Message-Id: <200101311800.LAA27570@dns.ccit.arizona.edu> Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 12:46:38 -0500 From: Elizabeth McKenty <mailto:lislemck@NETSCAPE.NET> Subject: Free Library of Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition Digital To: mailto:IMAGELIB@LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU
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Apologies for cross-posting
The nation's 100th Birthday Party recorded in rare photographs--The Free Library of Philadelphia creates digital collect
on and web site
The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 marked a turning point in the history of
the United States. The numerous innovative and industrial exhibits help to
trace the nation's emergence from an agricultural-based economy to a highly
industrial one, showing the country's readiness to compete with established
world powers.
The Free Library of Philadelphia was awarded a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Servic
s (IMLS) to digitize a unique historical collection of over 1,200 silver albumen photographs and other material relating
to the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. This recently completed one-year project is the first whole-collecti
n
digitization effort by the Library. It is intended to serve as a model for
future digitization projects within the Library and for other institutions
embarking on similar projects. Users can now access, browse and search the
digital images through the Free Library's web site and through its online catalog, with full MARC records. The Centenni
l Exhibition Digital Collection is available at the following web address:
http://libwww.library.phila.gov/CenCol/index.htm
It can also be accessed through the Free Library's web site at:
Highlights of the Collection include a hand-written diary of a visiting
teenager as well as various virtual tours of the buildings and exhibits.
Don't miss the "Centennial Schoolhouse" for fun things for kids and
activities for teachers and parents.
Jeffrey A. Cohen, a scholar at Bryn Mawr College, aptly describes the
Centennial as being "… played against the backdrop of the boldly new yet
historically enmeshed forms of Victorian architecture, with massive new
machines and products in the foreground, and between them an American public visiting in an unprecedented gathering in t
eir Sunday best, for the first time effectively before the world. As effectively as an enormous volume of prints and do
uments and books and memorabilia record this event, it is photography that brings it most fully to life, and these image
, by the Centennial's official photographers, are among the very best ever made of the Centennial. They have the capaci
y to bring it alive for a wide range of audiences, from the elementary-school student to the well-immersed scholar, for
hey awaken a humanness, a texture, and an unfiltered immediacy that spawns insight."
For additional information, please contact Joe Benford, Curator, Print and
Picture Collection, The Free Library of Philadelphia, 215-686-5405,
mailto:benfordj@library.phila.gov
Thank you.
Elizabeth J. McKenty
Library Coordinator
The Office of Public Service Support
Free Library of Philadelphia
mailto:mckentye@library.phila.gov
-- Elizabeth McKenty The Office of Public Services Support Free Library of Philadelphia 215.686.5372 mailto:mckentye@library.phila.gov__________________________________________________________________ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Webmail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com/
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