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UW Digital Collections Center, UW-La Crosse to digitize 50,000 river images
By Sara JohansenLibrary Communications
MADISON, Wis. — More than 50,000 steamboat and river-related images will be digitized and made accessible worldwide in a joint project through the University of
Wisconsin Digital Collections Center and the UW-La Crosse Murphy Library.
Housed in the Special Collections of Murphy Library, the collection of black and white steamboat photographs is recognized as one of the world’s premier compilations of steamboat images. Subjects include individual steamboats from the 1850s to the present; images of steamboat captains, engineers, passengers and crews; city and town waterfronts; locks and dams; as well as river-related activities such as fishing, swimming and clamming.
The expansive collection is the result of more than 35 years of collecting by Murphy Library. The collection was built with a vision to provide a central depository for steamboat imagery and to illustrate the role of the Mississippi River in the economic development of the Upper Midwest.
A portion of the steamboat photograph collection has been digitized for the Great Lakes Maritime History Project, which led to the UW-La Crosse application to digitize the entire collection. Most of the collection is expected to be online in approximately four years.
Since its founding in 2000, the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center has worked collaboratively with UW System faculty, staff and librarians to create and provide access to digital resources that support the teaching and research needs of the UW community, uniquely document the university and state of Wisconsin, and provide access to items of broad research value.
The UWDCC is a UW System-wide consortium guided by the Wisconsin Idea, the principle that the university should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the individual campuses. The center is managed by staff in the UW-Madison Libraries.
CONTACTS:
UW-LaCrosse
Paul Beck
Murphy Library, UW-La Crosse
608-785-8511
beck.paul@uwlax.edu
Top Photo: Black and white photo postcard of bow side view of the Minnesota, a sidewheel packet constructed in 1907, docked at a grassy Mississippi River landing. |
UW-Madison
Vicki L. Tobias
University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center
608-265-6381
vtobias@library.wisc.edu
