Mary Flynn [Dorpinghaus], circa 1949, near Walnut Grove, Minnesota.
DPLA now available
Friday brought the launch of the much-anticipated Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). Digital objects from a number of repositories across the country, including the Kentucky Digital Library and Lowcountry Digital Library, are now searchable via a single portal. Among these are materials from the Rosenthall Judaica collection, a digitization project I undertook while at the College of Charleston.
Seitenstettengasse Synagogue (City Synagogue), Vienna, Austria, undated
DP.LA also hosts several exhibits featuring materials from the six service hubs. Topics include activism, the Great Depression and New Deal, and national parks. University of Kentucky Libraries staff collaborated on Indomitable Spirits: Prohibition in the United States, which spotlights images, documents, oral histories, and newspapers from the Kentucky Digital Library.
Police officers and illegal liquor, Northfield, Minnesota, 1930. Courtesy of the Northfield Historical Society, Northfield, Minnesota.
UKy Libraries receive NEH grant
University of Kentucky Digital Library Services and Special Collections were selected to receive an NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant for the Coal, Camps, and Railroads project. Over 130 cubic feet (264,000 pages) of portions of the Bert T. Combs Appalachian Collection will be selectively digitized, focusing on 189 years of economic development in the Eastern Kentucky coalfield from 1788 to 1976. The ten individual collections document the search for, extraction of, and distribution of coal, oil, and natural gas resources in Breathitt, Boyd, Clark, Floyd, Harlan, Lawrence, Letcher, Perry, and Powell counties; the creation of railroads to bring these raw materials to industrial manufacturers and electrical power generators across the United States; and the company towns, their services, and the individual lives that grew up to sustain and make possible this economic development.
Coal miners waiting for the mantrip. Gary, McDowell County, W. Va. 8/16/46. From the Russell Lee Photographic Collection (University of Kentucky Special Collections).
Harry Fain, coal loader, removes “bug dust” from undercut made by cutting machine. “Bug dust” is a mixture of slate and ground coal. Wheelwright, Floyd County, KY. 9/24/46. From the Russell Lee Photographic Collection (University of Kentucky Special Collections).
Check out that headline!
Imaging technician Shell Dunn digitizing microfilmed newspaper
The Lexington Herald-Leader published an article earlier this week on the Kentucky Digital Library’s involvement in the Digital Public Library of America. University of Kentucky Digital Library Services manages and maintains the Kentucky Digital Library.
Imaging technician Crystal Heis digitizing archival content with our mounted Phase camera
Show your support for DPLA!
Submit a photo to the DPLA Launch Photobooth!
The Kentucky Digital Library (KDL) has been invited to participate in the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) as one of the first service hub partners in this very early stage of development. We were selected based on the strength of our technological infrastructure and content. The goal of DPLA is to “create a resource that goes well beyond providing simple access to digitized or born digital content,” which will be achieved through developing code, harvesting metadata, incorporating various media types, and offering tools to enhance the use of content. You can read more about the DPLA effort here. The official launch date is set for April 18-19, and they began running a test harvest of KDL materials last week.
