Digitization of Modulus (student yearbook) Now Complete Through 1980

Rose-Hulman Modulus Yearbooks

The digitization process of the Modulus, the student yearbook for Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, is moving along at a swift pace due our diligent student worker.  Elizabeth is producing high quality scans at a very fast pace.

We have scanned and put online all yearbooks through 1980.  1982, 1985 and 1987 are already online.  1981 and 1983 are scanned and 1984 is on the works.  We hope to have the 1980s finished by the end of the month and the remaining 10 completed by the end of the school year.

We are able to conduct this process much faster than in the past because we are only doing one scan, a high resolution TIFF from which the OCR feature in CONTENTdm does a decent job importing the text.

http://www.rose-hulman.edu/Archives/modulus.html

Digital Archives display at Homecoming a Huge Success

Homecoming 2009 Digital Archive Tent

Yesterday (Saturday Sept 26^th), Rachel (my library director) and I had a booth at Homecoming to show off our Digital Archives project to anyone interested in learning more about it.  Our target audience (those we expected to be interested in it) was alumni and they loved it.  Most were not aware of its existence and were fascinated.  Many, especially the older alum were interested in telling stories which I enjoyed.  The most fascinating story was from a 1949 grad who started as a Freshman in 1946 right out of World War II on the GI Bill.  Back then the only dorm was Deming Hall which was mostly for Freshmen.  He said that first night he hardly slept because all night he was awakened by screams from former soldiers suffering from nightmares and flashbacks.  There were a dozen or so that they eventually had to make space for in the basement so the others could sleep.  I don’t know if that is documented in any way in our Archives, or how many people living today know that, but to me that is an incredible story and a part of Rose-Hulman history most people don’t know about.

All of our traffic came before the game and was a nice steady pace for two people.  This Digital Archives is a very valuable asset to the Institute and one that we need to do a better job at promoting.  We would definitely like to do this again next year and maybe include something that is also library related.

Modulus YearBooks being uploaded again

I am finally at the point where I am able to start uploading yearbooks again.  Last week I uploaded 1905, 1907, 1940, and 1975.  Still to come in the coming week(s) are 1901, 1909, 1913, 1928, 1936, and Oct 1943.  Our goal is to have every yearbook through 1945 completed by Homecoming on Sept 26^th for our portion of the Wabash Valley Visions and Voices Extravaganza.  Once we are finished through 1945, we will continue through each decade, filling in the missing years chronologically.  The time consuming part of this is that I need to do some page sorting before and after each book is uploaded.  The completed yearbooks can be viewed at http://www.rose-hulman.edu/Archives/modulus.html