“Doodle Dandy of the U.S.A.” promotional brochure, 1920s

Vincent Paints July 4th Fireworks Over Manhattan by Greg Constantine, 1982

“Don’t burn your fingers…” postcard, 1908

“Six Miniatures: Fireworks” performed by Catherine Rowe, 1973 

“Barack Obama: 4th of July card game,” 2007

In salute to Shawn, here are some artifacts from Traveling Culture, another collection she’s worked on. If it weren’t for the economy, we would have liked to hire an actual chorus of dancing men to see her off.

The 250,000th item represents an upcoming collection of 18th-century sheet music by French composer and publisher Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831). Most of these scores were published within his lifetime and a handful were issued by Pleyel’s own publishing house.

Printed around 1790, Pleyel arranged this collection of songs for voice and keyboard. These melodies originally appeared in some of his many string quartets.

12 elegant ballads

before

Welcome to the Iowa Digital Library home page version 2.0! We hope you enjoy the newly redesigned site as much as we do. The old page dated all the way back to 2006, making it 21 in dog years, and virtually ancient in digital library years. Designed in response to our rapid growth since then, the new site features improved scalability and browsability, allowing quicker and easier access to our ever-increasing number of digitized artifacts.

Special thanks to digital library graduate fellow Angela Murillo for spending much of last semester contributing to the project, and also to our colleagues in the Applications & Web Services department for assisting with design and functionality, to our colleagues at other institutions whose work inspired us, and to the users who provided us with valuable feedback. Please keep the comments and suggestions coming by filling out our user survey or e-mailing us at lib-digital@uiowa.edu.

after!

–Nicole Saylor, Head
Digital Library Services

It kind of makes us appreciate the cold.

–Jen Wolfe, Metadata Librarian
Digital Library Services

The switch to digital telecasts is on, and to mark the occasion the Iowa Digital Library has released the W9XK Experimental Television at Iowa collection celebrating the birth of American prime-time TV more than 75 years ago.

This “birth” didn’t happen in a laboratory at AT&T, General Electric or RCA, however. Instead, regularly scheduled TV programs were launched on The University of Iowa campus, in a building at the corner of Iowa Avenue and Dubuque Street in Iowa City.

W9XK, as the experimental TV station was then known, went on the air in 1933. For six years the station presented a two-nights-per-week schedule of “sight and sound” lectures, musical performances, and drama…

Read the full press release here.

While the kitsch award in our new collection of digitized Lincolniana probably goes to a photograph of a horse with markings resembling the president’s profile, the 1959 promotional comic book “All aboard, Mr. Lincoln!” published by the Association of American Railroads comes in a close second. Stilted dialogue aside, the comic’s premise is valid — railroad expansion to the Western U.S. remains one of Lincoln’s most important legacies. This connection is explored in our Abraham Lincoln umbrella site, providing integrated access to artifacts from three digital collections about the president and his era: the James W. Bollinger collection of Lincoln memorabilia; Civil War Diaries and Letters, featuring first-hand, contemporary accounts written by Iowans; and the Levi O. Leonard Railroadiana collection, documenting railroad history in the U.S.

The Libraries staff has been all aboard this project to an unprecedented degree. In order to participate in the celebration of Lincoln’s Bicentennial, DLS has been working on the digital collection for the past year, coordinating with staff from Special Collections, Preservation, and Central Technical Services to select, reformat and provide access to the 1000-plus items in the collection. Not least of all, the Web Services team created the beautifully designed collection home page that will be used as a template to bring a more consistent look to the Iowa Digital Library.

Read more about the Abraham Lincoln Digital Collection in our press release.

–Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian, Digital Library Services

Thank you to all of the Libraries staff who have helped us make so much progress in 2008, and to everyone reading this blog for giving us a reason to do so.

Happy New Year!

–DLS staff

“A fresh start,” Jan. 1, 1941
Editorial Cartoons of Ding Darling Digital Collection

 “…Spent New Years Day in camp. Weather very cold. Ice sufficiently strong to bear a man’s weight. We have good reason to believe that the present year will wind up the Rebellion.”
George M. Shearer diary, 1864
Civil War Diaries Digital Collection

“The New Year of 1968 offers NAACP Branches another chance to tie national items into programs on the local and state levels which will deal with the problems faced by the people. The civil rights movement is by no means over…”
NAACP newsletters, Fort Madison Branch, Fort Madison, Iowa, 1968
African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection

Barack Obama: New Year’s Day in Des Moines
Presidential Campaign Videos Digital Collection

“To the best of Len’s recollection, he met Charis on New Year’s morning…”
Fruit of the Month, 1988
University of Iowa Press Digital Collection

“A happy new year,” 1912
Noble Photographs Digital Collection

Iowa native Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965) was a geneticist, author, economist, businessman, U.S. vice president, and third-party presidential candidate. A wartime V.P. under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Wallace had more involvement in administrative and foreign policy than any of his predecessors; according to the Senate Historical Office, he was a forerunner of the modern vice president, who now fill a role as the president’s executive assistant and international representative.

Wallace’s socially liberal ideals — he advocated universal government health care, an end to segregation, and cooperation with the Soviet Union — sometimes branded him as a crackpot, as shown in this editorial cartoon from our Ding Darling digital collection. But to the million citizens who voted for him during his unsuccessful 1948 bid for president as the Progressive Party’s candidate, this visionary politician was the best choice to lead the way in post-war America.

By putting Wallace’s correspondence and related papers online and full-text searchable, DLS is pleased to increase access to primary source material on this important and controversial figure.

–Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian, Digital Library Services