From dinosaurs to the moon: UC Libraries digital collections now available via Preservica
Archaelogical excavations in Troy in 1932, College-Conservatory of Music programs, Neil Armstrong Commemorative Archive and the James B. and John J. McNamara Papers – these UC Libraries special collections and more can now be accessed via the public portal Preservica, a new digital preservation platform being unveiled by the University of Cincinnati Libraries. The platform will not only provide enhanced public accessibility for digital collections, but will be used for the preservation of digital files created by the Libraries and electronic records retained as part of the university’s records management program.
From the Preservica portal homepage, visitors can browse a collection or search for a particular item. Collection metadata provides information about the collection, its creation date, publisher, type, creators and more. Visitors can download items from a collection or mark as “favorite” to save for later viewing. UC Libraries digital collections in Preservica are free and open to all to access.
Collections currently found in Preservica include:
- Cincinnati Birth and Death Records, 1865-1912 – a collection of over 528,000 records. The original official records are owned by the City of Cincinnati and housed in the Archives and Rare Books Library. The records, consisting of index cards, were created by the Cincinnati Health Department several decades ago and are considered the official and legal records of births and deaths for this time period.
- Cincinnati Subway and Street Improvements – 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.
- Cooperative Engineer – published quarterly from 1921 to 1975 by the students and alumni of the College of Engineering, University of Cincinnati. It offers primary material on the college, the campus and the City of Cincinnati; chronicles the advancement of engineering and industrial processes in the 20th century; and gives insight into student life and social customs of the time. Original materials are held at the in Archives and Rare Books Library.
- Triceracopter: The Hope for the Obsolescence of War – a collection of the process photographs documenting the creation of the popular statue created by Patricia Renick and that now resides in the Walter C. Langsam Library.
- Additional existing collections are being added to the public portal.
The public portal was designed by digital archivist Catherine Cubera and Preservica is co-managed by UC Libraries Digital Initiatives team and the Archives and Rare Books Library. Collections will be added to Preservica as they are digitized. More about UC Libraries special collections – both those in physical and digital formats – can be found on the Libraries website.
