Digital Collections at the University of Maryland Libraries supports the teaching and research mission of the university by facilitating access to digital collections, information, and knowledge. This is accomplished through enhancing access to selected library resources through the development, maintenance, and preservation of digital collections; by serving as a knowledge resource within the university for digital library issues and development; by participating in national and international initiatives which further the development of new forms of scholarly communication, tools, standards, and applications; and by providing training and support in digital library standards and formats.
The sketchbook of a Civil War prisoner is now available via Digital Collections @ UM. Confederate soldier John Jacob Omenhausser was imprisoned at the Union prison camp in Point Lookout, Maryland, from June 1864 to June 1865, near the end of the American Civil War. While at Point Lookout, Omenhausser documented prison life in sketchbooks with vibrant watercolors. His paintings were annotated with captions and dialog and, while intending to be humorous, often touch upon the grimmer aspects of camp life. Because he had relatives in the North, Omenhausser may have had an easier time obtaining supplies to make his life more bearable during that year. The University of Maryland Libraries owns one of only a handful of Omenhausser sketchbooks in existence, and our volume, with 62 color paintings, is the largest single collection. The sketchbook resides in the University of Maryland’s Historical Manuscripts unit, and is part of the Maryland Manuscripts Collection, which consists of approximately 5,200 individually cataloged letters, diaries, military and court records, ledger books, and printed ephemera (broadsides, handbills, etc.) related to the Maryland region–principally dating from 1750 to 1900.
American Memory at the Library of Congress has 43 images online from the Omenhausser sketchbook located at the New York Historical Society.
The University of Maryland Libraries has digitized its yearbooks from 1897-1970 as part of its participation in Lyrasis’s Mass Digitization Collaborative. The first issue of the yearbook, entitled Reveille, features a history of what was then known as the Maryland Agricultural College, and was over 130 pages in length. The yearbook name changed to the Terrapin in 1935, and grew in size along with the campus. The 1970 edition of the yearbook was over 560 pages. Each yearbook may be downloaded as an Adobe PDF file, or viewed online at the Internet Archive using their “Flip Book (beta)” option. In addition, each yearbook may be searched individually for names and events.
The University of Maryland Libraries were part of a 14-library pilot project with PALINET and the Internet Archive to digitize a selection of rare and significant books from the participants’ collections and make the electronic versions available via the Internet Archive’s website.
The program is funded by the PALINET membership and supported in part through a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The development of a mass digitization service is the first component of PALINET’s collaborative
digital collection strategy. The initial focus is on mass digitization of text.
The University of Maryland Libraries submitted eleven reels of microfilm containing the university’s course catalogs from 1859 through 1945 as part of the pilot project. These course catalogs document the early history of the Maryland Agricultural College through the end of World War II and online access to them will be a valuable asset to both researchers and to staff.
Links to the PDF files of the catalogs are available on the University Archives website. As additional catalogs and other materials are added to the Internet Archive, they will be available through the Internet Archives’ University of Maryland portal.
For more information about the PALINET Mass Digitization Collaborative, please visit PALINET’s website.
