About the Collections

American Library Association Archives Digital Collections

This digitization project contains digitized photographs from the Faxon Collection from the Conference Photographs series (99/1/14) and the Library Building Photographs series (99/1/15), held at the University of Illinois Archives. Some photographs and postcards from the Library Building Photographs collection (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, and California) have also been digitized. Collection size: approximately 250 items.

Carl Sandburg Collection

(Campus Use Only)

The more than 2,700 photographs in this collection are scanned from the Carl Sandburg Collection housed in The Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Spanning the years 1893-1987, these images are part of a collection that includes typescripts and galley proofs of many of Sandburg's works, his correspondence with literary and public figures, recordings and transcriptions of Sandburg's radio broadcasts, and a supporting book collection of approximately 5,000 volumes.

Chuck Olin Digital Film Archive

The Chuck Olin Digital Film Archive consists of production elements from two PBS-broadcast documentaries: "In Our Own Hands: The Hidden Story of the Jewish Brigade in World War II," and "Is Jerusalem Burning? Myth, Memory and the Battle of Latrun." Both films, relying primarily on first-person accounts, tell the story of critical episodes in the formation of the nation-state of Israel. The unedited versions of the first-person accounts contained in the collection offer the student or scholar a unique set of primary-source material. Collection size: 8 interviews.

Collins Collection of Irish Political Cartoons

This is an online collection of political cartoons from the University of Illinois Library Collins collection of books, pamphlets, newspapers, maps and cartoons; it was purchased by the Library in 1917. The collection consists of cartoons drawn primarily from the Weekly Freeman and National Press and United Ireland newspapers. The cartoons address the subject of Irish politics of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and, in particular, Ireland's relationship with England. Collection size: approximately 75 cartoons.

Digital Emblematica

The Digital Emblematica collection highlights a fraction of the internationally renowned emblem book collection owned by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Published in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and England, each digitized book can contain up to 1,500 emblems to peruse. These 17th and 18th Century creations typically link together three constitutive elements — a motto, an illustration or "pictura" in the form of a woodcut or engraving, and an explanatory poem or "subscriptio."

French World War I Posters

This collection is comprised of 105 digitized posters published in France during the First World War. The selected posters represent a time of national volatility and a visual culture of lithography, illustrations, earlier posters and paintings.

Historical Maps Online

The Historical Maps Online collection contains images of maps charting the last 400 years of historical development in Illinois and the Northwest Territory, including historic topographic maps of Illinois. The collection also contains early large-scale topographic quadrangles published by the United States Geological Survey in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Collection size: approximately 420 maps.

James Reston Papers

The collection consists of a variety of items that relate to James Reston's career with the Associated Press (1934-1939) and The New York Times (1939-1989). These items include publications, manuscripts, correspondence, speeches, interview transcripts, and photographs. Collection size: approximately 400 items.

Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design

The Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design is a valuable source of documentation on the history of theatre and is housed in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It is a rare collection of original materials on the theatre, comprising over 5000 items from more than 150 productions in England and the United States. These materials include costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric. Collection size: approximately 4700 items.

Portraits of Actors

Portraits of Actors, 1720-1920, includes almost 3,500 pictures of actors — studio portraits and actors posing in costume for a particular role or performing a scene from a play. Dramatists, theatrical managers, singers and musicians are also included, but the majority are British and American actors who worked between about 1770 and 1893. Among the hundreds of actors included are: Sarah Siddons, Edmund Kean, John Philip Kemble, Edwin Booth, Edwin Forrest, William Henry West Betty, Charles Mathews, Dorothy Jordan, Frances Abington, and Ada Rehan. The images were digitized from etchings, engravings, lithographs, mezzotints, aquatints, wood engravings, photographs, and photomechanically-reproduced prints, all from the University of Illinois Theatrical Print Collection.

Teaching with Digital Content

(Digital Cultural Heritage Community)

Using digitized primary source materials involves fundamental shifts in the service and teaching methods of curators, librarians, and teachers, regardless of their audiences. This project seeks to develop a successful model program to integrate digital primary source materials into K-12 curriculum and assignments, as well as into the educational programs of museums and libraries. This project brings together a group of libraries and museums and their digital content with K-12 teachers, to identify reliable methods of integrating digitized content into teaching units and learning guides, to demonstrate innovative technology-based applications using these materials, and to evaluate and report on their effectiveness. Collection size: approximately 1600 items.

University Honors — the Bronze Tablets

The University of Illinois began the tradition of inscribing the Bronze Tablets with the names of students receiving University Honors in 1925. A new tablet is hung in the Main Library each year. Inscription on the Bronze Tablets recognizes sustained academic achievement by undergraduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. According to the Student Code, students must have at least a 3.5 cumulative grade point-average through the academic term prior to graduation, and rank in the top three percent of the students in their graduating class. The University Library commissioned Chris Brown Photography to photograph the Tablets. Prints are available for purchase through the Illini Union Bookstore.

University of Illinois Built Environment

The Illinois Built Environment collection provides to the public a first-hand view of select original documents used to shape the Campus. Among others, items include hand sketches of campus plans, original trace and linen drawings of many of the Central Quadrangle buildings, four separate proposed sketches for the original Library, now known as Altgeld Hall, and watercolor renderings for the display of the Alma Mater and many buildings. This collection will grow over time as more original drawings, sketches and renderings are released for public use. Collection size: approximately 270 items.