Reading Time: 2 minutesThe Digital Initiatives team is proud to announce the completion of a major digitization project: over 4,400 items from the Florida Ornithological Society (FOS) Records are now available online. These materials, selected for their research value and copyright status, represent a significant portion of the 38-box archival collection donated to USF Libraries by the Florida Ornithological Society.
Category: Featured Projects
Cultivating Access: National Gardening Day and the USF Botanical Gardens Virtual Tour
Reading Time: 2 minutesThis post was guest authored by Denise Wright, GIS Analyst II in Digital Initiatives at the Tampa Library April 14th is National Gardening Day, and it’s a great time to reflect on our appreciation for plants, green spaces, and gardens. Whether you’re …Continue Reading
LINK: Your 24/7 AI Chatbot Ally at USF Libraries
Reading Time: 4 minutesSay hello to LINK (Library Information and Knowledge), USF Libraries’ new AI-powered reference chatbot designed to assist students, faculty, and staff with library-related questions around the clock. LINK serves as a friendly, reliable entry point to help users navigate collections, databases, services, and spaces, freeing them from routine inquiries and empowering library professionals to focus on more complex, personalized support.
Annual Vote for the Public Domain
Reading Time: < 1 minuteEach year, more material reaches the end of its copyright protection and falls into the public domain. And each year, the USF Libraries invite our community to participate in selecting which public domain works from the Libraries’ collections will be digitized and made freely available online.
Preservation Spotlight: Turning Negatives into a Positive with the Skip Gandy Collection
Reading Time: 3 minutesFor Preservation Week 2025, we are excited to provide an update on the digitization of the Gandy Collection of Commercial and Aerial Photography. With more than 125,000 photographs, the collection showcases more than 50 years of Tampa history from behind the lens of Skip and Sandy Gandy.
Helping the 3 A.M. Researcher: Linking Digitized Material to Finding Aids
Reading Time: 3 minutesThis post was guest authored by Ann Abney, Digital Initiatives Metadata Librarian in Collections & Discovery at the Tampa Library One of the most frequent questions I was asked in my previous job as an archivist was “What’s available online?” followed …Continue Reading
The Searchable Ornithological Research Archive at USF
Reading Time: 3 minutesJason Boczar, Digital Scholarship and Publishing Librarian, and Carol Ann Borchert, Sr. Associate Dean, introduce a new project of the USF Libraries to create the Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (SORA) in USF’s Digital Commons. SORA is a digital collection of important international ornithological journals.