scholarly journals Connecting Music and Place: Exploring Library Collection Data Using Geo-visualizations

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Doi
Keyword(s):  
Interactive Search ◽  
Choral Ensembles ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Musical Activity ◽  
Large Ensembles ◽  
Type Band ◽  
Collection Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
Library Catalogue ◽  
The University

Abstract Objectives – This project had two stated objectives: 1) to compare the location and concentration of Saskatchewan-based large ensembles (bands, orchestras, choirs) within the province, with the intention to draw conclusions about the history of community-based musical activity within the province; and 2) to enable location-based browsing of Saskatchewan music materials through an interactive search interface. Methods – Data was harvested from MARC metadata found in the library catalogue for a special collection of Saskatchewan music at the University of Saskatchewan. Microsoft Excel and OpenRefine were used to screen, clean, and enhance the dataset. Data was imported into ArcGIS software, where it was plotted using a geo-visualization showing location and concentrations of musical activity by large ensembles within the province. The geo-visualization also allows users to filter results based on the ensemble type (band, orchestra, or choir). Results – The geo-visualization shows that albums from large community ensembles appear across the province, in cities and towns of all sizes. The ensembles are concentrated in the southern portion of the province and there is a correlation between population density and ensemble location. Choral ensembles are more prevalent than bands and orchestras, and appear more widely across the province, whereas bands and orchestras are concentrated around larger centres. Conclusions – Library catalogue data contains unique information for research based on special collections, though additional cleaning is needed. Using geospatial visualizations to navigate collections allows for more intuitive searching by location, and allow users to compare facets. While not appropriate for all kinds of searching, maps are useful for browsing and for location-based searches. Information is displayed in a visual way that allows users to explore and connect with other platforms for more information.

scholarly journals Preserving the History of Diversity: One University’s Efforts to Make Boston’s History More Inclusive

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-132
Author(s):  
Joan D. Krizack
Keyword(s):  
Catalog Number ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Swing Era ◽  
University Archives ◽  
History Of ◽  
Manuscript Collections ◽  
The University ◽  
Freedom House ◽  
Community Activist

In 1994, on the eve of its centennial, Northeastern University, located in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, hired its first professional to head the University Archives and Special Collections Department. What I inherited was an archivist’s nightmare. Every document had been cataloged like a book, with a unique catalog number. None of the manuscript collections had been processed. There was no collecting policy. The papers of a Massachusetts governor existed alongside those of an individual who was instrumental in developing insurance education; the records of an early swing-era orchestra resided next to those of Freedom House, a community activist organization: . . .

The Centre for African Literary Studies: An Opportunity to be Managed?

Mousaion ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Margaret Polak ◽  
Christine Stilwell ◽  
Peter G Underwood ◽  
Ruth Hoskins
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
African Literature ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
African Studies ◽  
Significant Finding ◽  
University Of Texas ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Special Collection ◽  
Collection Data ◽  
The University

Libraries contain many collections but professional practice has long recognised the concept of “special collections”. The Centre for African Literary Studies (CALS) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa, was established to house the private collection of Bernth Lindfors, a retired professor of English and African literature from the University of Texas, Austin. This article draws on Polak’s study which sought to determine whether universities need designated centres for African studies. She explored the role of CALS as a special collection and in what way the Centre was able to fulfil its role in facilitating and enabling African Studies at UKZN and in the broader community. This article focuses on the challenges of managing CALS as a valuable special collection. Data sources included a literature and document analysis, as well as a survey using questionnaires and personal interviews. The most significant finding was that the original noble vision of the founders to create a centre that boosted the humanities and African literature at UKZN and especially on the Pietermaritzburg campus had been restricted. The establishment of CALS as an externally funded centre had had a negative impact on the endeavours of CALS’s directors who, despite great efforts, had been handicapped in their management of CALS by lack of institutional support, funding and staff tenure. Recommendations for the UKZN which also have relevance for other special collections are made.

Privacy and Access in the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Records

2020 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-90
Author(s):  
Jessica Holden ◽  
Ana Roeschley
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
University Archives ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Massachusetts ◽  
The University

Archival collections that include records about victims and survivors of child abuse present unique challenges regarding privacy, access, and representation. With a long tenure of collecting on the history of social welfare, University Archives and Special Collections (UASC) in the Joseph P. Healey Library at the University of Massachusetts Boston had to address these challenges before processing and making available the historic inactive records of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC). UASC and the MSPCC took steps to ensure that the MSPCC collection would be accessible to the survivors represented in the records and to their descendants, while also providing appropriate access to the collection for the wider public. To protect the privacy of any former MSPCC clients who may still be living, the MSPCC and UASC collaborated to establish a set of policies that can be adapted by archives working with similar collections.

THE NINA VANCE ALLEY THEATRE PAPERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

2008 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-128
Author(s):  
Tammy Ravas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
University Of Houston ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Artistic Director

The University of Houston (UH) Libraries' Special Collections possesses several groups of papers and other items related to theatre and the performing arts, one of which is the Nina Vance Alley Theatre Papers. These items were donated to Special Collections in 2000. What follows is a brief biography of Nina Vance and history of the Alley as well as some highlights of items contained within this collection. Nina Vance was the Alley's first artistic director, from 1947 until her death in 1980. Along with Margo Jones and Zelda Fichandler, she helped shape the American regional-theatre movement in the later twentieth century. During her tenure at the Alley she directed 102 plays, produced 245 shows, and was awarded major grants, including significant funding from the Ford Foundation. Despite Vance's achievements in these areas, as well as in establishing the Alley as a respected theatre in the United States and across the world, few works of scholarship exist on her career. This could be partially due to the fact that many primary sources on the Alley Theatre and its founder, such as those found at the UH Libraries' Special Collections, have not been well publicized.

Resurrecting Images from the Morgue: A Case Study of the London Free Press Collection of Photographic Negatives

Collections ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-392
Author(s):  
Tom Belton
Keyword(s):  
Free Press ◽  
Current Collection ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Digital Resource ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Form Part ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University ◽  
Management Issues

This paper is a case study of the ongoing transformation of the London Free Press Collection of Photographic Negatives from a physical archive to a digital one. This Collection is a typical medium-sized newspaper photographic negative morgue dating between 1938 and 1992. These morgues possess enormous value as visual evidence of the development of communities, and society in general. The London Free Press serves a market of around a million people in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. The Collection’s current custodian, the University of Western Ontario Archives and Special Collections, is in the process of transforming it from a purely physical entity to a digital resource of great research potential. To place the case study in a broader context, the author reviews some of the recent literature on the topic of newspaper photograph morgues. He then delves into a detailed description of the custodial history of the Collection as well as details about current collection management issues, including metadata and digitization. The author concludes that the digitized body of tens of thousands of unique images will be more than enough to satisfy many visual researchers and could form part of a North American digital photojournalism archive of immense historical value.

Uncovering the early history of the Georgia Museum of Natural History, 1785–1900

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan McPherson ◽  
Byron J Freeman ◽  
Suzanne E Pilaar Birch
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Natural History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early History ◽  
University Of Georgia ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
State Museum ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The University

Abstract Although it holds one of the largest university-based natural history collections in the United States, little has been known historically about the early development of the Georgia Museum of Natural History at the University of Georgia in Athens. Formally established in 1978, it was recognized as the state museum of natural history in 1999, but the findings presented here reveal that the origins of the museum’s collections date to much earlier: the early 1800s. Research conducted at the Richard B. Russell Special Collections Library tells the previously unknown story of the museum’s founding and growth during the nineteenth century. This paper details key aspects of the development of the collection, its changing location on campus, and the museum’s relationship with the university’s library and botanical gardens; it also identifies researchers in charge of the collections in the early and pivotal years of the institution.

The Constitution and Black America

1984 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 23-26
Author(s):  
E. Wally Miles
Keyword(s):  
Black Community ◽  
Black History ◽  
Black America ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Atlanta University ◽  
The University ◽  
The City ◽  
Rich History

During the week of June 20, 1983 twenty-five historians and political scientists gathered for a seminar concerning “The Constitution and Black America.” Most of the participating faculty were very positive in their evaluations of the program; many, in fact, stated that its usefulness exceeded their expectations.The location of the seminar at Atlanta University, in Georgia was described by one of the participants as “perfect” in light of the themes which were to be discussed. The university and the city provided both an appropriate environment and relevant resources for the faculty who attended.The Atlanta University complex has a rich history of contributions to the black community and possesses a repository of special collections concerning black history and the quest for equality.

scholarly journals History and Contents of the Dutch Theatre Production Database

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Floortje Bakkeren
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Input System ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Theatre Production ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Database ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The University

Abstract The Dutch Theatre Production Database is a historical database with data on theatre and dance productions in the Netherlands by professional Dutch and foreign producers and companies. The database contains data on practically all productions from 1940 up to now: over one hundred thousand productions that can be freely searched using either the Webopac (http://theatercollectie.uva.nl/search/advanced) or the website Theaterencyclopedie (https://theaterencyclopedie.nl). Since 2013 the database is managed by the Department of Special Collections of the Library of the University of Amsterdam. It is the only source that offers an overview of the complete theatre programme in the Netherlands. The origins of its development lie in the card catalogue of the library of the Toneelmuseum of the 1960s. The database itself is now nearly three decades old and has grown much larger than the first compilers could ever have imagined. Until now a history of its development has been lacking. This paper offers a reconstruction of the history of the creation and development of the data and a description of the protocols and input system. This paper clarifies which sources have fed the database and which systems and productions have been fed by the database. With this paper, the verifiability and representativeness of the data can be assessed more effectively.

scholarly journals Community Cookbooks in the Prairies

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristine Kowalchuk
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Personal Account ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
History Of ◽  
Culinary History ◽  
Private Homes ◽  
The University

This article will build upon research I undertook in co-curating Culinaria: Early 20th-Century Cookbooks in the Prairies, an online exhibit beginning in late spring 2013 at the Bruce Peel Special Collections Library at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Beginning with a personal account illustrating the real-life sharing of recipes that has occurred in the Prairies between cultural groups, this article will trace such sharing in Prairies community cookbooks. As all Prairies settlers dealt with the same relative isolation and limited ingredients, neighbours of differing ethnic groups adapted and exchanged recipes that worked in the Prairies climate. French community cookbooks contain recipes for chop suey (an influence from the Chinese restaurants in nearly every Prairie small town), German community cookbooks contain recipes for cabbage rolls, Ukrainian community cookbooks contain recipes for sauerkraut, and so on. Such sharing in fact enabled somewhat of a common culinary base unique to the Prairies: indeed chop suey, cabbage rolls, and sauerkraut appear in nearly every community cookbook, as do, for related reasons, rhubarb and saskatoon pies. Food and cookbook history in the Prairies has been little studied, presumably because the only real cookbooks published here in the first half of the twentieth century were community cookbooks (differentiating the Prairies situation from that of Ontario and Quebec), and these books largely survive only in private homes. This is gradually changing, as libraries begin to recognize the value of community cookbooks in reflecting, and contributing to, the culinary history of the Prairies.

Collections VIII: Library and Archive Resources in the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Leeds

1981 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. B. Wood ◽  
J. V. Golinski
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
University Libraries ◽  
Valuable Resource ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Historical Collections ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Library Resources ◽  
History Of ◽  
The University

Although the University of Leeds has attained something of a reputation for the quality of its scholarship in the history of science, few historians are aware of the impressive collection of early scientific and medical books and manuscripts to be found in the University libraries. In order to make the library resources more widely known, we embarked on a systematic survey of the contents of the main historical collections. We wanted not only to give a general impression of the particular strengths and distinctive features of each collection, but also to mention the interesting or rare copies of individual works to be found in them. We have, therefore, examined every book related to the history of science and medicine in the relevant collections, and in doing so we have uncovered a number of important items. For example, we have identified a book which was once in Newton's library, and a previously unrecorded copy of Joseph Black's chemical lectures. More generally, we had not suspected the true size and range of the Chaston Chapman Collection, which makes it a valuable resource for the history of alchemy and early chemistry; nor were we initially aware of the strength of the Historical Collection of the Medical and Dental Library. The wealth of the legacies to (and the discrimination shown in recent purchases for) the Brotherton and Special Collections also impressed us.

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