Developing Future Access to Cincinnati’s Third Protestant Memorial Church Collection

By:  Alia Wegner, ARB 2017-2018 Intern

Third German Protestant Church

The Third German Protestant Church located at 829 Walnut Street, photo taken in the 1920s.

One of my internship projects this year is developing a digitization plan for the Cincinnati German Third Protestant Memorial Church Collection (Accession number GA-09-03).  Acquired a decade ago, the Third German Protestant Memorial Church was formerly known as the Third German Protestant Memorial Church of Cincinnati, the German and Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed Church, and the North German Lutheran Church.   This collection spans 1814 to 1982 and includes records of births, marriages, deaths, confirmations, along with financial records and a few photographs.  For the most part, it has been used by family historians but once it is digitized and available as a global resource, the records can be used by urban historians, religious scholars, ethnicity and immigration researchers, and many others, as well as providing excellent primary resources in teaching.

The collection forms an important part of the University of Cincinnati’s German-Americana holdings but poses some challenges for digitization. The TPMC collection is composed primarily of handwritten German documents that need to be transcribed as well as scanned.  Since transcribing foreign language documents adds an additional layer of processing, it is important to get a clear sense of the extent and composition of the collection. One of my first tasks in this project was creating a collection overview. Continue reading

AP Trust Recap

By:  Eira Tansey

University of Maryland mascot

University of Maryland’s mascot in front of the McKeldin Library

Preservation has always been central to the mission of research libraries, which are charged with preserving knowledge, in all its forms, for use. Digital material faces different preservation challenges than analog materials. Rapid changes in file formats, software and hardware mean that digital content created according to today’s best standards risks being unusable or degraded in the future.

At the University of Cincinnati Libraries, we have significant born-digital and digitized content. Much of this can be found in Scholar@UC, UCL Digital Collections, and Luna. Digital preservation refers to the various preservation measures undertaken to ensure long-term use and access of digital materials for enduring sustainable preservation. Archivists and librarians must make many key digital preservation decisions, such as whether to migrate old file formats to new ones, determining how and where to store files, and scheduling file integrity checks. Digital preservation is more than just backups, but storing extra copies of content is a critical component of a digital preservation strategy. To mitigate against complete loss, it is important to store extra copies in different locations. According to the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, increasingly enhanced levels of digital preservation emphasize greater geographic distribution of copies. Continue reading

The Graduate School Extols the Benefits of Scholar@UC

scholar@uc

A recent article by Danniah Daher, graduate assistant to the Graduate School Office, entitled Scholar@UC: The Archive You Need, talks about the need to preserve and protect scholarly work and research data by submitting it to the university repository. Linda Newman, head of digital collections and repositories, is quoted as saying, “The mission of Scholar@UC is to preserve the permanent intellectual output of UC…We are very serious about preservation. We’re also very serious about access. We want to make the content accessible—content that otherwise would just be sitting on someone’s hard drive in their office. We consider preservation and access our two most important jobs.”

The full article can be read online at http://grad.uc.edu/student-life/news/scholaratuc.html.

Available at https://scholar.uc.edu/, Scholar@UC is a digital repository that enables the University of Cincinnati community to share its research and scholarly work with a worldwide audience. Faculty and staff can use Scholar@UC to collect their work in one location and create a durable and citeable record of their papers, presentations, publications, datasets, or other scholarly creations. Students, through an approved process, may contribute capstone projects such as senior design projects, theses, and dissertations.

The mission of Scholar@UC is to preserve the permanent intellectual output of UC, to advance discovery and innovation, to foster scholarship and learning through the transformation of data into knowledge, to collect a corpus of works that can be used for teaching and to inspire derivative works, and to enhance discoverability and access to these resources.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

By Eira Tansey, Digital Archivist/Records Manager

The transition from paper-based workflows to electronic records-based workflows has been one of the most profound ways in which work has changed over the last several decades. The “paperless revolution” has created many unanticipated challenges, but perhaps one of the more underrated ones is how it has affected institutional archives. Continue reading

Check Out the Latest Issue of Source

sourceRead Source, the online newsletter, to learn more about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

This latest issue of Source includes an article announcing the new UC academic press, a Q&A about a new position in the Office of Research, and A Note from the Dean: IFLA Coming to Cincinnati. Updates to library websites are showcased in A New Look at Digital Collections and in an article about the Neil A. Armstrong display and website. There are two articles about recent awards –  the Provost Technology Innovation Awards and Recognizing Library Student Workers. Read these articles and more.

Source is available on the web at http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/source/ and via e-mail. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.

Rare Cincinnati Pharmacy College Resources Now Available in UC’s Digital Resource Commons

queencityedited

This photo serves as a link to the work in our UC Library Catalog.

We are excited to announce that excerpts from Pharmaceutical Education In the Queen City : 150 Years of Service, 1850-2000 by Michael A. Flannery and Dennis B. Worthen, originally published in 2001, documenting the students and graduates who attended the Cincinnati College of Pharmacy, Queen City College of Pharmacy, and the University of Cincinnati College of Pharmacy from 1850 through 2000 are now available in the UC Digital Resource Commons (DRC). The DRC started as an initiative of the OhioLink consortium of libraries to create a digital repository service that would help streamline access to unique collections and facilitate scholarly communication.

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The Christ Hospital Winkler Center Collaborative Oral History Program Kicks Off with an Interview of Dr. William Schreiner

Screenshot 2016-01-14 16.20.38

This image serves as a link to the
interview with Dr. William Schreiner in
UC Libraries Mediaspace.
The entire Winkler Center Oral History Collection is now easily available in a streaming form
through the abovementioned website.

We are proud to announce the completion of the first interview in The Christ Hospital Health Network in collaboration with the Henry R. Winkler Center for the History of the Health Professions Oral History Series; our first interview subject was one of Cincinnati’s most prominent physicians who is also considered to be “The Doctors’ Doctor”, Dr. William Schreiner.  The entire interview is now available in a streaming format through the UC Libraries mediaspace.

Continue reading

Checking Out the Neil Armstrong Website

websiteHave you visited the Neil Armstrong Website? The site pays tribute to Armstrong’s professional life from his early career as a test pilot to his monumental first steps on the moon and concluding with his time as a professor and researcher at the University of Cincinnati?

Check out what others are saying about it:

From CHOICE Reviews Online

Anyone curious about the career of the first man to walk on the moon should begin with this site.  The rich content exposes users to highlights as well as little-known but important, interesting aspects of Neil Armstrong’s life.

From Air@Space Smithsonian

The University [of Cincinnati] has a nice online archive commemorating Armstrong’s time on the faculty.  The collection includes some items from the astronaut’s early life, like his pilot’s log book from the Navy, but mostly it covers in pictures and documents his career in academia.

UC Libraries Launch Source Online

Newsletter, first published in 2002, contains the latest news and happenings from UC Libraries.

sourceUC Libraries is transforming  technology, people, space and information resources to “become the globally engaged, intellectual commons of the university – positioning ourselves as the hub of collaboration, digital innovation and scholarly endeavor on campus.”

It is in this spirit of transformation that we are changing the way in which we deliver Source to our readers. The online newsletter will still contain the latest information about the organization, people, places and happenings in UC Libraries, but will no longer be produced in print. By moving Source online, we are able to reach a greater number of readers on various devices – computers, phones, tablets and more.

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Historic Cincinnati Subway and Street Images Available on New Website

b53_f25_p001The University of Cincinnati Libraries have created a website and digital archive that provides access to the historic Cincinnati subway and street images, a collection of over 8,000 photographic negatives and prints taken as part of a failed subway development project in the 1920s, and photographs documenting various street projects from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Available at http://digital.libraries.uc.edu/subway/, the “Cincinnati Subway and Street Improvements, 1916-1955” website includes construction images as well as both interior and exterior shots of private residences and city scenes. In addition to providing access to the historic prints and photographs, the website also documents the story of the failed subway project and includes a construction map with linked images.

Continue reading