read the press release.

Related news articles:

• Birth of a campus historical photos (University Times, 9/16/04)
• Picturing Pittsburgh: Two-year collaboration makes century of images available online (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/21/04)

• Electronic digitization of records brings past into present (9/12/04)
• Technology key in converting historic documents to Internet (9/12/04)

The University awarded a competitive grant to Dr. Stones (Professor of History of Art and Architecture) and the DRL to improve art and architecture instruction. The project will create an instructional environment that enables the dynamic interaction between students and visual images, and enhances teaching core art and architecture concepts and features; offer an online resource to allow faculty and students at the University (and elsewhere) to access and manipulate a key collection of visual images documenting Chartres Cathedral, thus improving research and comparative analysis; and demonstrate that collaboration among faculty members and departments is the best way to leverage University resources and expertise. Work on the grant will commence May 1, 2004 and end by April 2005.

• Read related article in Teaching Times (Sept. 2004)

In spring 2003 the University Library System received a $232,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to support a two-year project to catalog and preserve through microfilming 3,000 acidic and rare books from a collection of Chinese material held by the East Asian Library within the ULS. The DRL will also conduct a pilot digitization project on a small subset of material to offer enhanced access and investigate the adaptation of new methodologies, tools and techniques for creating, processing, and indexing digital library content for foreign language materials. The University of Pittsburgh was the only institution in the NEH Brittle Books and Serials category to receive an award supporting a project that encompasses digitization for access.

The University Library System received a $500,000 two-year grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the Dick Thornburgh Archives Collection. A portion of the funds will support the digitization of documentary evidence found in the collection. The online collection will include access to textual and audio/video material, such as articles and op-ed pieces, speeches, news releases, photographs, audio recordings, and moving images. The online finding guide will aid online users in performing their research.