April 10, 1997
Contact: Guy Lamolinara, Library of Congress (202) 707-9217
Rick Aspan, Ameritech (312) 364-3570
American History Collections From Across the U.S. To Go On-Line Through Library of Congress/Ameritech Awards
10 Institutions Are First to Add Historical Collections
to National Digital Library Program
Ten libraries from across the United States today have
been given awards totaling $600,000 through a partnership
between the Library of Congress and Ameritech to digitize
historically significant American collections and make them
available for the first time via the Internet.
As a result, some of America's treasured past from
regions throughout the country -- such as 19th century
sheet music, photographs documenting the settlement of the
Great Plains and first-person narratives of Southern life in
the 1800s -- soon will come alive to millions via the
Internet.
The Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital
Library Competition, a three-year program made possible by a
$2 million gift from the Ameritech Foundation, enables U.S.
libraries, archives, museums and historical societies to
digitize their collections of American historical materials
for inclusion in American Memory, the Library of Congress's
on-line collection of primary source materials in U.S.
history and culture, available at http://www.loc.gov/.
The Ameritech program is the first effort to make unique
collections from libraries across the United States
available on-line via the Library of Congress to millions of
children, students, educators and lifelong learners.
"We are delighted to be able to offer our support to
these exemplary projects," said James H. Billington, the
Librarian of Congress. "Integrating these collections into
our National Digital Library Program will not only enhance
the depth and breadth of available materials, but also make
it truly national in scope by providing access to
collections in geographically dispersed institutions from
our American Memory site, which already includes more than
400,000 items."
"This is wonderful news for anyone interested in our
nation's great heritage and rich history," said Lana Porter,
President of Ameritech Library Services. "Ameritech is
proud that its efforts will help digitally preserve
thousands of American items from across the United States
and bring them into libraries, homes and schools everywhere
for millions to enjoy and cherish. This first-time endeavor
truly boosts the national nature of the digital library
effort."
The 10 first-year winners are:
- Brown University, Providence, R.I., for African
American Sheet Music. Award amount: $72,193. This
collection consists of 1,500 pieces of African American
sheet music from 1870 to 1920, providing a window into the
daily concerns and pastimes of African Americans in the 19th
and early 20th centuries.
- Denver Public Library, Denver, for History of the
American West, 1860-1920. Award amount: $71,250. This
collection includes 7,500 photos documenting the lives of
the Plains, Mountain and Southwestern tribes of Native
Americans and the mining booms in Colorado, plus access to
48,000 previously digitized images in the Denver Western
history collection.
- Duke University, Durham, N.C., for Historic
American Sheet Music. Award amount: $64,688. This
collection consists of 3,000 pieces of historic American
sheet music from the period 1850-1920, representing a wide
variety of musical types, including bel canto; minstrel
songs; protest, political and patriotic songs; plantation
songs; spirituals; songs from vaudeville, musicals and Tin
Pan Alley; World War I compositions; and Civil War battle
songs.
- Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., for
American Landscape and Architectural Design, 1850-1920.
Award amount: $33,214. This collection consists of 2,500
lantern slide images assembled to support teaching and
student presentations in the field of architecture,
landscape architecture and urban planning.
- New York Public Library, New York City, for Small
Town America: Stereoscopic Views from the Dennis
Collection, 1850-1910. Award amount: $74,956. This
collection includes 11,552 stereoscopic views representing
the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
- North Dakota State University, Fargo, for The
Northern Great Plains, 1880-1920. Award amount: $15,628.
These collections include more than 900 images documenting
the settlement and agricultural development of the Northern
Great Plains.
- Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, for The
African American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920. Award
amount: $72,844. This digital collection of 22,000 pages of
text and images focuses on themes such as slavery and
emancipation, religion, public opinion and political
actions.
- University of Chicago, Chicago, for American
Environmental Photographs, 1897-1931. Award amount:
$67,418. This collection of 5,800 photographic images
documents natural environments, ecologies and plant
communities in their original state throughout the United
States.
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, for
First-Person Narratives of the American South, 1860-1920.
Award amount: $74,782. This compilation of 100 printed
texts documents the culture of the 19th century American
South from the viewpoint of Southerners and includes
diaries, autobiographies, memoirs, travel accounts and ex-
slave narratives.
- University of Texas, Austin, for The South Texas
Border, 1900-1920. Award amount: $46,945. This collection
consists of 8,241 photographs of northeastern Mexico and the
South Texas border area, including images of the diverse
ethnic groups living in the area, military preparation for
the Mexican Revolution and World War I, and the natural and
built environment.
The approximately $600,000 in total awards to the 10
winners will be used toward the cost of digitizing specific
collections of Americana at the institutions and making them
available at the Library of Congress's site on the World
Wide Web.
Nearly 80 award applications from 31 states were
received for the first-year's competition, which were
reviewed by three independent panels of distinguished
scholars, educators, archivists, librarians, administrators
and technical specialists.
In formulating the competition guidelines and the
evaluation process, the Library turned to the National
Endowment for the Humanities for expert guidance.
Led by George Farr, Director of the Division of
Preservation and Access of the National Endowment for the
Humanities, and Deanna Marcum, President of the Council on
Library Resources and the Commission on Preservation and
Access, three successive panels evaluated applications for
historical significance, technical viability and the
relevance of collections to current and planned American
Memory collections.
"Together the projects provide a wide array of
compelling new images of people, places and events from the
Texas border and the agricultural heartland to the towns and
cities of the Eastern Seaboard," Mr. Farr said.
"A marvelous variety of collections was proposed for
digitization; we were delighted by the diversity in topics
and approaches," Ms. Marcum said.
Additional information on the Library of
Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library Competition,
including summaries of the projects of the first award
recipients, is available at:
The goal of the National Digital Library Program is to
make freely available over the Internet millions of items by
the year 2000, in collaboration with other institutions.
Ameritech's contribution will help the Library meet that
goal by providing funds to libraries and other institutions
to aid them in the critical, yet expensive, task of making
their unique American collections widely available to anyone
with access to the World Wide Web.
The Library of Congress is the world's largest library,
with more than 111 million items, including the papers of 23
U.S. presidents. Its collections are in nearly every
language and format -- from Chinese woodblock prints to
compact disks. Founded in 1800 to serve the reference needs
of Congress, the Library has grown into an unparalleled
treasure house of knowledge and creativity.
Ameritech (NYSE: AIT) serves millions of customers in
50 states and 40 countries. Ameritech provides a full range
of communications services, including local and long
distance telephone, cellular, paging, security monitoring,
cable TV, electronic commerce, on-line services and more.
One of the world's 100 largest companies, Ameritech
(www.ameritech.com) has 66,000 employees, 1 million share
owners and $24 billion in assets.
NOTE: Following are media contacts at each of the libraries
that have received awards:
- Brown University: Mark Nickel (401) 863-2476
- Denver Public Library: Anya Breitenbach (303) 640-6368
- Duke University: Noah Bartolucci (919) 681-8065
- Harvard University: Hinda Sklar (617) 495-4010
- New York Public Library: Rebecca Churchill
or Liz Smith (212) 221-7676
- North Dakota State University: David Wahlberg
(701) 231-8325
- Ohio Historical Society: Ann Frazier or Maggie Sanese
(614) 297-2310
- University of Chicago: Catherine Behan (773) 702-8359
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:
Laura Toler (919) 962-2091
- University of Texas, Austin: Carol Cable
(512) 495-4382
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PR 97-64
4/10/97
ISSN 0731-3527