Projects
Casement Collection
The “Casement collection” is housed in the Kansas Collection and consists of approximately 12 letters and documents and 100 photographs created during the construction of the Costa Rican Pacific Railroad between 1897 and 1903. This historic collection represents a link to our sister institution, the University of Costa Rica, which has expressed interest in these images. Item level records from the Casement Finding Aid have been converted to an Access database. Images have been created of 51 original photographs, 31 pages of multi-paged letters and 2 photography scrapbooks. The Scrapbook images will be displayed separately as digital books and will be accessed from the LUNA metadata record.
Contact: Sarah Goodwin Thiel, sgthiel@ku.edu
Central American Theses and Dissertations
The University of Kansas has long historical connections with Central
America and the many Central Americans who have earned graduate degrees
at KU.
Professor Emeritus Charles Stansifer of the History department and the
staff of the Scholarly Communications program at the KU Libraries'
Center for Digital Scholarship worked together to obtain permission from
these former students to digitize their theses and dissertations so
that they could be made freely available through KU's institutional
repository, KU ScholarWorks.
This Central American Theses and Dissertations collection is the culmination of those efforts.
See the collection at http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/7107.
Contact: Marianne Reed, mreed@ku.edu
Digitizing Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
KU Libraries received a grant from the National Historic Publications and Records Commission to digitize the Kansas Sanborn Maps and to make these maps openly available to anyone through the internet. The Sanborn Maps project was proposed by Scott McEathron and Sherry Williams. This extensive cartographic set of large-scale fire insurance maps was produced by the Sanborn Map Company, depicting the commercial, industrial and residential sections of 241 Kansas towns and cities (5,138 sheets). These maps have importance as the only full set of originals available in Kansas. The vast amount of information contained in these maps make them critical to researchers interested in history, sociology, urban planning, architecture, and geography. With a grant received from the NHPRC, the maps will be made openly available to anyone with internet access. This project was done in partnership within KU Libraries with Kenneth Spencer Research Library. http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/kuluna01kui~12~12
Contact: Wade Garrison, wadeg@ku.edu
From the Ground Up
From the Ground Up is an on-going collaboration between artists living in Lawrence, and scientists and teachers from the University of Kansas and the Kansas Geological Survey. The project seeks to capture the imagination of students of all ages who are interested in the landscape around them and exploring the connections between human history, art, geography, biology, and other disciplines. The collection is organized by content modules, each containing an archive of artworks which serve as a basis for, or a response to, work in other disciplines. What each of the artworks have in common is that they are specific to a particular place. Each has been mapped to a particular GPS coordinate which allows users to locate them on a map. http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/kuluna01kui~10~10
Contact: Sarah Goodwin Thiel, sgthiel@ku.edu
Greetings from the Teklimakan
Greetings from the Teklimakan a handbook of modern Uyghur An introductory textbook of the modern standard Uyghur language with exercises and extensive grammatical analysis. With the accompanying audio, the textbook is designed for self-study or a one-year classroom course. Two of the three co-authors are KU faculty members. The book has received over 1,000 downloads since it was published in KU ScholarWorks in December 2009.
Contact: Brian Rosenblum, brianlee@ku.edu
Historical Aerial Photographs of Douglas County
Contact: Rhonda Houser, rhouser@ku.edu
James Naismith's Life and Legacy: Celebrating 150 Years
The University of Kansas Libraries' exhibition, “James Naismith’s Life and Legacy: Celebrating 150 Years” celebrates the 150th birthday of basketball’s inventor. This collection of historic materials includes photographs, a scrapbook, university records and pamphlets from McGill University, Springfield College and the University of Kansas Archives. http://www.lib.ku.edu/naismith150
Contact: Sarah Goodwin Thiel, sgthiel@ku.edu
Joint Operations Graphics (JOG) Maps
With collaborators across campus (Geography Department, KS Applied Remote Sensing Program) and around the world (German partner) we have scanned and georectified this collection of highly-detailed images of places all over the world. These maps, created by the Department of Defense, often provide more detail than freely available GIS data or other sheet maps for those needing base maps of particular areas. This work began in Spring 2005 and we are currently embarking on an inventory and improving file organization. We then hope to identify a feasible method for making these unique sources of geographic information available to our users.
Contact: Scott McEathron, macmap68@ku.edu
Kansas City Aerial Photographs
Aerial photographs of Kansas City, taken in 2002 by Alex S. MacLean. The project was sponsored by the Kansas City Design Center. The Luna Insight images are hosted by the University of Kansas. http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/kuvc1kcap~1~1
Contact: Sarah Goodwin Thiel, sgthiel@ku.edu
Open Access Week
Open Access: Set the Default to Openness
Every year in October, KU Libraries hosts a week of events for KU faculty,
graduate students, and others who want to learn how open access affects them as
authors and scholars. See the 2012 KU Open Access Week
site for this year's activities: http://www.lib.ku.edu/openaccess/OAweek2012.shtml.
Presentations, handouts, audio and video highlights from the 2011 Open Access Week are available in KU's institutional repository, KU ScholarWorks. See the entire collection at http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/8330.
Highlights from the 2010 Open Access Week events are also available in KU ScholarWorks. See the entire collection at http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/6824.
Contact: Marianne Reed, mreed@ku.edu
Over the Rainbow: The John Tibbetts Archive of Conversations in the Arts and Humanities (1980 - Present)
Over the past 30 years, John C. Tibbetts, Associate Professor in the Department Film and Media Studies, has interviewed many hundreds of artists, scholars, and entertainers. The initial phase of this project will consist of his collection of over 200 video conversations with actors, actresses, and filmmakers such as, Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Jim Carrey, George Clooney, Mel Gibson, Terry Gilliam, Dustin Hoffman, Steven Spielberg, and Meryl Streep. His recorded conversations will be archived and made available through KU ScholarWorks.
Contact: Wade Garrison, wadeg@ku.edu
Pennell Photography Collection
Acquired in the 1950s, the Pennell Collection is housed in the Kansas Collection and consists of some 30,000 glass negatives documenting the life work of professional photographer Joseph Pennell. Over 6000 photos were microfilmed in the 1980s. Digitization will take place from the printed photographs. 6014 photographs from the Pennell Collection have been selected for digitization. For more information about this collection, see http://www.celebratingresearch.org/libraries/kansas/pennell~print.shtml.
Contact: Sarah Goodwin Thiel, sgthiel@ku.edu
Pre-1923 Dissertations and Theses
The Pre-1923 KU Dissertations and Theses collection is the
result of the ongoing digitization by the KU Libraries' Center for Digital
Scholarship (cds.lib.ku.edu) of the Libraries' collection of theses and
dissertations written by KU students before 1923. Many of these works are
handwritten and contain exquisite hand-drawn illustrations and maps. When
complete, the collection will contain over 700 items.
See this unique collection at http://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/dspace/handle/1808/7158.
Contact: Marianne Reed, mreed@ku.edu
University Archives Digital Images Collection - Student Activities
The KU University Archives Student Activities Collection is a growing collection of over 1500 photographs and negatives representing the evolution and change through the decades of young adult lifestyes at KU. Reproductions of University Archives photos are requested regularly by undergraduates and graduate students, faculty and staff and various outside researchers. Materials from the Student Activities Collection are selected and metadata records are created by University Archives staff and later transferred to the Center for Digital Scholarship where they are imaged and loaded into the LUNA image management system.
Browse Student Activities.
Contact: Sarah Goodwin Thiel, sgthiel@ku.edu
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