karyn j. #1: African American Women Students at the University of Iowa 1910-1960

The African American Women Students at the University of Iowa 1910-1960 is a collection of newspaper articles, photographs, correspondence, oral histories, and other primary sources documenting the experiences of African American women students while attending the University of Iowa. This subcollection is a part of the larger African American Women in Iowa Digital Collection. I chose to write my blog on the subcollection as opposed the collection that it is part of because I found this one to be more interesting and the topic was more specific. It is based on research done by Dr. Richard M. Breaux’s study of African American women students at The University of Iowa and information contributed by several Iowa repositories, namely The Iowa Women’s Archives, The University of Iowa Archives, The State Historical Archives, and The African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center.

Collection Principles

This digital collection was funded by an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant and was created for a fellowship project in digital librarianship by the university’s School of Library and Information Science. It is based on research done by Dr. Richard M. Breaux and several other scholars’ study of African American women students at The University of Iowa and information contributed by several Iowa repositories, namely Iowa Women’s Archives, University of Iowa Archives, State Historical Archives, and the African American Historical Museum and Cultural Center. All of this information can be found on the “About the Collection” page.

There were no impediments to the use of this collection. Everything is accessible to anyone browsing through this collection (assuming you have Audio Player and Adobe).

Object Characteristics

The objects in this collection are listed based on where they fall in the timeline of events. When you click on a year, there is a blurb that tells you what happened in that year. In every blurb, there is a link that sends you to items that are related to the event, person, or group discussed in the blurb. The links in the blurb are basically the same as the thumbnails shown in the section under the blurb called related artifacts. The only difference is that the links in the blurb take you directly to all related artifacts while, clicking on the thumbnail then takes you to all the related artifacts, which are opened in a new tab. Each of the thumbnails can be clicked on to zoom in. You then have the option of zooming in further. All the items are jpegs and the oral histories are opened in audio player.

There is also a section under the blurb that gives you related sources for further information. If you click on the source, it either sends you to the university’s library catalog or the collection where the item can be found.

This collection is very-user friendly and easily navigable, but can be confusing if you are looking for the screen to take you to a new page. Any time you click on an item or want to search, a new tab will appear.

Metadata

The metadata was very well done. There is an abundance of information such as title, original item date, digitized date, topical subject, what digital collection it belongs to, and the collection’s location, just to name a few. Also, many of the metadata fields are linked to more information about the field.

Intended audience

The intended audience of this collection is anyone interested in the experiences of African American women attending the University of Iowa between the years of 1910-1960. Anyone who wants to know more about what happened during those years and in some cases, what happened after they left should check out this collection.