January 29, 2008

Purdue Libraries' online research locator mixes research material, fun facts

 Historic images, manuscripts, films, maps, and related materials are all now searchable and freely available through the Purdue Libraries' e-Archives site.

Drawing upon the images and documents in e-Archives, Libraries also has created a historical timeline of Purdue University - dating from the Morrill Act of 1862 that produced Land Grant access and the creation of Purdue - to France A. Córdova's selection in May 2007 as the university's 11th president; an athletics section, with football photos and photos from the basketball program that has produced a Big Ten record 21 championships in just over a century of competition; a section on astronauts and other alumni; and digitized access to all of the university's past newsreels.

"We have tens of thousands of wonderful photographs that date back to the 1800s," said Sammie Morris, head of Archives and Special Collections and assistant professor of library science/archivist. "In basketball, for instance, we have scanned 286 items that will bring back memories for a lot of people, show the uniform style of the time or give some perspective on the Purdue experience.

"e-Archives is about extending access to the history of Purdue through the university's rarest and most valuable documents and photographs. The archives is the comprehensive repository for the university's history, and we want people to see the various aspects that have shaped the university, such as the students, faculty, presidents, buildings, customs, and traditions. Not only do historic photos and documents allow researchers to examine how the university has changed over time, but they also provoke feelings of nostalgia for alumni and others familiar with Purdue's history. e-Archives is an online resource that tells the story of how the university came to be what it is today."

The historical timeline is available online at https://www4.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/putimeline/. Visitors to the site can see when key buildings were built throughout the years. A few are approaching or have passed 100 years old and are still standing. Important figures and traditions are highlighted and photographed, such as the creation of the Old Oaken Bucket - the traveling trophy awarded each year to the winner of the Purdue-Indiana University football game.

When was the first telephone installed on campus? It's in the timeline.

The collections in e-Archives are one part of the overall e-Scholar system, Purdue Libraries' online information portal that provides increased access to data, primary source material and publications generated at the university.

Another of the system's components, e-Pubs, gives access to dissertations, reports, papers and other scholarly publications written or organized by members of the Purdue community.

The third component, e-Data, allows researchers from around the world to share data sets.

e-Archives also contains the George Palmer Putnam collection of Amelia Earhart papers; a section on Earhart's time at Purdue; a visual history of the university; photos relating to Purdue's agronomy department, and much more at https://e-archives.lib.purdue.edu/collections.php. Morris emphasized that e-Archives will continue to grow as Libraries proceeds with digitizing its massive collections of photographs, documents, and other rare materials contained in its Archives and Special Collections unit.

"What Purdue has created through e-Scholar is a great mechanism for researchers to gather a wealth of Purdue information without having to do repetitive searches from a variety of sites," Morris said. "But it's not only for researchers. Alumni, schoolchildren, and members of the public will enjoy interacting with the Purdue timeline, watching old newsreel footage of campus, or browsing the Amelia Earhart collection with its photos and documents on a well-known figure in American history."

Writer: Jim Bush, (765) 496-2077, jsbush@purdue.edu

Source: Sammie Morris, (765) 494-2905, morris18@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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