DLG awards four Competitive Digitization service grants to Georgia cultural heritage institutions across the state

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Four institutions are recipients of the sixth set of service grants awarded in a program intended to broaden partner participation in the DLG. The DLG solicited proposals for historic digitization projects in a statewide call, and applicants submitted proposals for projects with a cost of up to $7,500.00 The projects will be administered by DLG staff who will perform digitization and descriptive services on textual (not including newspapers), graphic, and audio-visual materials. This subgranting program was presented the 2018 Award for Excellence in Archival Program Development by a State Institution by the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC).

The recipients and their projects include:

Chipley Historical Center of Pine Mountain (Pine Mountain, Ga.)

  • Digitization of the record book of the Sardis Church of Christ, dated 1828-1915. The Sardis Church of Christ was associated with the Primitive Baptist Church in Harris County, Georgia.

Kennesaw State University Archives (Kennesaw, Ga.)

  • Digitization of drawings created and produced by the architectural firm Gregson and Ellis and its predecessor, Gregson and Associates. These materials include a selection of architectural drawings of facilities that provided public medical and mental health care in various counties in the State of Georgia, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.

Peachtree City Library (Peachtree City, Ga.)

  • Digitization of materials documenting the conceptual beginnings and history of Peachtree City, Georgia, one of the country’s most successful post-World War II “new towns.”

Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection (Athens, Ga.)

  • Description of 250 episodes of the Parade of Quartets, the longest continuous-running gospel program on television in the United States, which has aired on WJBF in Augusta, Georgia since 1953, and has featured African American gospel groups.

Preference in the selection process was given to proposals from institutions that had not yet collaborated with the DLG. Chipley Historical Center of Pine Mountain and the Peachtree City Library are both new partners for the DLG. Sheila McAlister, director of the Digital Library of Georgia notes: “This newest set of subgrant awards represents the rich cultural diversity of the state. The projects document early Primitive Baptist life; the interplay between architecture and public health; the development of planned communities; and religious musical heritage. We’re happy to add two new partners.”

About the Chipley Historical Center of Pine Mountain

The Chipley Historical Center is located in Pine Mountain, Georgia next to City Hall in the original city hall building, built just after the turn of the twentieth century, and still contains the original jail cells. Learn more at the Chipley Historical Center’s web site at chipleyhistoriccenter.org.

About the Kennesaw State University Archives

The Kennesaw State University Archives is a destination for university and community members to research the history of Kennesaw State University and people and organizations in north and northwest Georgia. Our professional archivists provide a range of services, including collection description and organization, reference consultations, reproduction requests, record transfers and donations, and training opportunities, as well as guidance on the preservation and maintenance of paper, audio-visual, and digital materials. Visit their web site at archives.kennesaw.edu.

About the Peachtree City Library

The Peachtree City Library serves the residents of Peachtree City, Georgia with adult programs, children’s programs, and is a proud member of the PINES Library Consortium. Learn more at their web site, peachtree-city.org/125/Library.

About the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection

The Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection is home to more than 90,000 titles and 5,000,000 feet of newsfilm, making it the third-largest broadcasting archive in the country, behind only the Library of Congress and UCLA. The Archives comprise moving image and sound collections that focus on American television and radio broadcasting, and the music, folklore, and history of Georgia. There are more than 50,000 television programs and more than 39,500 radio programs in the Archives, in addition to audio folk music field tapes and home movies from rural Georgia. Their mission is to preserve, protect, and provide access to the moving image and sound materials that reflect the collective memory of broadcasting and the history of the state of Georgia and its people. Learn more at libs.uga.edu/media/index.html.

About the Digital Library of Georgia

Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia is a GALILEO initiative that collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life. This primary mission is accomplished through the ongoing development, maintenance, and preservation of digital collections and online digital library resources. DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper microfilming project. Visit the DLG at dlg.usg.edu.

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Athens, Georgia crime dockets from 1902 to 1907 now freely available online

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) is pleased to announce the availability of the City of Athens Police/Mayor’s Court Records collection at https://dlg.usg.edu/collection/arl_capmcr. The collection, which belongs to the Athens-Clarke County Library Heritage Room, is available online thanks in part to the DLG’s Competitive Digitization grant program, a funding opportunity intended to broaden DLG partner participation for statewide historic digitization projects.

“We appreciate the opportunity to work with DLG to make these documents more accessible to everyone,” said Athens Regional Library System Executive Director Valerie Bell. “These dockets provide a valuable glimpse into Athens’ past, and they tell some fascinating stories of our city’s day-to-day life.”

The digital collection consists of eight bound dockets dating from 1902 to 1907, and includes about 5,760 individual arrest cases in Athens, Georgia. Entries generally include a case number, the defendant’s name, the code violated, the date and location of the arrest, the date papers were served, the arresting officer’s name, a list of witnesses, and the dispensation of the case.

The digitization of these items makes them more widely available to researchers of economics, criminology, political science, urban development, law, sociology, history, geography, and genealogy. Because the location of arrests was included in these records, researchers are given a true picture of the city of Athens in the early twentieth century. These dockets can also be cross-referenced with resources already available online, such as newspapers, city directories, and historic maps, opening up many new opportunities to delve into Athens’ past.

Theresa Flynn, librarian at the Athens-Clarke County Heritage Room from 2007 to 2013 emphasizes the importance of these resources in helping identify historically underrepresented groups: “During my time working with the Athens Mayor’s Court docket ledgers, I found they uncovered a population of Athens that is overlooked in most books and even in some primary resource materials commonly used in genealogy research, such as the U.S. Census and city directories.”

Ashley Shull, Archives and Special Collections Coordinator at the Athens-Clarke County Heritage Room notes:Ultimately the Police/Mayor’s Court Dockets of the City of Athens reflect the cultural, political, social, geographic, and economic diversity of our community. Each simple entry contains a wealth of information, all arising from one interaction with law enforcement, giving the researcher a more complete impression of the historical city of Athens.”

The Heritage Room maintains a physical collection of 97 volumes of the court records, which are available to view by request at the library.

 

About Athens‐Clarke County Library Heritage Room

The Athens-Clarke County Library Heritage Room houses Athens-Clarke County Library’s local history and genealogy collections. The Athens-Clarke County Library serves as headquarters of the Athens Regional Library System, named Georgia’s Public Library of the Year in 2017. To learn more about the Athens-Clarke County Library’s Heritage Room, call (706) 613-3650, ext. 350. The Athens-Clarke County Library is located at 2025 Baxter Street in Athens, Georgia. Visit http://www.athenslibrary.org/athens/departments/heritage.

 

About the Digital Library of Georgia

Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia https://dlg.usg.edu/   is a GALILEO initiative that collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture and life. This primary mission is accomplished through the ongoing development, maintenance and preservation of digital collections and online digital library resources.  DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper microfilming project.

 

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