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Holman Library Receives Grant to Digitize McKendree University’s Yearbooks
What would it mean to you if you had free Internet access to many of McKendree’s yearbooks and histories, anytime you wanted? Would you track down a distant classmate? …add that perfect college picture on Facebook? ...look for a family member to complete your family tree? …remember that right tackle’s name you played football with in ’89? …reminisce over that classic shot from Kappa Alpha Psi in ’03? …study the roots of Methodism or higher education in the Midwest? …find out the facts behind one of McKendree’s famous myths? By the spring of 2010, all of that will be a reality thanks to Bill Harroff, the Reference & Information Technologies Librarian at McKendree’s Holman Library, and the Book Digitization Initiative grant project he was just awarded by CARLI, the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois.
“We will build an online collection of the yearbooks of McKendree College / University from around 1900 to the present day,” explained Harroff. The grant is titled, McKendree University: Illinois’ Heritage Seen Through its Yearbooks and is the follow-up to last year’s fabulous McKendree historical digitization grant. I’m so pleased for every McKendrean that, by the spring of next year, we will be able to mine about a hundred yearbooks. Together, these works reflect the school’s culture and history from a truly student perspective.”
The Internet Archive <http://www.archive.org/details/texts> will host McKendree’s electronic book collection. The vast Internet library’s purpose is to offer permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. “Once again, this places McKendree University’s publications on a platform with the likes of Yale, Harvard, and Stanford. My hope is that McKendreans will go to download our documents and get lost in the vastness of outstanding projects librarians have accomplished all over the world,” stated Harroff.
Links for a few of the earlier digitized works are listed below. McKendreans can enjoy the quality and variety of the latest electronic book technologies. Anyone can view and download these publications in Flipbook, PDF, DjVu and text formats. There is a suitable format for virtually any device capable of reaching the Internet, along with word-by-word indexing.”
Centennial, McKendree college, with St. Clair County history 1828-1927
McKendree College history 1928-1978