Reading Time: 5 minutesOver a hundred years ago, postcards became popular souvenirs when visiting far off destinations. The images depicted on their backs provided vivid glimpses into the landscapes seen by family members and friends. The postcards from the Hampton Dunn Collection of Florida Postcards, housed in USF Libraries’ Special Collections—Tampa campus, show Florida at its finest and most whimsical… (Continue Reading)
Digital Dialogs
Latest Posts
Millions of Years in the Making: A New Platform for the Karst Information Portal
Reading Time: 3 minutesBy: Amanda Boczar, Curator for Digital Collections and Jason Boczar, Digital Scholarship and Publishing Librarian June 6th is the National Day of Caves and Karst, and we’re celebrating with the official launch of the newly redesigned Karst Information Portal (KIP). For …Continue Reading
The Oracle in the Archives: The Grim Reaper of Pizza
Reading Time: 6 minutesGuest post from Richard Schmidt, Collection Specialist for Special Collections– Tampa campus. Richard specializes in digitization of rare materials.
The push for the USF Libraries to digitize the college’s student newspaper, The USF Oracle, began several years before I was hired as a staff member in the building. Alumni and researchers alike have always been interested in being able to view campus newspapers, and the more that they could view online, the better. By the time I started working on the Digitization team in Special Collections in 2007, the effort to capture the day-to-day goings-on, as recorded by the newspaper, was well under way… (Continue Reading)
National Bicycle Month 2022
Reading Time: 2 minutesMay is National Bike Month! In 1956, the League of American Bicyclists established national bicycle month to promote cycling in communities around the United States. Bike to Work Week is going to be May 16 – 22, 2022, with Bike to Work …Continue Reading
Annual Vote for Public Domain Digitization: Tell us what to digitize for our 2023 celebration of the public domain
Reading Time: < 1 minuteEvery year in January, a new group of material will have their copyrights expire and become part of the public domain, where creative work is free to use by anyone for any purpose. We have poured over the list of items in our collection that will have their copyright expire in 2023, finding the rarest titles we have that fit into our Digital Collections. We need your help to decide which 23 items we should digitize.
Citation Management Tools
Reading Time: < 1 minuteCitation tools, which you might see referred to as “citation management tools”, help researchers by managing, organizing, and formatting references for research projects. The University of South Florida Libraries supports three of these tools, including Endnote, Mendeley, and Zotero.
Zarzuela in honor of World Theater Day
Reading Time: 4 minutesUSF Libraries’ Special Collections is home to many different types of physical items and ephemera. From books and journals to newspapers, yearbooks, sheet music, and plays, the collections are vast and varied. One item type that is not widely highlighted is the zarzuela. Zarzuelas are Spanish lyric drama’s that alternate between spoken and sung scenes accompanied by dance numbers (“Zarzuela,” 2022).
Celebrating Women’s History Month with Snapshots of Women at Work
Reading Time: 8 minutesThe twentieth century marked a watershed century for the women’s labor movement, starting with the progressive era and evolving as world wars and the women’s rights movements reshaped how society responded to a gender-integrated workforce. As we continue to celebrate the history and accomplishments of women, this week we’re taking a look at this evolution through documents… (Continue Reading)
Womyn’s Words and the Women’s Energy Bank Collections
Reading Time: 4 minutesBy: Amanda Boczar and Sydney Jordan March is Women’s History Month, a time to reflect on, give voice to, and celebrate the lives of women throughout history. Women of the Tampa Bay area have no shortage of stories to tell, and many …Continue Reading
Fair Use Week 2022
Reading Time: 2 minutesFair Use/Fair Dealing week is an international celebration of exceptions in copyright laws that allow for certain uses of copyrighted material in order to encourage new art and creativity. Fair use week runs from February 21–25, 2022 and was originally supported by the Association of Research Libraries.