Gatewood, handbooks, and more...

Some recent additions to our digital collections:

Maud Gatewood Collection:
We are currently midway through the digitzation of the papers of artist Maud Gatewood, for whom the Gatewood Studio Arts building at UNCG is named. Among the items that have been added so far are a large collection of sketchbooks and loose sketches demonstrating her development as a visual artist.

Student Handbooks:
The full run of student handbooks from UNCG and its predcessors, from 1897 to 2011 is now online, The scrapbooks give a detailed picture of campus life, including rules and regulations, social opportunities, and more, and are the perfect complement to the bulletins and course catalogs that are already online.

And some existing collections with significant new material:

• Cello Music Collections
• School of Music Recital Programs
• Oral History Interviews
• Women Veterans Historical Project

Digital collections update

The fall semester was a busy one as we completed or continued work on several projects:

Performing arts collections:

Our digital cello music presence has grown dramatically in the past few months as we added over six thousand pages of manuscript materials and other selections from the following physical collections:

• Lev Aronson Musical Score Collection
• Elizabeth Cowling Musical Score Collection
• Maurice Eisenberg Musical Score Collection
• Fritz Magg Musical Score Collection
• Rudolf Matz Musical Score Collection
• Janos Scholz Musical Score Collection
• Luigi Silva Musical Score Collection and Personal Papers
• Laszlo Varga Musical Score Collection

Local history collections:

Following the successful launch last year of Textiles, Teachers, and Troops, we have added a considerable amount of newly-digitized material on the history of Greensboro, primarily as part of two collections:

• Postwar Urban Renewal and Planning in Greensboro: A collection of  more than four thousand pages of documents illustrating the drmatic changes (some good and some bad) that took place as the result of redevelopment activities in Greensboro following World War II. This project is a collaborative effort between the University Libraries, the Greensboro Public Library, and the Greensboro Historical Museum.
• Records of the Fisher Park Neighborhood Association: Approximately four thousand pages of materials documenting the establishment and growth of Greensboro's first historic district. These materials were digitized in part through a grant from the City of Greensboro's Building Better Communities program.

UNCG collections:

Another big addition has been the Campus Theatre Productions Collection held by the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), with neraly five thousand pages of documents pertaining to plays and other productions performed on campus between 1897 and 1963.

We have also nearly completed digitization of most of the scrapbooks held in SCUA's manuscript collections; this project follows a three-year project in which we digitized scrapbooks held as part of the University Archives.

Last but not least, we have finalized the digitization and display of the Robert Watson Papers and the Randall Jarrell Papers.

Redesigned/enhanced collections:

One of our most significant achievements this semester has been the migration of Civil Rights Greensboro and the Betty H. Carter Women Veterans Historical Project onto the CONTENTdm server platform, which will allow increased search and discovery options and allow us to integrate those collections into Worldcat and the Digital Public Library of America.

Still to come:

Still in progress this year are additions to the Home Economics Pamphlets collection, the Lois Lenski Juvenile Literature Collection, and a pilot project to digitize items from the Anna Gove Papers. And later this year, we will begin the bulk of the work on an IMLS-funded local history project with the Hayes Taylor YMCA Digital Explorers project. More later on these projects!

Growing cello collections

Two new additions to our digital cello music collections premiered this morning as we added selections from the Laszlo Varga Musical Score Collection and the Janos Scholz Musical Score Collection.

These are sixth and seventh additions, respectively, to the cello music project, which made its first appearance in 2011 with selections from the Bernard Greenhouse Collection.

UNCG's Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives is home to the largest single holding of cello music-related materials in the world.

New digital collections added

The Digital Projects unit announces several new or expanded digital collections that have gone online in the past few weeks:


American Publishers Trade Bindings, Phase II and III
Over 700 new images from the Girls Books in Series, Way and Williams, and Woman's Collections have been added, bringing the total digital collection to 1832 items.

Curry High School Yearbooks
The Curry School provided practical experience for student teachers and served as the neighborhood school for the area surrounding the UNCG campus from 1893-1970. These 22 yearbooks document student life at Curry School through photographs and are also full-text searchable.

Hansen Sheet Music Collection
Nearly 500 pieces of popular sheet music dating from 1846 to 1922 have been added to the 100+ items that were already available in the Hansen Performing Arts Collection. These may currently be browsed by composer and by show title (in most cases) and area also searchable by song title, date, and (in some cases) singer.

World War I Pamphlets Collection
Over 400 pamphlets (many of them book length) on topics ranging from specific military campaigns to civilian contributions and homeland propaganda are now available through our partnership with Lyrasis and the Internet Archive. The pamphlets are full-text searchable and also may be browsed by LC subject heading.

Look for several other new collections coming online within the next few months, including Greensboro City Directories (1884-1963), phase one of the Greensboro Patriot newspaper (1826-1922), a selection of pictorial works and newspapers provided by the Greensboro Historical Museum, and the remaining issues of UNCG's student newspaper, The Carolinian (1931 to present).

Collections to be added in the coming academic year include a collection of materials relating to cellist Bernard Greenhouse; a large collection of physical education pamphlets held by the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives; a number of scrapbooks that are part of the University Archives; issues of Dead City Radio and other materials related to WUAG, the campus radio station; posters from the Women Veterans Historical Project collection; and additional photos and other material in the University History Collections.

Universal masters donated to Library of Congress

This is really exciting, but I'm curious about the intellectual property issues that aren't discussed in the press release. Copyright issues for sound recordings produced before 1972 are very complicated and the materials are subject to miscellaneous state laws and other factors. Per Cornell's very useful copyright guide, pre-1972 recordings won't indisputably enter the public domain until 2067. It would be really nice if this donation came with intellectual property rights as well, but I have a sneaking suspicion that isn't the case.

We've worked with a lot of sheet music here at UNCG (and we'll be doing more in the next few months) but never much with sound recordings. And the issues surrounding them will probably keep us from doing much in the foreseeable future as well.