News and History

Preserving Zora Neale Hurston’s Legacy, UF News (02/2019)

Preserving Alachua County Historical Commission’s Scroll, WUFT News (04/03/2020)

“Nobody knows who made the 25-foot artifact of Alachua County, Florida and U.S. history.

Nearly two years ago, an employee found a scroll rolled inside a lightweight plastic storage tube in a second-floor storage closet in the County Administration Building in Gainesville.

On the tan butcher paper are dozens of sketches depicting historical moments beginning with Native Americans and a caricature of Juan Ponce De León, the Spanish conquistador, deciding in 1513, “I’ll name it Florida.” It ends in the mid-1990s with Gainesville being “city of the year…” https://www.wuft.org/news/2020/04/03/a-beautiful-artifact-25-foot-scroll-of-alachua-county-and-florida-history-is-now-on-digital-display/

UF archivist preserves priceless manuscripts of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and others, Tampa Bay Times (02/03/2012)

“It isn’t easy being the conservator for the University of Florida’s massive library system — home to 4 million books and dozens of important manuscripts. In Florida’s book-unfriendly environment, Freund is probably the best friend a book, or something made from paper, ever had…” https://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/uf-archivist-preserves-priceless-manuscripts-of-marjorie-kinnan-rawlings/1213385/

When Preservation Moves Off Campus: Trends and Effective Practices in ARL Libraries, Library Resources and Technical Services Vol. 54, No. 4 (2010).

“When informed by library administration that they will be moving from the main library to an off campus location, preservation librarians can face a number of difficult issues. How do they transport books and journals back and forth safely between the library and the off campus location? Will they lose all their student workers? How do they continue to provide high-quality services to their users if they are so far away? How do they continue to collaborate and communicate with other staff at the main library?” https://journals.ala.org/index.php/lrts/article/view/4972/6007

From the air: the photographic record of Florida’s landsOCLC Systems & Services: International digital library perspectives, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 131-139. https://doi.org/10.1108/10650750510598729

“The University of Florida Map and Digital Imagery Library houses the largest and most complete collection of Florida aerial photographs (∼160,000 photos) outside of the National Archives in Washington, DC USDA aerial photographs (∼120,000) comprise the largest and most heavily‐used single set of photographs in this collection. In 2002, the Digital Library Center, the Map and Digital Imagery Library, and the GIS Coordinator, Federal Documents Department of the University of Florida Libraries submitted a grant proposal to the Florida Department of State, Division of Library and Information Services to digitize the aging 1937‐1951 images and make then available over the web through an ESRI map server. The grant was funded as an LSTA grant in 2002; Phase II funded in 2003 digitized the tiles from 1952‐1970. The project web site can be found at: www.uflib.ufl.edu/digital/collections/flap

UF Library struggles with acidity that crumbles valued pages, Gainesville Sun (1989) https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00085031/00001

Humidity Destroying Library Books, Sun Sentinel (04/11/1987)

“High humidity in the South may destroy libraries full of expensive books made of acidic paper, a problem University of Florida librarians are seeking ways to correct.” https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1987-04-11-8701230208-story.html