Digitization of yearbooks under way at McCain Library
McCain Library Director John Kennerly has announced that Erskine College has recently digitized and made available on the Internet Archive a number of early volumes of yearbooks related to the College.
The announcement comes at a time of heightened interest in Erskine’s history, as the institution begins the buildup to its 175th anniversary festivities, set for next fall.
McCain Library’s Department of Archives and Special Collections started the Erskine Digital Collections in 2011, intending to start small and grow, Kennerly said.
“We knew from day one that we eventually wanted to begin digitizing Erskine’s yearbooks to make them more widely accessible to alumni and others who would be interested,” he said.
“The fact that we were able to launch the first digitized Erskine yearbooks in time for Erskine’s upcoming 175th anniversary celebration makes it an even more meaningful project.”
Yearbooks digitized thus far include The Naughty-Six Calyx (1906), the first yearbook published at Erskine College and devoted entirely to the Class of 1906 (only one volume was published); The Erskiniana (1909-16), a yearbook for Erskine College published from 1909-28; the complete set of yearbooks for the Woman’s College of Due West, called The Arrow (1920-28), which continued in 1929 as part of The Erskine Arrow when the Woman’s College was joined with Erskine College; and a complete set of the Bryson College yearbook, The Bridge, published 1922-29 and ceasing publication when Bryson, located in Fayetteville, Tenn., closed and merged with Erskine College.
McCain Library is planning to continue digitizing and making available additional volumes of The Erskiniana (1917-28) and its successors—The Erskine Arrow (1929-46) and The Arrow (1947-present).
To view the collections, visit http://archive.org/details/erskinecollege.
All the digitized yearbooks will eventually be made available through the South Carolina Digital Library (http://scmemory.org), which already hosts other items in the Erskine Digital Collections (http://scmemory.org/institution/erskine-college).
Kennerly noted that the digitization project was made possible through the combined efforts of LYRASIS, PASCAL and its member libraries, and the University of South Carolina’s Digital Collections. “The LYRASIS Digitization Collaborative, a Sloan Foundation grant-subsidized program, has made digitization easy and affordable for libraries and cultural institutions across the country,” he said.
“Erskine’s McCain Library and USC’s Digital Collections are very pleased to have helped coordinate this collaborative partnership with the Internet Archive,” Kennerly said.
“All items were scanned from cover to cover and in full color,” he added. “You can choose from a variety of formats, page through a book choosing the ‘read online’ option, download the PDF, or search the full-text version. The yearbooks are hosted on the Internet Archive.”
Kennerly welcomes questions about the digitization project and can be reached at 864-379-8898 or library@erskine.edu.
About LYRASIS: Created in April 2009 by the merger of the PALINET and SOLINET library services consortia, and joined shortly thereafter by NELINET, LYRASIS is the largest regional membership organization serving libraries and information professionals in the United States. For more information, visit http://www.lyrasis.org.
ABOUT PASCAL: PASCAL (Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries) fosters cooperation and provides timely and universal access to information resources for students, faculty, and staff across South Carolina’s colleges and universities. For more information, visit http://pascalsc.org.
