UofS Alum Aided Displaced Persons

If you’ve been on the 5th floor lately, you might have noticed that we have some of our special collections materials on display as part of the When Humanity Fails exhibit being held at the MAC Gallery.  This exhibit “celebrates the American GIs who liberated Europe and helped nurture the survivors of Nazi persecution back to life,” according to Tova Weiss, director of the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Holocaust Education Resource Center.

If you’d like to learn more about displaced persons and the aftermath of the Holocaust, be sure to browse our new digital collection on Abe L. Plotkin, a 1935 graduate of St. Thomas College (before it became the University of Scranton) who witnessed the liberation of the Ohrdruf concentration camp and later became a liaison between displaced persons and their relatives and friends in America.  The fully-searchable collection includes Plotkin’s photographs of Ohrdruf and of Holocaust survivors, as well as his correspondence with friends and contacts in American about his experiences abroad.

You can also see some of Plotkin’s original photographs and letters in the 5th floor Heritage Room display cases, now through November 20.

C-Store cheerleader photo, from the University Archives

If you’ve been in the DeNaples C-Store lately (or as it’s now officially known, the P.O.D. Market), you might have seen this “cheerful” photo behind the counter:

Front row: Tom O’Neill and Chris Zoeller. Back row: Herbert Lebovits, Joseph Molasky, and Jack McHale.

This photo from 1952 comes from the Weinberg Memorial Library’s University Archives, where it’s safely preserved for posterity in an acid-free folder.  In 2009, we digitized the Archives’ whole set of football-related photographs and made it available online in our digital Football Collection.  We recently just posted this photo to our Flickr account as part of a sample from the collection, to help users find us:

We here at the Library are proud to help our students get to know the University’s history.  After all, according to one of our favorite archived University fight songs,  “Today we’re Royals in the game, / Tomorrow we’re Royals in the world! We’re Royals, Royals, Royals!!”

University of Scranton Course Catalogs 1926-2008, now Online

Digitization of special collections is ongoing at the Weinberg Memorial Library, and as a result we’re happy to have one more digital collection available for public use this Spring.

Now online and fully searchable is the University of Scranton Course Catalogs collection, which includes 123 St. Thomas College and University of Scranton undergraduate and graduate course catalogs from 1926 through 2008.  These catalogs will be useful not only for former students seeking course descriptions, but also for local historians and genealogists interested in the University’s history.

University course catalogs from 2007 and earlier were digitized in 2009 by Internet Archive as part of the Lyrasis Mass Digitization Collaborative, a group effort to digitize cultural heritage materials in which the Weinberg Memorial Library has participated since the Fall of 2008.  Each catalog was digitized in full color at 400 dpi, and each image was preserved in JPEG2000 format.  In order to save on server space and make the catalog images faster to download, we’ve uploaded PDF derivatives of those master JPEG2000s into our CONTENTdm collection.  As a result, some of the photographs in the catalogs may appear blurred.  If you’d like a higher resolution copy of a catalog, you can download the original JPEG2000s from Internet Archive by clicking on the Internet Archive URL, stored in each catalog’s “document description.”  And of course, the original printed catalogs are still available in the Library’s University Archives and can be viewed by appointment.

Catalogs from after 2007 are born digital documents, which we’ve downloaded for preservation from University Catalogs web site.

If you have questions about the course catalog collection or about the digitization process, please contact the Digital Services department.  And don’t forget to take a look at our other recent digital collections!

Now Hiring: Tech-Savvy Students as Library TechCons

The Weinberg Memorial Library seeks to hire two talented, dedicated student workers to serve as Library Technology Consultants (TechCons).

TechCons are highly skilled student workers who support the work of the Weinberg Memorial Library. They are technology-savvy, self-driven, reliable, and able to work both independently as well as in a team environment. TechCons work approximately ten hours each week, with flexible scheduling, and gain valuable real-world experience and training.

TechCons are undergraduate or graduate students enrolled at The University of Scranton and are eligible for federal, state, or University work study funding.

The Weinberg Memorial Library currently has two open TechCon positions:

Digitization TechCon
This TechCon supports the Library’s digitization initiatives and reports to the Digital Services Librarian.  Monday-Friday, daytime hours only. Job responsibilities for this position include:

  • Digitizing photographs, negatives, and documents from the University’s Special Collections.
  • Contributing technical information to digital collections metadata, conforming to standards set by the Digital Services Librarian.
  • Copying and distributing digital images requested by Library patrons.
  • Promoting digital collections with postings to the Library’s Flickr account, etc.
  • Performing other digitization duties as assigned.

Preferred qualifications for this position include:

  • Experience with Adobe Photoshop
  • High level of attention to detail

Library Outreach TechCon
This TechCon supports the Library’s Public Services initiatives and reports to the Library’s Evening Public Services Librarian. Afternoon, evening and some weekend hours available. Job responsibilities for this position include:

  • Publicizing Library events and services using the Library’s social media presence (with regular postings to the Library’s blog, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter accounts).
  • Researching the usage of social media tools at other libraries.
  • Preparing informational slides, images, and video for the Library’s new television displays.
  • Photographing Library events and activities.
  • Assisting the Public Services Librarians in planning outreach activities. Potential projects include gaming events and Earth Week.
  • Assisting the Digital Services Librarian and Digitization TechCon in promoting digital collections.
  • Assisting with other special projects as needed.

Preferred qualifications for this position include:

  • Knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, Flash, and Powerpoint
  • Familiarity with Mac operating system and software
  • Experience with audio/video editing and graphic design
  • Excellent written communication skills
  • Familiarity with social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, and with current social media trends and culture

If you are interested in either position, please email Digital Services Librarian Kristen Yarmey-Tylutki at yarmeyk2@scranton.edu with your name, Royal Number, major, expected graduation date, and either a resume or a brief statement of your qualifications.  Please also note whether you are eligible for federal or state work study.

New Digital Collections Home Page

It’s been a long time coming, but our new Digital Collections home page is finally up and running!  On this new page, you can find a list of all of our digital collections, from the popular Aquinas Online to our lesser known set of digitized Northeastern Pennsylvania history books housed on Internet Archive. You can also cross search several of our collections, including the University of Scranton Digital Yearbook Collection and the just-released Football Collection.  The page also features information about our collections and notes about what we’re working on next (we’re especially excited about the Electronic Masters and Honors Theses).  We’ll soon be adding an online form that you can use to request your own copies of digital images from our collections.

As with most of our projects, the Digital Collections home page is a work in progress – so please let us know if you have suggestions or comments!

Note: Big, huge thanks to Library Systems Specialist Jen Maher for her work on the new pages.

UofS Football Archives now online

The University of Scranton’s football team may no longer be around (in fact, it’s famous on campus for being “undefeated since 1960”), but at the Weinberg Memorial Library, UofS football is back in a big way.  This week, the Library is proud to announce the University of Scranton Football Collection, a digitized version of our football archives.

The collection includes over a thousand photographs of University of Scranton (and St. Thomas College) football teams, players, coaches, and games – as well as photos of the cheerleaders and marching bands who cheered them on.  The collection also features a set of football game programs.  The programs, produced for each home game, have team rosters, statistics, and game analysis.  Most of the materials come from the years 1900 through 1960, when the varsity football team was disbanded.

This collection isn’t just for UofS football fans, though.  The game programs in particular are a rich resource for researchers interested in the history of Scranton and its surrounding area.  The programs were sponsored by local businesses (like the Hotel Casey), so the booklets serve as miniature “time capsules” showing slices of Scranton life over time.

We invite all students, staff, alumni, and community members to browse and search the collection at www.scranton.edu/library/football.  You may also want to take a look at our brief history of University of Scranton football.

P.S. While we have identified many of the photographs, some are still mysteries.  If you recognize a player, please let us know!

Many thanks to librarian Kay Lopez, library systems specialist Jennifer Maher, and digital services assistant Kevin Pheasey, who all dedicated many hours of hard work to this project.

Nay Aug Park photos

We’ve just added some old photographs of the amusement park at Nay Aug Park in Scranton to our Flickr collection.  Please take a look and either help us date/describe them, or just post some of your memories of Nay Aug!

The photos were contributed by Weinberg Memorial Library Associate Director Bonnie Strohl, whose father and uncle owned the park (called Nay Aug Amuseument Company).

Aquinas online, old and new

AquinasCover

Did you know that that archival issues of the Aquinas, the University of Scranton’s 77-year-old student newspaper, are available online? In the Weinberg Memorial Library’s digital collection, you can browse and search every issue from Vol. 1, No. 1 (October 16, 1931) through the last issue of 2007 (May 10).

(Side note: We love reading Tommyrot, a gossip column in the 1930s and 1940s that reported all the campus dirt.)

If you’re looking for current Aquinas articles, be sure to check out aquinas.jlcclients.com, where you can find the latest student news.  You can also follow @scrantonaquinas on Twitter for updates.

Want to see more of the Library? Try Flickr

The University of Scranton Weinberg Memorial Library is now on Flickr!  We’re using the photo-sharing service to post pictures of our latest Library events.  We’ll also be adding a few “mystery” archives photos, like the University of Scranton Players picture below.  Please comment if you can help us identify them!

Check out our photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/universityofscrantonlibrary.

universityplayers

Do you know these University of Scranton students?
Comment on Flickr if you can help us identify them!

Countdown to the Lincoln Bicentennial

Here at the Weinberg Memorial Library, we’re celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday all month long, even though the big day isn’t until Thursday (February 12th). Yesterday, we opened our display of the national traveling exhibit, “Forever Free: Abraham Lincoln’s Journey to Emancipation,” in the 5th floor Heritage Room.

The exhibit, organized by the Huntington Library and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, will travel to 63 different libraries in 31 different states.  The Weinberg will be hosting the exhibit through March 22nd – to see it, just head up to the 5th floor anytime during the Library’s regular hours.

Abraham Lincoln's Journey to Emancipation

Want even more Lincoln?  There’s still time to register for this Saturday’s free Symposium and Exhibit Opening Reception.  We’re excited to have three speakers share their knowledge of Lincoln and his time:

Best of all, we’ll be visited by Lincoln actor and historian Jim Getty, who will bring the 16th president “alive” as we celebrate his memory.  To join us on Saturday, just call the Special Collections librarian Michael Knies at 941-6341 to register.  (And check out Michael’s interview in yesterday’s Scranton Times-Tribune!)