Reading Time: 3 minutesIn a world where so little of our knowledge creation is done with pen and paper, how are libraries and archives preserving the history of today? That question is top-of-mind for many curators, librarians, and archivists who are seeing a rapid increase in donations of digital files and a wide range of media formats. Proactive planning and skill development can help manage the growth of what archives refer to as born-digital collections.
Digital Dialogs
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Public Domain 2026
Reading Time: 3 minutesIn our eighth year celebrating Public Domain Day through digitization, we digitized 27 titles after a public vote on works in USF Libraries’ collections.
Enhancing Archival Access: USF Libraries Implements Ethical AI for Handwritten Document Transcription
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe University of South Florida Libraries is proud to announce a major advancement in its Digital Initiatives: the adoption of QDox, an AI transcription solution developed by Quantiphi and powered with AWS Textract. This technology is being used to transcribe handwritten archival documents with greater efficiency and ethical oversight.
Baking the Archives: A Ginger Loaf to Remember
Reading Time: 6 minutesThis post was guest authored by Mikayla Osso, Collections Operations Supervisor in Collections & Discovery at the Tampa Library When I was a little girl, there were two toys that I wanted more than anything: a Baby Alive doll and an …Continue Reading
Streaming Media and USF Libraries’ Media Collections
Reading Time: 2 minutesDid you know that the USF Libraries has a varied collection of media on VHS and DVD? While available to checkout for home or in class viewing, most homes and classrooms no longer have the equipment to make use of the films, documentaries, and television series stored in these old media formats.
Baking the Archives: Composition Cake
Reading Time: 7 minutesThe USF Libraries’ 1864 printing of American Kitchen, Directory and Housewife by Ann Howe is a later edition of a popular book first published as American Housewife in 1839. The recipe for “Composition Cake” as it is written in the clipping above requires “five cups of shifted flour, three of sugar, two of butter, a tea spoonful of soda, a tea cup of sweet milk, a wine-glass of wine, one of brandy, five eggs, one nutmeg; add a point of seeded raising if you want the cake quite rich.”
National Author’s Day: 2025 Staff Recommendations
Reading Time: 2 minutesIn honor of National Author’s Day, Digital Dialogs wanted to share with you some of our favorite authors. The recommendations below were submitted by our very own USF Libraries’ staff and faculty. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry… this list really has something for everyone! …Continue Reading
The Haunted House on the Harlem
Reading Time: 5 minutesRichard Schmidt, Digitization Coordinator in the Digital Initiatives unit, Special Collections takes us on a Halloweenie journey through the USF Library Special Collections’ spookiest dime novels wit his review of “The Haunted House on the Harlem” from Pluck and Luck issue 1074, dated January 1st, 1919.
Boucicault’s Newly Digitized “The Vampire”
Reading Time: 2 minutesDion Boucicault (1820-1890) was a prolific and innovative playwright, actor, producer, manager, and director of the 19th-century, English-speaking stage. This year, the collection gained a newly digitized play, just in time for Halloween. The Vampire, a supernatural melodrama explores two encounters with a mysterious phantom, blending elements of the supernatural with dramatic tension.
Baking the Archives: Wisconsin Crumb Cake
Reading Time: 4 minutesToday’s bake takes us back to 1908, when the Woman’s Club of Jacksonville, Florida published its Woman’s Club Cook Book, a 220-page community collection spanning everything from soups to “chafing dish recipes” to “diet[s] for the sick.” These early 20th-century cookbooks are more than just recipe compilations, they’re cultural documents of women’s lives, networks, and foodways.