Digitization News – Page 4

In partnership with Special Collections & Archives at the University of North Georgia, the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) has digitized school yearbooks dating from 1975 to 1995. This period covers the years leading up to the second name change for North Georgia College (which became North Georgia College & State University) and its growth from a college to a university.

This project contained approximately 4,700 pages in 20 bound volumes that document how (then-) North Georgia College (NGC) saw extensive growth during this time, thus demonstrating its high research value as a digitized collection.

Dr. John H. Owen (1922-2011), a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy, was named the twelfth president of North Georgia College (NGC) in 1970. During his tenure, the enrollment of North Georgia College (now the University of North Georgia) nearly tripled, thanks to having produced more course offerings and programs, having integrated the campus in 1967, and having enrolled women military cadets beginning in 1973.

NGC saw significant changes in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For example, in 1967, NGC integrated, and in 1973 women were included in the Corps of Cadets. The effects of these policy changes shaped campus culture from 1975 to 1995.

Dr. Owen stepped down as president in 1992, and the vice president for academic affairs, anatomist Delmas J. Allen was named president. Dr. Allen served as president from 1993 to 1996 and managed the school’s transition from a college to a university due to the changes in student body population and faculty/staff demographics that followed nearly two decades of growth for the school and the region.

The makeup of the student body, the increase in student organizations, the addition of inclusive multicultural groups, and the expansion of the faculty/staff of the college all reflect the more significant demographic shifts in Northeast Georgia, and thus the university. In addition, most students at NGC during this time were from Northeast Georgia. Because of this, the Cyclops collection also serves as an essential historical representation of the Northeast Georgia region.

Wendi D. Huguley, the University of North Georgia’s Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, emphasizes the value that these digitized volumes have: “Our office frequently sends digital yearbook links to family members, alumni, reunion groups and University staff who contact us requesting materials picturing their loved ones, classmates, or former colleagues. The online access to these records provides ease of use for anyone who is searching for their memories.”

Special Collections & Digital Initiatives Librarian Allison Galloup welcomes questions about the digitization project and can be reached at Allison.Galloup@ung.edu

[View the entire collection online]

About the University of North Georgia. Special Collections & Archives, Dahlonega Campus (Dahlonega, Ga.)

The Special Collections and Archives serve as the institutional memory of the university and its predecessors, Gainesville State College, and North Georgia College and State University. In addition, the Special Collections and Archives seeks to collect, arrange, preserve and make accessible collections related to the history of Appalachia, Northeast Georgia, and the communities surrounding the university’s five campuses. You can find out more at ung.edu/libraries/sc-archives/index.php.

Selected images from the collection:

Title: Cyclops 1975, vol. 68, page 58

Description: Band Company, 1975.

URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gnd_yearbooks_61

Image courtesy of University of North Georgia Special Collections & Archives

Photograph from the 1995 University of North Georgia Cyclops yearbook. It is a black-and white photograph of a group of female cheerleaders, in their uniforms, standing in an informal group portrait. — Cheerleaders, 1995.

Title: Cyclops, 1995, vol. 88, page 183

Description: Cheerleaders, 1995.

URL: https://dlg.usg.edu/record/gnd_yearbooks_81

In partnership with the Georgia State University Special Collections and Archives (Music and Broadcasting Collections) the Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) has digitized 24 scrapbooks from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (ASO) Collection dating from 1945-1985 that are now available online as part of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Collection.

This work was done as part of a competitive digitization grant intended to broaden partner participation in the DLG and provide digitization services costing up to $7500 for historic collections from non-profit Georgia cultural heritage institutions.

In 2017, the ASO donated its institutional records to GSU Special Collections and Archives. Among these records were the scrapbooks, which include newspaper clippings of concert previews, reviews, and highlights of guest performers, composers, and conductors, as well as photographs, advertising materials, and organizational records such as memos and correspondence.

Kevin Fleming, the popular music and culture archivist at Georgia State Libraries Special Collections describes the significance of this material that documents the arrival of the ASO’s Music Director Robert Shaw in the late 1960s, and the effects of the Civil Rights movement on the orchestra:

“The few scrapbooks from this time period show similar changes as it relates to the orchestra. Nick Jones, ASO’s former program annotator, indicates that ‘under Shaw’s leadership, the ASO worked to improve its connections with minority communities, including actively seeking African American instrumentalists to fill vacancies in the orchestra. There are few Black soloists, instrumental or vocal, who did not perform with the ASO during Shaw’s tenure, and the Spelman and Morehouse College Glee Clubs have frequently been heard. In connection with Morehouse, the orchestra in 1972 gave the world-premiere staging of the first surviving opera by a black composer, Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha. Additionally, T. J. Anderson was the ASO’s Composer-in-Residence for the 1969-1970 season and works by African American composers including Anderson, Ulysses Kay, and George Walker were performed.’”

Kerry Brunson, a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, describes the importance of having these materials freely available online to her students:

“My students have created award-winning projects that pull from the ASO Archive’s digitized collection of photographs and concert programs. The addition of the scrapbooks would help provide context–not only would students have access to the rare ephemera within the scrapbooks themselves, but they would also be privy to what was deemed important by the people who compiled them.”

[View the entire collection online]

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About the Georgia State University Special Collections and Archives (Music and Broadcasting Collections)

The Georgia State University Archives Music and Radio Broadcasting Collections began as the Johnny Mercer Collection and grew to include related materials that include: other musicians’ and artists’ papers, early country, bluegrass and Southern gospel music, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra archives, and records of WSB Radio and other Georgia stations. The collection contains more than 20,000 pieces of published sheet music, Tune-Dex cards and arrangements by American songwriters, as well as 50,000 recordings from a variety of genres. For more information, visit the Music and Radio Broadcasting Collections research guides at research.library.gsu.edu/musicradio

About the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra continues to affirm its position as one of America’s leading orchestras with excellent live performances, renowned guest artist features, and engaging education initiatives. As a cornerstone for artistic development in the Southeast, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra performs a full schedule of more than 150 concerts, including educational and community concerts, each year for a combined audience of more than a quarter-million people. Visit www.aso.org

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 by developing, maintaining, and preserving 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.

Facebook: http://facebook.com/DigitalLibraryofGeorgia/

Twitter: @DigLibGA

Selected images from the collection: