DCAPSWe are pleased to announce the following projects have been funded for the 2015 Arts & Sciences Grants Program for Digital Collections. These initiatives will expand our digital primary material collections for research and teaching. They will also contribute to the burgeoning field of scholarship in the digital humanities through the use of innovative digital methodologies.
The grants program aims to support collaborative and creative use of resources through the creation of digital content of enduring value to the Cornell community and scholarship at large. The program is funded by the College of Arts of Sciences and coordinated by Cornell University Library (CUL). The Arts & Sciences Visual Resources Advisory Group oversees the visual resources program and CUL’s Digital Consulting and Production Services (DCAPS) plans and implements the grant-funded projects.
Grants Program for Digital Collections in Arts and Sciences
Projects Selected for Support in 2015
Cornell Costume and Textile Collection
Judith Byfield, Department of History; Denise Nicole Green, Fiber Science & Apparel Design; Jolene Rickard, Department of the History of Art and Visual Studies & Director, American Indian Program
The Cornell Costume and Textile Collection (CCTC) includes over 10,000 items of apparel, flat textiles, and accessories dating from the late 18th century. The goal is to make the CCTC discoverable and broadly accessible by faculty, students, and researchers and encourage the use of this extensive collection in teaching and research. Currently, the collection attracts visiting scholars and is considered a hidden Cornell gem. Textiles are studied from many different disciplinary perspectives: materials science, chemistry, social sciences, cultural studies, art and design, to name a few. We expect that the richness and depth of collections and its broad online availability will provide ample opportunities for collaborations among social scientists, humanities scholars, and physical scientists.
Sterrett Photographs Collection
Benjamin Anderson, History of Art and Visual Studies
The goal is creating a digital repository for the Sterrett Photographs collection, which documents major archaeological monuments in present-day Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Syria, and Iraq. The collection constitutes a major documentary resource for the study of archaeological sites that have been substantially altered by subsequent restorations and developments, or that have been very recently destroyed or face a real threat of destruction. Given the ongoing demolition of archaeological heritage in the regions covered by the Sterrett Photographs, we anticipate scholarly attention for this collection to increase in coming years. This is an important collection for training archaeology and architectural history student in learning how to work with historical photographs as a primary form of evidence.
Lindsay Cooper Archive
Benjamin Piekut, Music
The Lindsay Cooper Archive includes the musical scores, sketches, and manuscripts of Lindsay Cooper’s work, spanning over 30 years of her career. Although much of her work has been issued (and reissued) on recordings, the scores and manuscripts have never been available to researchers. Currently in a storage locker in North London, the physical materials will stay in the UK, where she is well known, and will ultimately be housed at the University of the Arts London. Therefore, a partnership between Cornell and the University of the Arts London plans to make these scores and archival recordings available digitally. In addition, pending permission from her estate, we will make her manuscripts and print matter available to anybody on the web. Archival resources for this kind of avant-garde are rare, indeed, so this digital collection would be quite important, especially because there is a real paucity of women’s stories in the history of experimental and improvised music.
On Our Backs
Kate McCullough, English & Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program
This project aims to make available the full content of On Our Backs, which is a ground-breaking and historically important publication used by students and researchers in the visual, political, historical, and gender and sexuality fields, attracting both social scientists and arts and humanities scholars. Creating an online version of On Our Backs will enable scholars and students here and beyond Cornell to access the material independently of a visit to the Rare and Manuscript Collections’ supervised reading room. This will greatly improve and expand access for our local users as well as reaching a global community. The photography, artworks, essays, advertising, and various non-fiction pieces throughout this magazine are valuable historical resources and material for academic reflection.
We are grateful for the contributions of Tre Berney, Bonna Boettcher, Mickey Casad, Rhea Garen, Peter Hirtle, Jason Kovari, Hannah Marshall, Brenda Marston, Danielle Mericle, Katherine Reagan, Jim Reidy, and Melissa Wallace as they collaborated with faculty in preparing the proposals.