News

4 issues, 3,042 pages, added 6/3/2008

This four volume was published 1892 and is an American edition of Reverend Brewer’s reference work. Brewer wrote, "the object of this Handbook is to supply readers and speakers with a lucid, but very brief account of such names as are used in allusions and references, whether by poets or prose writers ;-to furnish those who consult it with the plot of popular dramas, the story of epic poems, and the outline of well-known tales." This edition includes references to American literature along with much of the material contained in the first edition.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Literature.CobhamSketches

6 issues, 1,695 pages, added 6/3/2008

The collection of Galápagos materials that includes anatomical specimens, images, and papers at the UW-Madison Zoological Museum (UWZM) is unique and rare. These additions include six volumes, including Paddlewings, the penguin of Galápagos, David goes voyaging and the Proceedings of the United States National Museum, volume 16.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Zoology.Galapagos

Summer is in full swing, and arguably nothing says summertime like baseball. While the two UW students featured in this photo from the 1950’s are taking matters into their own hands, numerous images of the UW baseball team, as well as well as all your other favorite sports, can also be found in our University of Wisconsin Collection.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/UW

The title of this book offers good advice for the superstitiously inclined on this Friday the 13th. Furthermore it is only one of many attractive and interesting volumes that comprise our PBO collection. The project also enables students, teachers, binders, and scholars in many different areas the opportunity to study up to 5,000 decorative bindings from two different physical collections in a single, virtual location. In September 2003, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in partnership with The University of Alabama, received an IMLS National Leadership grant to create this digital resource.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/PBO

1 issue, 1,250 pages, added 5/6/2008

Prepared by Samuel R. Warren and published in 1876, this report details the history and state of all types of libraries in the country. A search of Wisconsin returns information about how public, prison and the state historical society libraries were formed. You can also read about everything from reference books to reading rooms.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/History.PublicLibs

3 issues, 766 pages, added 5/6/2008

Being among the first American botanical books, this title is of interest to historians of science. It also lends itself to the study of decorative arts and material culture since the work represents the state of early American book illustration. This work not only provides color illustrations of the specimens to aid in plant identification, but was also one of the first two American botanical books with colored illustrations. Prior books were customarily hand-colored after printing in a secondary process. As a "first" on many levels, this online book should be of value to researchers across multiple disciplines.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/DLDECARTS.BIGELOW

1 volume, 1,065 pages, added 3/17/2008

This single volume, published by the University of Wisconsin Press, represents an unmatched reference guide for those interested in species of fish in Wisconsin as well as fish that have been displaced from the state. With hundreds of photographs and drawings as well as comprehensive statistical data, Fishes of Wisconsin is a valuable tool for researchers, professionals and fishing enthusiasts.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/EcoNatRes.FishesWI

Still not sure what to get your mom this year? This Mother’s Day window display from 1942 shows that regardless of the year, clothes are a pretty good bet! This tableau at the Henderson- Hoyt department store features women’s print dresses typical of the World War II era, dishes, a tablecloth or bedspread, and other items offered as Mother’s Day gifts. The Henderson-Hoyt store was located at 2-10 North Eighth Street in Manitowoc. Find more inspiration, and other great images from Wisconsin’s past, in our State of Wisconsin collection.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI

State officials this week unveiled a new project designed to enliven American history classes here in Wisconsin. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the “Life During Wartime” will partner educators with historians and veterans to enhance curriculum covering the Civil War to the present. The program will also include a web component that puts original historical resources online for teachers to incorporate into their lessons. UW Historians and the Wisconsin Veterans Museum will share their wealth of materials and experiences to help bring history to life. However, participants (and others) who are seeking additional materials need look no further than the UWDC! Our collection currently includes “Wisconsin Goes to War: Our Civil War Experience” – a collection of first person narrative accounts of Wisconsin soldiers and citizens. In addition, the UWDCC is in the process of digitizing World War II era cookbooks which feature recipes that stretch and substitute butter, meat, coffee, and other staples in response to rationing. For more information about our current collection, go to http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/Browse.html and click on “Wisconsin Goes to War: Our Civil War Experience.”

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/Browse.html

As part of their Earth Day coverage, CBS affiliate Channel 3 of Madison produced pieces on Wisconsinites who led the way on Environmental issues, including Aldo Leopold. Leopold is often named as the most important conservation thinker of the 20th Century, and his work has influenced many disciplines, including forestry, wildlife management, sustainable agriculture, and private land management. He is most widely known as the author of A Sand County Almanac, one of the most beloved and respected books about the environment ever published. And as stated in the Channel 3 story, our Aldo Leopold Collection houses the journals and notes he created in preparation for that work, as well as other raw materials that document not only Leopold's rise to prominence but the history of conservation and the emergence of the field of ecology from the early 1900s until his death in 1948. Find out more by clicking on the links to the two different versions of the story below, or by exploring our Aldo Leopold collection.

http://www.channel3000.com/news3multimedia/index.html

www.channel3000.com/goinggreen/15962820/detail.html

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/AldoLeopold/

University Archives Director David Null discussed the project to digitize the University of Wisconsin-Madison Archives' complete collection of materials from Wisconsin conservationist Aldo Leopold with WisconsinEye on April 15, 2008. The collection consists of a collection of early diaries, notebooks and journals with a folio of loose drawings and U.S. Forest Service diaries covering 1899-1933, Leopold's hunting journals spanning 1917-1945, and Leopold's Portage-area "shack" journals covering 1935-1948. Null discussed the Leopold papers and other parts of the University’s online collection. Null was interviewed by WisconsinEye Public Policy Producer Craig Sauer in the station’s Madison Studio. Audio and video of this interview are available for download on the WisconsinEye website.

http://www.wiseye.com/wisEye_programming/ARCHIVES-april08.html

April is National Poetry Month, so get in the mood by exploring the Literature collection in the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. For example, delve into our collection of Parallel Press Chapbooks. The Parallel Press, an imprint of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, publishes print and digital publications featuring new works of scholars, researchers, and poets. The poetry chapbook series was launched in 1999 to revive the publication of small, collectible editions of poetry.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Literature

It may not look like spring outside, but the flowers are always blooming in the UW digital collections! Find other images documenting the beauty of spring and all Wisconsin’s seasons by searching the Ecology and Natural Resources Collection.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/EcoNatRes

1 issue, 505 pages, added 3/5/2008

The Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association Reports denote the moneys received and expended and work done by the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association in order to attract attention to the city's natural beauty and surrounding lakes. The impetus behind the association was that by making Madison's natural surroundings more accessible, visitors would get a better idea of the magnificence of the location, and advantages of Madison as a summer resort or place of permanent residence. The Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association Reports offer a glimpse into a time in local history when pleasure drives were first considered, and thought to be of skeptical benefit to the public.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.ParksDrives

8 issues, 952 pages, added 3/4/2008

The William J. Meuer Photoart Collection is an outstanding visual history of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and its surrounding community. The collection was compiled by renowned local photographer William J. Meuer who with his brother, Roman, opened the Meuer Photoart House on State Street in 1916. Dating from 1888 to 1935, 25 large bound albums contain nearly 27,000 individual prints. The albums contain portraits of faculty and administrators, pictures of lectures and other academic functions of faculty and staff, as well as their social events and town and gown activities are documented. All aspects of UW student life are depicted, including dramatic and musical programs, intercollegiate, intramural and informal sporting events, and social activities.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/UW.MeuerAlbums

All Sewn Up: Millinery, Dressmaking, Clothing and Costume

36 issues, 8,166 pages, added 3/4/2008

This digital collection includes millinery, dressmaking, clothing and costume books from UW-Madison collections. These books from the first half of the 20th century (1907 – 1940’s) include the history of clothing, styles of dress, fashion drawing, and design and construction of hats, clothing and costumes. Items in this collection will appeal to vintage clothing collectors, those studying costume design, fashion, and women’s history, and those who just enjoy reminiscing about days gone by.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/HumanEcol.MillineryBooks

Carson Gulley Cookbook Collection

5 issues, 211 pages, added 3/4/2008

Carson Gulley was head chef of the Housing Division's Food Service for 27 years and gained such legendary status as a chef on the UW-Madison campus that both a building and a pie were named for him. His reputation as culinary master and authority on herbs and spices led to his development of the University's program to train U. S. Navy cooks and bakers for service during World War and while on leave from the UW Madison, he set up a very successful commercial dietetics training course at Tuskegee Institute. Carson Gulley's publications are presented here in the Carson Gulley Cookbook digital collection.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/HumanEcol.CarsonGulley

27 issues, 7,824 pages, added 3/4/2008

The Brecht Yearbook is the annual publication of the International Brecht Society (IBS), devoted to scholarly research on Bertolt Brecht's writings and to broader issues about the relationship between politics and culture. The first three volumes (1971-1973) were published in Germany under the title Brecht heute - Brecht Today (Athenäum Verlag) and volumes 4-10 (1974-1980) under the title Das Brecht-Jahrbuch (Suhrkamp Verlag); all contributions were in German. Thereafter the yearbook moved to the United States and has included since then contributions in German and English. Volumes 11-13 (1982-1986) were published by Wayne State University Press and since then all volumes have appeared under the imprint of the IBS, distributed by the University of Wisconsin Press

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/German.BrechtYearbook

362 images, added 2/5/2008

The UW-La Crosse Historic Steamboat Photograph collection consists of over 40,000 black and white photographic images of steamboats on the inland waterways of the United States, primarily the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers and their tributaries. Over the next several years all of the photos will be made part of this online collection. The photos depict steamboats in every phase of their life span, in every aspect of their daily operations from the 1850s to the present, and in all sorts of settings as they went about their everyday business of hauling freight and passengers and towing barges and rafts. For some steamboats, especially the bigger excursion boats, there may be over a hundred photographs to view; for other boats, there might be only a single photo to document its existence. Besides steamboats, other types of images in the collection include steamboat captains, engineers, pilots, passengers and crews; city and town waterfronts; levees; locks and dams; and river-related activities such as fishing, swimming and clamming.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/LaCrosseSteamboat

2,010 images, added 2/5/2008

The PrimateImages database is a collection of photographs and information about nonhuman primates. These images were contributed by numerous photographers through the Lawrence Jacobsen Library at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin in an effort to preserve the visual record of nonhuman primate species. This site contains photographs of most known primate species as well as related images such as habitat, maps and food sources.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/PCLNatHist

3 issues / 2,330 pages, added 12/18/2007

This short story can be found in the June 1904 issue of The Wisconsin literary magazine. It tells the tale of the head games played by two college students who are preparing to attend a Leap Year dance. 177 volumes of this journal comprise just one part of our Literature Collection. Find these and other works, here:

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Literature/

3 issues / 2,330 pages, added 12/18/2007

This digital collection of historic plat books, city directories, and atlases provides accessibility to early information about South Central Wisconsin, specifically Columbia, Dane, Portage and Wood counties. A variety of the oldest plat books, atlases and city directories were chosen because of their frequent use and delicate condition. Materials recently added to the collection include several city directories. This project was funded by a 2007 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.MadisonLocHist

1 issue / 102 pages, added 1/8/2008

In The Beauties of Flora (1834), Eliza Eve Gleadall combines poetry, prose and illustration to convey the sentimental as well as scientific and aesthetic aspects of flowers. The author was an instructor of young ladies at a Yorkshire school offering tutelage in English grammar, history, reading, "fashionable works," French, Italian, music, drawing, dancing, writing, geography, and astronomy. The book is intended as a "chaste recreation" for such suitably educated youth. The 1834 volume contains 20 lithographed plates and was privately published by the author at Heath Hall near Wakefield. A second volume, not available in our collection, followed in 1836. The digital facsimile provided here was made from the 1834 volume held at the UW-Madison, Memorial Library Special Collections, at Thordarson T 1722.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/DLDecArts.BeautFlora

Integrate primary sources into your curriculum with the click of a button. We now have additional lesson plans available on our website. Topics include a historical look at agriculture and sociology in the United States, Wisconsin’s connection to the Galapagos Islands, and an exploration of primary sources related to the Irish Famine. Using primary sources enables users to make their own interpretations of historical events and build critical thinking skills. In addition, use of these vetted materials can help students develop the tools needed to assess web content for quality and dependability – an essential skill as more and more school work is done online.

http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/Collections.shtml

UW’s first ever day of class occurred 159 years ago today, and since 1924 the anniversary has been observed as Founders’ Day. The image above shows Bascom Hall as it stood in 1859, just ten years after that first day. The building was called Main Hall at the time of the photo, and it still has its original rounded portico and dome. Don’t wait until the next Founders’ Day to celebrate UW’s rich history. Find out more by exploring our University of Wisconsin Collection.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/UW/

Featured in the Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians (WAAL) Newsletter Volume 25, No. 1, Winter 2008

The La Crosse Public Library is pleased to announce receipt of an LSTA grant for 2008 to digitize maps and atlases of La Crosse County and the Upper Mississippi River. The grant will give access to material physically belonging to the La Crosse Public Library, UW-La Crosse Murphy Library, and the Wisconsin Historical Society. The award in the amount of $5506 will allow the digitization by UWDCC of over 100 maps both in published and manuscript form.

This group of materials includes maps and atlases of La Crosse County of a variety of types, including plat (ownership), highway, soil, topographic, city of La Crosse including zoning, parks, and street, other La Crosse County municipalities, and selected pre- and post-lock and dam charts and maps of the Upper Mississippi River. The date range of the maps is approximately 1854-1987 and will demonstrate the rich history of the area from the days of logging to the post-lock and dam system on the Mississippi River.

This proposal forges new boundaries by considerably increasing the amount of La Crosse resources available on the Internet. It focuses on materials that are oversized and thus difficult and expensive to host locally with the existing talents and equipment available and probably would not be digitized otherwise. By grouping these materials together intellectually in a database regardless of holding library, and sharing the best of these collections with users, everyone will benefit. Users of all types will therefore be more likely to capture a solid, representative body of material that can be found in one central location on the Web that is currently not digitized.

La Crosse Public Library and Murphy Library have a long standing cooperative relationship in regard to the digitization of local history content. Winner of the 2005 WLA/Highsmith Award, their La Crosse History Unbound web site has helped many local history students, researchers and genealogists.

Anita Taylor Doering, La Crosse Public Library, is the project manager; Bill Doering, Murphy Library, is the metadata guru; and UW-Milwaukee MLIS student Daniel Nelson will be helping with the metadata. Vicki Tobias will be the UWDCC coordinator on this project.

http://www.wla.lib.wi.us/waal/newsletter/251.html#maps

247 images, added 12/18/2007

One of the country's largest concentrations of Walloon-speaking Belgians is found in northeastern Wisconsin, resulting in a unique cultural and social flavor. A pilot project was undertaken in 1975-1976 to establish a Belgian-American Ethnic Resource Collection in the Special Collections Department of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Cofrin Library. The objective was to record the undocumented historical, social, and cultural legacy of this unique ethnic group. Images of the farms as well as oral history interviews had previously been digitized by the UWDCC. New materials include nine in-depth architectural surveys maps, which were drawn to scale showing the location (both past and present) of structures, gardens, orchards fences, fields, driveways, etc, and include materials such as draft maps and deeds, as well as a large collection of log structure images.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.BelgAmrCol

As the temperature dips into negative numbers, it’s the perfect time to stay home and read a book. And wouldn’t it be even better if the book could come to you? Bookmobiles can do just that, such as the one picture here. This wintry scene shows teacher and students in front of the Marathon County Bookmobile. Find more images of bookmobiles (not to mention thousands of other things) in the State of Wisconsin Collection.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/

1 issue / 384 pages, added 1/8/2008

Lionel Walter Rothschild (1868-1937), second Baron Rothschild, was a British zoologist and lifelong collector of insects, birds, and mammals. He founded the Rothschild Natural History Museum in London; and his collection of bird specimens was sold in 1932 to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. After reading a paper on extinct and vanishing birds before the 1905 IVth International Ornithological Congress, Rothschild was persuaded to compile a more comprehensively illustrated volume on the topic. The result, Extinct birds. An attempt to unite in one volume a short account of those birds which have become extinct in historical times..., was published in 1907 in a limited edition of 300 copies. The digital facsimile provided here was made from copy No. 23, held at the UW-Madison, Memorial Library Special Collections, at Thordarson T 1496. Among the volume's 49 plates are a number of theoretical illustrations reconstructing the possible appearance of birds known only from verbal accounts a nd skeletal remains.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/DLDecArts.RothsExtinct

266 Images, added 1/8/2008.

Following Argentina's economic collapse in late 2001, the Eloisa Cartonera company arose from the ruins in Almagro, a lower middle-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. In a broken-down shop on Guardia Street, young writers and artists have established an art gallery and bookshop that serves as the public face of Eloisa Cartonera, a publishing house that makes original books from recycled cardboard and cheap prints and sells them for less than 5 pesos ($1.60) each, about a third the price of a conventional paperback. The book covers are printed with rough stencils and poster paints. UW-Madison, Memorial Library Special Collections houses the collection.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/Arts.EloisaCart

Apparently, January is National Hot Tea Month, and these students at UW- Marathon County are ready for it! This image is from 1964, but find other images documenting Wisconsin’s rich past throughout the years by searching the state of Wisconsin Collection at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/ and clicking on the “Search the Collection” link.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/

As we welcome in 2008, a new year’s message from another time helps to illustrate the struggles that were facing the world more than 50 years ago. This address, from U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John J. McCloy, was broadcast in German (though transcribed here in English) over RIAS, the American-sponsored ration station in West Berlin on New Year’s Eve 1951. The Federal Republic of Germany was experiencing a period of economic growth, and hopes still were high for an expeditious unification of Germany. This is just an example of what can be found in the History Collection. The items assembled here were selected by librarians, scholars, and other subject specialists along a wide range of criteria. They include a variety of formats such as books, manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs, maps, and, more.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/History.omg1952Jan

Friends and family enjoy a snowball fight at Henry Wilhelmy farm in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Those pictured include Lucy Lyon, Linda Drumm, Pondo the dog, Augusta Wilhelmy, Bessie Drumm, and John Skrypzinski. Find other fun, distinctive, and compelling images from Wisconsin’s past by searching the state of Wisconsin Collection at http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/ and clicking on the “Search the Collection” link.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/WI/

This article casts an interesting, if not rosy light on the holiday season around the turn of the 20th century, and draws attention to the difference between the past as it is remembered and the past as it truly was. Nearly 100 years ago observers were already lamenting the over-commercialization of Christmas. Even the practice of “Re-gifting” was already in play, and the author warns ” the friends who will become the possessors of the usually useless gifts will carefully wrap them up and place them in a corner of their closets, there to remain until passed on to some far off relative who will be ‘delighted with anything.’” Instead, the author urges, give simple gifts from the heart – advice that seems just as relevant today as it was then.

http://http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.ProgAmerOct11

This excerpt from the book My Life by Golda Meir chronicles the years she spent in Milwaukee as a child. In 1906, eight-year-old Golda, along with her mother and two sisters, emigrated from Russia to the United States. They joined Golda's father who had come to Milwaukee in 1903 in search of work. Described here is the culture-shock and wonder experienced by Golda and her family as they opened a store, attended school, and otherwise established a new life in the bustling city on Lake Michigan. In 1921 Golda moved to Tel Aviv and eventually helped establish the state of Israel. She held a number of offices in the government and then served as prime minister from 1969 until her retirement in 1974. The excerpt includes the first known photograph of Golda Meir, ca. 1904, as well as a photo of her with President Richard Nixon at the White House in 1969.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.WAR00430001

This work tells the story of life in twentieth-century South Madison through the voices of those who lived there. For example, the culture shock experienced by Geraldine B. Bernard when she moved to Madison from New Orleans in 1967, or the experiences of Ines Flores-Grossen, who came from El Salvador in 1980 to attend school. The 20 interviews that comprise the book were conducted in community centers, houses, churches, and apartments over a two-year period beginning in 1998. The book also features images from Giffey’s Decades Mural Project. Located in the Boys and Girls Club of Dane County, the piece includes four murals. Each one depicts a different decade of history beginning with 1950. The murals depict local, national, and international events and personalities related to African-American history.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.MPLPeopleStory

Beowulf is the oldest narrative poem in the English language. The story represents historical traditions dating back to fifth-and-sixth-century Scandinavia, and the written text first emerged in the form of a single manuscript around the year 1000. In this tale the titular hero kills the monster Grendel, who has been ravaging the Danes, as well as the monster’s mother who seeks revenge for her son’s death. Beowulf becomes king and is killed in his old age while slaying a dragon that was attacking his people. While the saga has been translated into English many times, this version is noteworthy in that it is intended for oral delivery, or to be read aloud. In addition this work includes an audio stream in which the translator provides a reading of his version of the poem. It can be listened to from start to finish, or it can be accessed at the beginning of any of the forty-three sections into which it is divided. Translator and reader Dick Ringler is professor emeritus of English and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery

"Young Joe McCarthy: the Folks Back Home Remember" by Michael O'Brien.
Wisconsin Academy review Volume 27, Number 2
This seven page article recounts the early years Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy though the anecdotes of those who knew him. McCarthy was born to an Irish Catholic family in Grand Chute, a farm community north of Appleton, Wisconsin on November 14 1908, the fifth of seven children. Friends and teachers describe a hard working daredevil, while other acquaintances depict a man who was at turns generous and deceitful. The article traces McCarthy’s past from chicken farmer to Marine and circuit judge to his 1946 election to the U.S. Senate. McCarthy went on to garner national attention in 1950 when he charged the Truman Administration with harboring 205 communists in the U.S. State Department. The article includes several black and white photographs of McCarthy.

http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/WI.v27i2

See the all archived news and updates in the UWDC News Archive

See the all archived news and updates in the UWDC News Archive