University of Vermont Libraries' Center for Digital Initiatives

If you're in the Champlain Valley, look out for the CDI's first public service announcement on RETN Channel 16. RETN is a local educational public access station which serves our region. For those outside of the viewing area, streaming video is available on RETN's site or on blip.tv.

This PSA introduces viewers to the CDI, gives a taste of our collections, and stresses the accessibility of our digital library - anyone can use the CDI, from anywhere, for free!

Thanks to Doug Dunbebin of RETN for all of his help and to Jake Barickman of the UVM Libraries for lending his voice.

Thanks to a generous gift from Frederika Northrop Sargent, a new collection of nineteenth-century family correspondence is now available through the University of Vermont’s Center for Digital Initiatives.

The letters were collected by Vermonter Ruth Colton Fletcher (1810-1903) and are part of the Consuelo Northrop Bailey Papers. Many of the letters are from family members who moved west to New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Kansas and sent reports full of interesting details about the people, economy, institutions, and activities to family back home. The correspondents recount the hard work they faced as they created and managed farms in new states and territories and often share meticulous lists of the prices of land, grains, stock, and groceries. Writers document the burdens of sickness and death that their families endured and often provide accounts of their medical treatments. Enos Fletcher and Charles Hogan write about their military experience during the Civil War, and other correspondents refer to the war and its effects on their communities. In one letter, Ruth's son Andrew describes the 1864 Confederate raid on the banks in the border town of St. Albans, where he was working.

The digital collection includes images of 148 letters, encoded and searchable transcriptions of the letters, and a collection overview with a list of the correspondents and their relationships.

View the collection here.

We are pleased to announce a new collection which documents Hay Harvesting in the 1940's

In the 1940’s, Robert M. Carter, of the University of Vermont Agricultural Expriment Station, conducted a study of hay harvesting techniques and costs in Vermont. This collection documents that work which resulted in several published studies and three films showing different hay harvesting techniques.

The films capture hay harvesting at a time when there was an increasing use of power machinery, and they show a range of techniques including older methods of hand harvesting, as well as newer tractor driven methods. In Carter’s study he writes, “While nearly half of all farmers contacted relied upon horses for handling some field equipment, combinations of horse- and motor-operated equipment were frequent. Forty-one percent of the farmers owned tractors, and 21 percent had trucks.” These films capture hay harvesting right in the middle of the transition from horse to machine driven equipment.

Preservation and digitization of these films was made possible through a generous grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation.

View the collection here.

Amanda Waite, from UVM's The View has put together a wonderful article and audio slideshow in The View, a UVM publication, featuring images from the The Louis L. McAllister Photograph collection.

McAllister's photographs of the Burlington area span a large area of topics, including, group and individual portraits, documentation of building construction and Burlington Street Department projects, and more.

The CDI has been adding digital images to the McAllister Collection for the last year. There are now over 1600 images available, with more being added on a regular basis.

See the audio slideshow below.

The CDI has started working on an ambitious digitization project involving the Louis L. McAllister Photograph collection. The Louis L. McAllister Photograph collection provides a window into 60 years of Burlington area history.

Louis Lloyd McAllister was born in Omaha, Nebraska on October 16, 1877, the son of Rosa (Gould) and William G. McAllister. His father, a native of Warren VT, was a maker of tintypes in Bristol prior to the Civil War. L.L. returned to Vermont and began photographing in Randolph in 1897. His photographs of the Burlington area span a large area of topics, including, group and individual portraits, documentation of building construction and Burlington Street Department projects, and more. McAllister died April 28, 1963, ending a sixty-year career as a Burlington area photographer.

The collection will take several years to digitize and describe. Read more about the collection and view the first 150 photographs here. Additional photographs are published on a regular basis.

Full text transcripts of the letters of Jacob Collamer and Samuel Crafts are now available along with the page images of each letter.

To explore this collection you may browse the collection, search the collection, or browse the letters by author.

The Center for Digital Initiatives has purchased a I2S CopiBook RGB for the digital imaging studio.

The CopiBook RGB is a face up book scanner with a motorized book cradle and a 35 megapixel camera, with a maximum scan size of 17" x 24". Color items can be scanned faster then 7 seconds at an optical resolution as high as 300 ppi, with the camera taking three complete scans per item (or one scan per color). The scanner also includes some automation enabling an intuitive and efficient work flow.

Pictures courtesy of Toni Fortini.

The University Libraries will be introducing the Center for Digital Initiatives with open houses on Thursday, April 19th and Friday, April 20th from 1 to 3PM in Bailey/Howe’s Room 313. Visitors can enjoy light refreshments, learn more about the CDI, and enter a raffle for a chance to win an iPod.

UNIQUE VERMONT HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS AVAILABLE ONLINE

BURLINGTON, APRIL 16 – The University of Vermont Libraries launched the Center for Digital Initiatives (CDI) today, the first day of National Libraries Week, a new online resource that allows any user with Internet access to view and search documents and photographs from the university’s Special Collections. The CDI Web site is located at http://cdi.uvm.edu.

Previously, library patrons had to visit Bailey/Howe Library and wear white gloves to view these often fragile materials. The CDI allows them to access UVM's signature collections in digital form from a remote location.

CDI’s initial collection – more will follow – is a rich, searchable archive of more than 1,000 pages of materials generated by eight Vermont Congressmen, including such well know figures as George Aiken and Robert Stafford, documenting topics ranging from the abolition of slavery to social life in Washington, D.C. The first document dates from 1818, the last from 2004. The collection also includes photographs.

The collection is organized in categories that grew out of recurrent themes in the materials: Dairy and the U.S. Congress, Letters Home from Congress and Speeches.

Leahy, Jeffords secured funding

An initial grant of $250,000 to develop the CDI was secured in 2005 through the joint efforts of U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy and former U.S. Senator James Jeffords, which enabled UVM Libraries to purchase hardware and software, hire a digital librarian and build the center’s first digital collections.

"I'm so pleased I was able to work with Senator Jeffords on this project that brackets Vermont's past and present," Senator Leahy said. "CDI creatively harnesses modern technology to open windows to earlier periods of Vermont's history. By making these archives more accessible, it will also make them more useful."

"We’re very grateful to both Senator Leahy and former Senator Jeffords for their insight into the importance of this innovative project and their support of it," said Daniel Mark Fogel, UVM president. “CDI represents the library of the future. It allows UVM to make its library holdings available to the entire world, significantly facilitating access, collaboration and the creation of new knowledge.”

"We chose to begin our digitization efforts with some of our most interesting Congressional papers, so we could highlight both Vermont's unique contributions to public policy and one of the university’s major collection strengths,” said Mara Saule, dean of libraries and learning resources.

Significant growth in future

In addition to those of Aiken (1892-1984) and Stafford (1913-2006), the CDI collection contains documents authored by Samuel Crafts (1768-1853), Jacob Collamer (1791-1865), Justin Morrill (1810-1898) and Warren Austin (1877-1962).

Also available are photographs of North Danville, Vt. from around 1900, which depict agricultural landscapes, logging, mills, barn raisings and railroad bridges, providing a visual legacy of Vermont’s agricultural, industrial and community history.

The digital collection unveiled today will grow significantly in future years. Archivists hope to digitize selections from the papers of the other Vermont House and Senate members held by Special Collections, which date from 1791. Special Collections holds significant collections of 22 Vermont House and Senate members, and those of 52 members in total.

In addition to CDI’s emphasis on public policy papers, plans call for the digitization of resources such as maps, photographs, artists books, newspapers, and the literature of agriculture in Vermont.

New material will be added on a daily basis.

This project is funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services by an Act of Congress, in accordance with the FY 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Bill. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website do not necessarily represent those of the Institute for Museum and Library Service.

Learn more about the Center for Digital Initiatives at the Library Forum on Wednesday, November 8th.

Topics will include an overview of both the Center and the Vermont Online Congressional Research Center project, where we've been, how we got there, and where we're going. Highlights of the presentation will include a demo of the metadata entry tools, and the Center's website.