Author Archives: kgmatheny

African-American Soldier Portraits

Right now, in the Pearce Foyer of Gorgas Library (2nd floor, Quad side), you’ll find a pretty cool exhibit: Highlighting the collections of Rev. Wylheme Ragland of Decatur, Alabama,  A North Alabama Clergyman’s Passion for History: Preserving Black History through Words and … Continue reading

Come transcribe our items!

Recently, we talked about adding your own metadata to photos through our new Acumen tagging pane. Today, the focus is on something a bit more involved but maybe even more important: transcribing handwritten documents. Why transcribe? Did you know that many … Continue reading

Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) 2013-2014

Did you know the Acumen is the home for all dissertations and theses produced at the University of Alabama since 2009? Here’s a survey of some of the interesting questions UA students asked with their research in 2013 and 2014, representing 18 different degree programs! Media … Continue reading

Come tag our photos!

We’re proud to announce that Acumen now has integrated tagging functionality. But what the heck does that mean? Let’s say you’re looking at an item in Acumen and you think: How in the world would someone interested in X find this item … Continue reading

Fins and Flippers, magazine from a local WWII pilot training program

On this day in 1941 — four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii — the U.S. officially went to war with Germany and Italy. It had already declared war on Japan. On this day in 1941, a group … Continue reading

Hidden Gem: Pictorial History of Fort Marion

Lately, we’ve been combing through Google Analytics data for our collections, and one thing it’s done is alert us to some popular items we didn’t know about, in part because they were not in particularly well-used collections. The Durst Family Papers is … Continue reading

Goodbye, Corolla, Goodbye: 1980s-1990s

In the last of our series of posts saying farewell to the UA campus yearbook, the Corolla, we look at two books you can’t find online. (Various pages were photographed just for this post.) Both of them — and all the … Continue reading

Goodbye, Corolla, Goodbye: 1950s-1960s

Continuing our look at Corollas of the past, these two volumes from the 1950s and 1960s are both in Acumen, and they document a rapidly changing student body and new student attitudes. 1959 With the Space Race now underway, the … Continue reading

Goodbye, Corolla, Goodbye: 1920s-1930s

The next in our series bidding farewell to the UA yearbook, Corolla, today’s post looks at volumes from the 1920s and 1930s. Though both of these volumes are presented in digital form here, only one of them is in the digital … Continue reading

Goodbye, Corolla, Goodbye: 1890s-1900s

Last week, the Crimson White broke the news to campus that a longstanding publication, the school’s yearbook, is being discontinued. The decision makes sense, financially, but with the loss of the Corolla, we will cease to have an amazing ongoing record … Continue reading