Viewing UC’s Past Online: The Cincinnatian Online

The 1915 Cincinnatian

The University of Cincinnati Libraries have been awarded a $24,000 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Minigrant from the State Library of Ohio to digitize copies of The Cincinnatian, UC’s yearbook.

In partnership with the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, 56 volumes of The Cincinnatian covering the years 1894 through 1950, and containing 16,000 pages will be scanned and made available to the public online via OhioLINK’s Digital Resource Commons at <http://drc.libraries.uc.edu/>. The project began in April 2009 with the scanning phase to be completed by August 31, 2009.

The project will digitize early, at-risk volumes published between 1894 and 1950. Digitization will increase use of the yearbooks, make them more accessible to Ohio citizens and researchers, and preserve the original print volumes.

Students published their first yearbook, The Cincinnatian, in 1894, documenting the activities and achievements of the University of Cincinnati, as well as a pictorial history of the city. In The Cincinnatian one can find the early influence of William Howard Taft on legal education, and that of Annie Laws, one of the early leaders of the national kindergarten movement and of nursing training. The yearbooks capture such events as the 300th anniversary celebration of William Shakespeare in 1916, the emerging years of intercollegiate football in Ohio, the growing anti-German sentiment in America during World War I as expressed in student-drawn caricatures, and Cincinnati’s place in the settlement house movement. The Cincinnatian was published annually from 1894 to 1972 (except 1906), and occasionally since.

Baseball team in the 1896 Cincinnatian

“The Cincinnatian will be a valuable resource for the citizens of Ohio and beyond,” said Victoria A. Montavon, Dean and University Librarian. “This project reflects the goal of the University of Cincinnati Libraries and our project collaborators, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County and OhioLINK, to make historical collections accessible to the general public in digital form.”

The LSTA program is funded through the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and administered through the State Library of Ohio.

More information about The Cincinnatian is available online via an Archives and Rare Books Library exhibit, “Yearbooks: Turning the Pages of UC History,” at
<www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/exhibits/yearbooks/index.html>.

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