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Current News
June 1, 2007
DRL releases beta version of The Darlington Digital Library
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.
May 2007
ULS featured as PALINET member spotlight
This month's PALINET member spotlight featured digital collections at the University of Pittsburgh and an interview with ULS director Dr. Rush G. Miller.
Winter 2007
DRL projects featured in Pitt Magazine
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.
January 8, 2007
DRL digitizing Pitt's Darlington library
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.
January 5, 2007
DRL mounts two new Historic Pittsburgh map collections
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.
December 20, 2006
DRL provides retrospective access to The Cleft Palate Journal
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.
December 1, 2006
DRL collections available via Bungee View
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.
November 1, 2006
DRL releases new image 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
October 9, 2006
DRL releases Documenting Pitt website
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).
September 1, 2006
DRL adds new Historic Pittsburgh partner
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.
August 1, 2006
DRL releases new image collection
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 1940’s and 1950’s before and after smoke control ordinances were passed regulating the burning of coal: Smoke Control Lantern Slides.
July 20, 2006
DRL to scan Darlington Memorial Library
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.
May 1, 2006
DRL releases new image collection
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.
February 2, 2006
DRL to scan material from the University Archives
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.
December 20, 2005
DRL releases American Left Ephemera Collection
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.
November 21, 2005
DRL mentioned by Internet Scout Report
The Internet Scout Report's November 18th issue included reviews of our Chartres Cathedral website and Historic Pittsburgh website.
November 1, 2005
DRL releases new image collections
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.
October 21, 2005
DRL releases Chartres Cathedral image collection
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).
September 26, 2005
DRL releases Stalinka image collection
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.
July 26, 2005
DRL releases Stephen Foster's Sketchbook
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 as “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Old Folks at Home” (or “Way Down Upon the Swanee River”). 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.
May 3, 2005
DRL releases Modern China Studies website
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).
December 9, 2004
DRL and University faculty build relationships
The Digital Research Library works with University of Pittsburgh faculty to create and host image collections.
Read news article (University Times, 12/9/04)
November 30, 2004
DRL releases new image collections
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.
November 11, 2004
DRL releases UPG Visual History
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.
September 13, 2004
DRL releases Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections
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)
September 12, 2004
News articles about Historic Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Electronic digitization of records brings past into present
(9/12/04)
Technology key in converting historic documents to Internet (9/12/04)
April 28, 2004
DRL receives University of Pittsburgh "Innovation in Education" Grant with Dr. Alison Stones
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)
DRL To Digitize Portions of the Dick Thornburgh Archives Collection
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.
ULS Receives NEH Grant to Preserve Chinese Texts
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.
September 24, 2002
University of Pittsburgh Receives Grant to Digitize Historic Photographs
The Digital Research Library has received a two-year $242,157 National
Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum & Library Services (IMLS) to digitize historic photographs of Pittsburgh held in local
repositories. The University of Pittsburgh’s Archives Service Center,
the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, and the
Carnegie Museum of Art will work together to make their nationally
significant visual collections of the Pittsburgh region accessible via a
single Web gateway created and managed by the University’s Digital
Research Library.
Read the press release.
September 4, 2002
The Parallax Project
The University of Pittsburgh Library System's Digital Research Library now provides on-line access to historic star data and calculations compiled and published by Pitt's Allegheny Observatory. More than five decades of the observatory's research-which represents one of the largest systematic, ground-based studies of star distances ever conducted-is now available at the Parallax Project Web site:
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/parallax/.
Read the press release.
An article about the Parallax Project appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/18/2002.
The Parallax Project was noted in The Scout Report, 9/13/2002.
August 26, 2002
Warrantee Atlas of Allegheny County
The Digital Research Library announces the release of a new map
component within the Historic Pittsburgh Maps Collection: the 1914
Warrantee Atlas of Allegheny County, Pa. The digital version of the
atlas can be located at http://digital.library.pitt.edu/maps/warrantee.
The atlas can be browsed by plate number or by the last name of the
original owner. The atlas depicts the original land grants that settlers
of present-day Allegheny County received from the Commonwealth after
William Penn and his descendants vested the land to the legislature. The
DRL worked with the Allegheny County Recorder of Deeds office and the
Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania on this project. In addition,
the Warrantee Atlas of Allegheny County has been donated to the
University of Pittsburgh's Archives Service Center for preservation and
storage.
The digitization of the Warrantee Atlas was reported in two articles in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
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