Where can you get a close look at a photo of Babe Ruth standing in front of the Draper and Maynard Building, peruse a 1905 copy of Plymouth Normal School’s literary magazine The Prospect, and examine an aerial view of Plymouth State’s campus in 1960?

Thanks to PSU’s digital repository, these historical treasures—along with 15,000 other items—are available for your viewing pleasure online, from the convenience of your computer.

A digital repository is an online home for digital content, including images, print, audio, and video, to be stored, preserved, searched, and retrieved. PSU’s digital repository reflects the University’s priorities of supporting excellence in teaching, scholarly research, and service by providing free, open access to its collections from anywhere in the world. Viewers can comment on items within a collection and share their favorite items with others on Facebook, Pinterest, via e-mail, and more.

The repository includes collections from a variety of campus entities, including the Michael J. Spinelli Jr. ’68 Center for University Archives and Special Collections, which collects, organizes, preserves, and makes accessible material relating to the history of PSU and New Hampshire’s North Country and Lakes Region.

Spinelli Archives has, to date, contributed three collections to the repository, all of which are steadily growing. The Brown Company Collection consists of images that document much of the history of the Brown Company of Berlin, New Hampshire, from the late nineteenth century through the mid-1960s. The Campus Publications Collection provides access to a selection of periodicals published by the college from its days as Plymouth Normal School through today, including archival issues of Plymouth Magazine and its predecessor, Plymouth Update. The Historical Images Collection includes images of Plymouth State buildings and campus scenes as far back as 1896. “I am enjoying having these excellent resources at my disposal in my capacity as university archivist,” says Alice Staples. “I frequently search the campus publications for dates and references to people. I often refer people to the Plymouth State Historical Images, which may save them a trip to the library if they find an image they like.”

Professor of Art History Richard Hunnewell’s students use the repository for research projects. “My Arts of the United States class, for example, used the digital repository in an assignment on PSU architecture,” he says. “It was so helpful to

have the digital archive where students could access so quickly and efficiently the historical background and other information that was critical to their historical research on PSU buildings.”

The Museum of the White Mountains, located at 34 Highland Street on the edge of campus, preserves and promotes the history, culture, and environmental legacy of the region. One of the ways in which it does this is through the digital repository, which includes an impressive collection of photographs, postcards, stereographs, and paintings relating to the White Mountains, thanks to the efforts of museum staff and a number of PSU students.

Once items have been scanned and cataloged, high-resolution images are uploaded and metadata pertaining to each item is added. On occasion, visitors have enriched the metadata by sharing information about some of the featured images with the museum. “We have received e-mails from online visitors who have provided additional information for some of the featured items,” museum director Catherine Amidon says. “That information is then added to the metadata.”

A century ago, the Draper and Maynard Building was home to D&M Manufacturing, a premier sporting goods manufacturer and a pioneer in creating the baseball glove. The Department of Health and Human Performance (HHP), partially

housed on the fourth floor of the Draper and Maynard Building, has long been the home of D&M sporting goods memorabilia. The D&M Collection in the digital repository includes photographs, ads, and documents, all from the early twentieth century. “The D&M Collection holds appeal for sports enthusiasts, historians, alumni, and others around the world,” says Professor of Health and Human Performance Louise McCormack ’72, who hopes more viewers will use the comments function to share what they know about certain pieces in the collection. “As we share our story, we hope they will share theirs.”

The Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute (JGMI) at PSU has recently created a collection of archived meteorological observations taken on campus, including temperature, humidity, pressure, and precipitation data spanning 25–40 years. “Instead of this data sitting unused in storage, it’s now preserved and accessible to students, researchers, and the general public,” says Brendan Hoch, technology manager at JGMI.

Growing and managing the repository is truly a campus-wide effort, which is exactly what Digital Projects Librarian Jen Green hoped for when the University launched its digital repository in spring 2012. “This is a collaborative effort, and we’re looking forward to more departments contributing material to the repository,” she says.

Green’s role is to promote use of and participation in the repository across the campus. She and Metadata Resources Librarian Christin Chenard teach departments and other campus groups how to preserve their material, how to optimize online searches for it, and how to provide the best metadata for it. The departments take it from there, knowing that Green and Chenard are available for support. It’s a system that, according to Green, “is efficient and reduces the margin of error. The departments know their material best.”

While more libraries are moving their collections to digital formats, Green points out that PSU’s Digital Repository complements and expands upon Lamson Library’s offerings, which include more than 300,000 printed volumes, and provides visitors around the world with access to some of PSU’s most fascinating materials. “We’re simply finding new ways to share information,” Green says. “The more we share, the more we learn.” ~ Barbra Alan

Tags:  collections digital Digital Projects Librarian Jen Green Draper & Maynard Judd Gregg Meteorology Institute Lamson Library Museum of the White Mountains PSU Digital Repository Spinelli Archives