Tate Street: 1971 and 2016

A week or two back, we posted some "then and now" comparisons of photos taken on the west side of the UNCG campus around 1991. Today, we move to the other side of campus (and two decades back in time) to compare some views of Tate Steet that were originally shot around 1971.

In 1970 or 1971, the store block on the east side of Tate Street, which dates from the 1920s, added a new facade to unify and modernize the appearance of the stores. At the same time, a two-story building had opened across the street to house Franklin Drugs, which had previously been across the street in the older store block. Franklin's was replaced by a men's clothing store called The Hill, which was only open for about a year, and that's how we dated the photos.

Armed with the trusty iPhone in "panorama" mode, David Gwynn and Kathy Howard from the digital projects team recreated these images for your amusement.

Tate Street, north from Walker Avenue (1971):

Tate Street, north from Walker Avenue (2016):

Walker Avenue, west from Tate Street (1971):

Walker Avenue, west from Tate Street (2016):

Tate Street, southeast from Walker Avenue (1971):

Tate Street, southeast from Walker Avenue (2016):

Tate Street, northeast from Walker Avenue (1971):

Tate Street, northeast from Walker Avenue (2016):

Walker Deck and Kaplan Commons: 1991 and 2016

Several years back, we digitized some "panoramic" photos (created by gluing together still prints) taken about 1991 in the area of UNCG's Walker Avenue parking deck, which was completed in 1994, and the Elliott University Center expansion and Kaplan Commons, which were completed in 2006. Digital imaging technician Robert Bixby, who passed away in 2013, scanned and color-corrected the images.

This area of campus has changed drastically in the past twenty-five years; numerous houses and apartment buildings were torn down for the construction projects, and entire blocks of Theta and Forest Streets ceased to exist.

Armed with an iPhone set on "panorama" mode, David Gwynn and Erica Rau from the digital projects team recently shot some contemporary images from the same vantage points as the 1991 photos, and we present the here for your enjoyment.

East on Stirling Street between Theta and Walker (1991):

Same view (2016):

North on Theta Street between Stirling and Forest (1991):

Same view (2016):

Southeast at Walker Avenue and Forest Street (1991):

Same view (2016):

South on Stirling Street from Walker Avenue (1991):

Same view (2016):

West on Stirling Street between Theta and Walker (1991):

Same view (2016):

East on Kenilworth Street between Theta and Walker (1991):

Same view (2016):

South on Kenilworth Street from Walker Avenue (1991):

Same view (2016):

Greensboro community history site added

Material digitized as part of UNCG's partnership with the Hayes-Taylor YMCA Youth Achievers program is now online!

Over the past year, we have been working with students in the Hayes-Taylor program and with community members to uncover rare and personal items that are of unique historical value and that might not have made their way into a digital collection otherwise. We encouraged community members to contribute items that they thought were significant and documented a particular aspect of Greensboro's history with specific attention given to African-American communities in the southeastern quadrant of the city.

Greensboro residents brought in some amazing items. Here is a small sample:

• Two photos documenting Greensboro's East Market Street business district, which was destroyed in a 1960s urban renewal project.
• A scrapbook created by Mrs. Hyla Cundiff druing her time at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte from 1944-1948.
• Material documenting the life and work of Walter Lewis McNair, the first African-American pharmacist in Greensboro. 
• A photo album containing rare photographs of Dudley High School in the late 1930s taken by a student who later became a Tuskeegee Airman.
• Several photographs showing the Caldwella nd Foushee families and their lives in Greensboro's Terra Cotta community from the 1950s to the 2000s.

We will be spotlighting additional items from this amazing project here and on our Facebook page in the coming weeks. The project was completed using funds from a federal Institute of Museum and Library Services Sparks! Ignition Grant.

In the library

In celebration of National Library Week, a few photos from UNCG's old Carnegie Library (now Forney Building) that were recently removed from a scrapbook, repaired by the library's preservation team, and digitized for an upcoming project.

Circa 1936

Recreational reading room, April, 1938

Books arriving for a library contest, April, 1938

The Carnegie Library scrapbook and photos will be available online in a few months as part of two larger projects presenting historical photographs of UNCG and scrapbooks held in the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives.

Moving on...um...down

The Digital Projects team will be moving from our temporary quarters on the fifth floor of Jackson Library to a new, larger space on the second floor in late spring or early summer. The new digitization lab will add more workspace and will allow for new equipment, including an oversize scanner and more video and audio equipment. It will also reunite the entire Electronic Resources and Information Technology Department (of which Digital Projects is a part) in one space.

Removal of the old shelving units in the former Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives stacks began today and we got a feel for how specious our new home will be:

 

We'll keep you posted as construction progresses.

Updates

There’s been a lot going on in Digital Projects the past couple of months. Here’s the rundown of what we’re currently working on and how far we've gotten on each project:

• American Publishers Trade Bindings Collection (Ongoing)
  We are actively working on the fourth phase of this collection, which involves completing all titles in the Woman's Collection and the detective fiction sub-collection. We also hope to work on some user interface enhancements in the spring, following our CONTENTdm upgrade. 
• Bernard Greenhouse Project (Completion target: Spring 2012)
  This project will make available concert programs, photographs, correspondence, manuscripts, and interviews pertaining to the noted cellist and will be the first in what we hope will be many projects highlighting our important cello collections. A graduate assistant us working with the Libraries and the UNCG LIS Department to complete this project as part of the Real Learning Connections program.
• The Carolinian, 1930-2005 (Completion target: 2012)
  Issues from 1919-1930 were published several months ago. The remainder have been digitized and assembled. We are currently working on integrating an index--a work in progress for several years--into the metadata for the project. This project was undertaken in collaboration with Lyrasis through a Sloan Foundation grant.
• Greensboro Patriot, 1826-1922 (Completion target: Spring 2012)
  We will be publishing online the full run of Greensboro's weekly "newspaper of record" from the nineteenth century. Severl test issues from the Civil War era are already online. All the rest have been digitized and are being prepared for publication online, as we assemble the PDF files for each issue and create metadata. We also plan to publish an index of the earlier issues that was created several years ago. This project was also undertaken in collaboration with Lyrasis through a Sloan Foundation grant, and is part of our plan for a larger community-focused local history portal in coming years.
• North Carolina Runaway Slave Ads Project (Completion target: Spring 2012)
  This project, funded through LSTA funds administered by the State Library's NC ECHO grant program, will digitize and transcribe more than two thousand runaway slave ads that appeared in North Carolina newspapers between 1730 and 1841. A collaborative venture with North Carolina A&T State University, this project is expected to be of great value to historians and genealogists. We have digitized a high proportion of the advertisements and are now transcribing and extracting metadata. Our colleagues at A&T will begin working on ads that were not part of our original source material in January. Three student assistants are currently working on the project.
• Physical Education Pamphlets Collection (Completion target: Spring 2012)
  These 400+ pamphlets held by the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives document physical education and related activities over the past 150 years. Scanning is complete on this massive project (over 6000 pages scanned) and the pamphlets will be published online probably by early spring.
• University Archives Scrapbooks (Likely completion in 2013)
  We are digitizing approximately 110 scrapbooks that are part of UNCG's University Archives and were completed by campus organizations from 1917 to 1993. This has been a challenging project and we have uncovered new issues on a daily basis, but there is a wealth of information contained in these books and making them available online will allow us to preserve the originals, most of which are in a very fragile state.
• University Images Project (Ongoing)
  The University Archives photo collections are being reprocessed to facilitate digitization and  the first (and probably most difficult) part of this reprocessing, the Buildings and Grounds series, is nearly complete. We will be adjusting some of the items already uploaded to the online collection to "match" their new homes in University Archives, which will make both the physical photos and their digital surrogates easier to find.
• Women Veterans Historical Project (Ongoing)
  This is one of our signature digital collections, and we are currently working primarily on oral history transcription. However, a bigger project that will move the entire collection from a homegrown database platform into CONTENTdm, which will allow for easier updating and increased searching and browsing capabilities.
• WUAG/Dead City Radio (Completion target: Spring 2012)
  This project will digitize Dead City Radio, a zine published from 1985 to present by UNCG's student radion station, along with other material from the WUAG records, including playlists, program schedules, photographs, and some audio materials. Work will beging in January and will involve a practicum student from the LIS program at UNCG.

UNCG history site goes live

The University History Collections website includes photos, documents, oral history transcripts, publications, artifacts, and textiles related to the history of UNCG, culled from multiple collections belonging to the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives.

There’s some really cool stuff already, including a set of historic postcards, correspondence and other material dating to the first years of the State Normal and Industrial School, and some great material about the recently-demolished 1959 Commencement House. New materials will be added to the site on an ongoing basis, and this is sort of a “soft” launch of the first phase. Comments and thoughts are most welcome.

The site also links to the University Yearbooks Collection that went live several weeks ago and within a few months will also link to the upcoming Carolinian, Corradi and State Normal Magazine, and Alumni Magazine projects.