Historical Photograph Collection – University of Miami Archives

Please take a look at a behind-the-scenes panorama photo of the Processing Room taken by my colleague last week. The space is located on the 8th floor of Richter Library in a secured section, which is shared by the Special Collections and the University Archives. The space is constantly jam packed with historical materials being processed with staff and student assistants working on them. It is the most time-consuming but crucial step for us to make our collections accessible.

Currently, the University Archives is processing a very large, significant collection of historical images and university publications donated by the University Communications last year. This is an exciting new addition to our collections, which will allow us to research news and events of the University took place from the 1980s to early 2000s. We anticipated completion of the project sometime in spring 2015.

In January 2012, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) launched an innovative crowdsourcing program called “National Archives Transcription Pilot Project,” which allows participants to look at historical photographs and documents to identify the people, transcribe the documents, and add comments to them.

http://transcribe.archives.gov/

Such information would be shared with others, who could add to the work or correct it. The Archivist and Metadata librarian will review the information, verify facts, and post the information on the website.

Crowdsourcing can help build a virtual community, engage students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and build a large knowledge database about the people and programs of the University of Miami.

Can you name someone in the picture above? Are you there or do you know someone in the group? When was it taken? Where on campus? What was the occasion? Currently, we can only describe the image as a group of female students, and we assume it was taken during the 1950s.

Please go to the link below and click the words “Tags” and/or “Comments” at the bottom of the page to name the students and tell us something about the picture.

http://merrick.library.miami.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/um_students/id/108/rec/68

My colleague Matt Carruthes, Metadata Librarian, has written a wonderful instructional document titled “UM Historical Photographs Crowdsourcing Guidelines and Directions.” Please contact me if you would like to obtain it by email.

We look forward to hearing from you on thousands of images in the historical image collection! Please contact me if you have any questions or need further assistance.

http://merrick.library.miami.edu/digitalprojects/photographs.php

Tag: Historical Photograph Collection

Behind-The-Scenes Photo of the Archives

Crowdsourcing for the UM Historical Photo Collection