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The University Libraries’ Digital Program has launched an initiative to digitize The University of Alabama’s yearbook, The Corolla, and to make copies available online. Not only are we scanning the pages so that alumni can access any yearbook from anywhere in the world, we are also making the yearbooks searchable! And alumni and friends of The University of Alabama have an opportunity to sponsor this a year and make it accessible to everyone via the web!
The UA Libraries are looking at this project as a way to help further the libraries goals and initiatives. By providing opportunities for individual alumni classes or other groups to fund individual years of digitization. The Corolla Digital Initiative will serve not only The University of Alabama family – alumni, current students, and faculty – but also the world beyond the Capstone. There is a growing scholarly interest in the history and culture of higher education institutions, and yearbooks prove to be invaluable research tools for scholars.
The Corolla was first published in 1893 and documents through photographs, words, and sentiment the evolution of The University of Alabama campus and aspects of student life and culture, academics, athletics, and so much more. The original print copies of The Corolla are housed in the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library and remain available for those who wish to use the printed volumes. But for those who are far from campus, we have already scanned numerous years as part of a prototype project. These can be accessed by all for free via digital collections at http://content.lib.ua.edu.
The Corolla Digital Initiative will not only provide images of pages so that UA alums can access any yearbook from anywhere in the world, but they will be able to do a keyword search as well!
In addition, components of Corollas will eventually become linkable to other related projects and endeavors that we are developing that relate to UA's rich legacy and tradition. For example, in 1968 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy spoke on campus as part of the Emphasis program. The 1968 Corolla dedicates a page to this event. From this digital page in the 1968 Corolla, users will be able to follow a link and actually hear the digitized speech Kennedy delivered, or for that matter, other speeches given as part of the program that year.
The primary audience for this digital initiative is those whose faces and names are preserved in time in the Corolla. Alumni, individual graduating classes, individuals, and other interested parties and friends of the University have the opportunity with the Corolla Digital Initiative to sponsor the scanning of specific volumes.
This project is part of the overall UA Libraries Digital Program at the University Libraries. Our goal is to develop accessible digital collections of materials that support the teaching and research of UA faculty and students, and that, in turn, further the mission of The University of Alabama.
The Digital Program coordinates major digitization projects, actively develops policy and procedure relating to digital project and program development, and is active in soliciting digital project proposals and ideas for proposals, regardless of size, format, or technological medium. The program works with idea submitters to develop ideas into potentially viable projects, evaluating each individual digital project proposal. The Digital Program's role is to assess and seek out potential digital projects, and in turn make recommendations about implementation and development of these potential projects to the Dean of University Libraries. The projects listed below are projects that have been undertaken and developed by faculty and staff at the University Libraries. For more information about the program, contact Jody L. DeRidder.
