Author Archives: kgmatheny

Small Photo Collections: Horgan Industrial photos, Birmingham, 1889

Posted on October 5, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Industrial, Photograph Albums, Small Collections | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The John Horgan, Jr. photo album contains 23 images of industrial sites around Birmingham. Taken in 1889, these images are a good example of early photography, but they can also provide a helpful context for other collections in Acumen. For … Continue reading →

Fall break with Small Photo Collections: Wade Hall

Posted on October 4, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Small Collections | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Donor Wade Hall is that rare kind of collector who sees the value in seemingly normal, everyday documents and photos, things that aren’t connected to a big historical figure or moment but nevertheless make up the fabric of history. The … Continue reading →

What about digital preservation at libraries, museums, and archives?

Posted on October 3, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Digital Preservation | Tagged , | Leave a comment

What digital preservation topics interest YOU? The three ASERL (Association of Southeastern Research Libraries) webinars I did last February are still getting hits (see the “Intro to Digital Preservation” entries here), so we’re planning to do another round this coming … Continue reading →

Digital Preservation for Everyone!

Posted on October 3, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Digital Preservation | Tagged | Leave a comment

These days, everyone creates digital content, often without thought as to keeping it around for very long. As librarians and information scientists, however, we need to be mindful that some of this information will need to be accessible for awhile … Continue reading →

Small Photo Collections: James Harry Cowan scrapbook

Posted on October 3, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Photographs, Scrapbooks, Small Collections, Sports, UA History | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The James Harry Cowan photograph scrapbook is a unique document, and uniquely presented. Each page contains multiple photographs of student life at UA — especially athletics — about a hundred years ago. In Acumen, when you click on the thumbnail … Continue reading →

Small Photo Collections: Central Iron & Coal

Posted on October 2, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: African-American History, Industrial, Photograph Albums, Small Collections | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Central Iron and Coal Photograph Collection is a unique window on the mining industry in Alabama around the turn of the twentieth century. Composed of 70 images in four photo albums, this collection of images — depicting the construction … Continue reading →

Small Photo Collections: Antebellum Architecture in Tuscaloosa

Posted on October 1, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Photographs, Small Collections | Tagged , | Leave a comment

In the 1920s, student Sydnia Keene Smythe, at work on her master’s thesis, took photographs of several antebellum homes around Tuscaloosa, buildings that most likely don’t exist anymore but whose architecture was luckily captured for posterity. These images make up … Continue reading →

Celebrating our female athletes

Posted on September 25, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: UA History | Tagged | Leave a comment

Last year was a banner year for UA Athletics — especially because of our world-class female athletes! In celebration of our first national championships in softball and women’s golf, as well as back-to-back national titles for gymnastics, we take a … Continue reading →

Featured Collection: Roland Harper Railroad Timetables

Posted on September 20, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Cool Collections | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

You never know what you’ll encounter in a large manuscript collection! Even the seemingly predictable might surprise you. The Hoole Special Collections Library holds a wealth of manuscript material from eminent botanist Roland Harper. Among his papers, you would expect … Continue reading →

The Lost(?) Art of the Telegram

Posted on September 13, 2012 by kgmatheny | Posted in: Cool Collections, Foreign Language | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Our search tool, Acumen, is good for turning up items related to a given person or topic, but it can also be used to uncover particular types of items. While diaries and letters are popular tools for research, there are … Continue reading →