Events

The CARLI Preservation Committee is delighted to showcase digitization projects at Illinois libraries as part of the Summer Digitization Webinar Series in partnership with the Florida Virtual Campus. 

Project 1: “Using Multispectral Imaging to Augment Digitized West African Manuscripts” presented by Stephanie Gowler, Northwestern University Libraries

The Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University Libraries (NUL) is home to over 3,000 Arabic script materials from West Africa. The size, scope and uniqueness of these collections, along with increasing global scholarly interest, make them a priority for conservation and digitization. The NUL Preservation Department has begun capturing multispectral images (MSI) of the collections using a VSC®80 forensic questioned document examination workstation.  The VSC®80 allows us to quickly and consistently capture and annotate a wide range of MSI which make visible watermarks, inks, evidence of burnishing, and other materiality of the manuscripts.  These MSI are being integrated into the digital repository alongside the digitized West African manuscripts and offer new avenues for research. This talk will highlight the collaborative efforts to treat, re-house, and image Paden 417 (مختصر في فروع المالكية), a copy of the “Mukhtasar” of Khalil b. Ishaq b. Musa al-Jundi, a fourteenth-century handbook of Maliki legal principles.

Project 2: “Collaborative Preservation at the Crossroads of Science and History: Digitizing the Barnard Atlas” presented by Christina Miranda, University of Chicago Library

The Yerkes Observatory Glass Plates Digitization Project at the University of Chicago Library highlights the unique intersection of scientific and historical significance in its collection of historical astronomy glass slides. Christina Miranda will discuss strategies to support astronomy researchers and historians through thoughtful digital preservation and enhanced access to the glass slides featured in Edward Emerson Barnard’s A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way, commonly known as the "Barnard Atlas."

Speakers:

Stephanie Gowler is the Book & Paper Conservator for Northwestern University Libraries.

Christina Miranda is the Head of Digitization at the University of Chicago Library, overseeing all preservation digitization activities. Her work focuses on building digital collections that preserve and enhance access to the Library's physical collections. Christina holds an MS in Historic Preservation with specializations in Digital Cultural Heritage and Recordation. In 2023, she led the digitization efforts for the NEH Mapping Chicagoland grant, ensuring the preservation and fidelity of the digital files. Prior to her current role, Christina directed a project for the Edsel and Eleanor Ford Foundation, digitizing the Henry Ford photographic archive to assist in the restoration of the Henry Ford Home in Dearborn, MI.

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Join the CARLI Preservation Committee for a second showcase of impressive digitization projects at Illinois libraries. This webinar is part of the Summer Digitization Webinar Series in partnership with the Florida Virtual Campus. 

Project 1: “Picturing Lincoln: Digitizing a Physical Collection at the ALPLM” presented by Kelsey Wise and Matthew Deihl, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

The initiative to digitize the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum’s ‘Picturing Lincoln’ collection was a large undertaking but well worth it for the preservation and accessibility of the collection. The Picturing Lincoln online collection reduces the wear and tear of handling the physical materials while also removing the barrier of location-based, in-person only access to audiovisual materials related to Abraham Lincoln. A generous grant from the Illinois State Library made the work possible. Kelsey Wise and Matthew Deihl will cover the entire process of digitizing this archival collection; from applying for the grant that funded the work and procuring a vendor to scan the materials to creating and promoting the online collection.

Project 2: “Collaborative Preservation at the Crossroads of Science and History: Digitizing the Barnard Atlas” presented by Abigail Mann, Liz Bloodworth, and Dagan Turcotte-Cutkomp, Illinois Wesleyan University

Rooted in the goals of preserving and presenting university history by creating a digital archive of the Curtis Trout Collection, Abigail Mann and Liz Bloodworth will share Illinois Wesleyan University’s endeavor to address the challenges of 3D digitization and narrative storytelling in the digital humanities through an experiential learning opportunity for an undergraduate student.  Over his 30-year career as a scenic designer and theater professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, Curtis Trout created more than 100 designs for the School of Theatre Arts and amassed an impressive archival collection of his work that surpasses the amount of physical space available in the University Archives. The physical reality of that collection necessitates the development of workflows and strategies to digitally preserve a wide array of materials, many non-textual, in a way that prioritizes accessibility and engagement.

Speakers:

Kelsey Wise is an Audiovisual Librarian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM). She took the lead on ALPLM’s Picturing Lincoln project when its progress had been stalled due to staff turnover and an unfortunate hard drive crash. With the assistance of her colleague and fellow Audiovisual Librarian, Matthew Deihl, the digitization for the project was complete. Digitizing materials from the audiovisual collection to fulfill patron photoduplication requests is also a part of her everyday work.

Kelsey earned her Master of Science in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She lives in Springfield, Illinois with her husband, Tyler, and their pets: a snake named Cecil, a cat named Hekapoo, and a dog named Fennec.

Matthew Deihl has served as an Audiovisual Librarian with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library for 1 ½ years. During this time, he has digitized countless images from ALPLM’s Audiovisual Collection for use by researchers from around the world. He understands that creating digital surrogates reduces the need to handle the physical items, thus preserving them into the future. That is why he was more than happy to work with his colleague and ALPLM’s other Audiovisual Librarian, Kelsey Wise, to see the Picturing Lincoln digitization project come to fruition. With 1,001 records already uploaded to Picturing Lincoln’s digital collection in the Illinois Digital Archives, he continues the behind-the-scenes work to upload the remainder of the collection soon. 

Matthew earned a Master of Arts degree in Library and Information Science from University of South Florida’s School of Information. He loves music, movies, and playing with his daughter.

Abigail Mann is the Digital Scholarship Librarian at Illinois Wesleyan University. Prior to receiving her MSLS, she was a tenured English professor, and has taught a broad variety of courses in diverse formats. As a Digital Scholarship librarian, a significant research focus has been on creating digital scholarship partnerships between teaching faculty and librarians to support innovative research and pedagogy, particularly at less resourced institutions. She has also built a Digital Humanities program at IWU that has offered 10-12 students/ year the opportunity to develop and execute a DH project.  She also provides pedagogical support for digital projects across the curriculum, ranging from International Education to English to History.

Liz Bloodworth is the University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at the Ames Library at Illinois Wesleyan University. She holds an MA in History from Illinois State University and an MLIS with an emphasis in Archival Studies from the University of Missouri - Columbia. Prior to her position at IWU, she worked in special collections and regional museums. Her research interests include primary source literacy instruction, building more representative collections, and the use of digital tools, including artificial intelligence, in archival description and outreach.

Dagan Turcotte-Cutkomp is entering graduate school at the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign this fall to study Library and Information Science. They recently graduated with a bachelor's degree in History and Music from Illinois Wesleyan University, where they worked in the Tate Archives & Special Collections for four years.

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