The spring semester is winding down and for many UW students this will be our last week of classes before the dreaded week of finals. So let's take a moment to reminisce about the times we have had this semester in lectures, labs and discussions across our UW campuses statewide.

On the left are some students from the UW La Crosse campus sitting in a lecture hall in 1962. Professor Jim Lafky is teaching his class in Main Hall. Does this scene look familiar to any UW La Crosse students this year?

Here are some students working in a lab at UW Oshkosh in the 1930s-1940s. I wonder what kind of experiments they are working on? How are the student scientists out there doing; are you almost finished with your work for the semester?

And lastly, what about all of you artists out there? Have you had enough time this semester to explore your artistic side? These students on the left are listening to their professor during an art education class during the 1960s. I hope you have had enough time to prepare and are ready to turn in your final pieces.

Well, this is it, the final days of the semester. I hope everyone learned a lot and will be ready when fall rolls around again.

Faculty planting trees, UW Oshkosh

Today while the UW community is celebrating UW Spirit Day, the nation is also celebrating Arbor Day! Arbor Day is all about celebrating and encouraging tree planting and care. Founded by J. Sterling Morton in 1872, it's celebrated on the last Friday in April every year. If you want to learn more about the history of Arbor Day or find ways to celebrate you can visit the Arbor Day Foundation website.


We have tons of images of trees in our collection, and even a few that tie in with Arbor Day pretty well. The image on the left is from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh collection. It shows faculty planting Oak trees in 1946. I bet today those trees have grown and are a great place to sit on a beautiful day like this! Anyone on the Oshkosh campus sitting under one of these trees today?

Here is also a book from our collections called Hardy evergreens: a practical handbook on the planting, growth and management of all hardy evergreens, exclusive of the broad-leaved species. This book is perfect for Arbor Day. Are any of you planting an evergreen tree today?


It is such a beautiful day to celebrate Arbor Day. I hope you all get a chance to be outside a enjoy our beautiful trees. Maybe take a nap, read or book or eat your lunch under a tree today.

As I'm sure everyone in the world knows by now, this weekend is the royal wedding. On Friday, Prince William and Kate Middleton will be married at the famous Westminster Abbey. The flowers have been chosen the seating plan is confirmed, but one important piece is still being kept secret: the dress. There have been rumors about who will design the dress and what it will look like, but the people will not know until that day. 


While the world is thinking about what dress Kate will wear, we thought we would look at some wedding dresses from our collections. 


On the left is Ernst and Adela Oemichen Witthuhn in their wedding attire from the late 1800s. She is wearing a high-necked dress, draped with fringe and rows of beads. We know Kate's dress will also be very modest and covered up, much like this dress. 

Now this dress on the right is fit for a royal. This is a model of a wedding dress in the Middle Atlas. The image is from our Africa Focus collection and was taken by Douglas Boyan. I'm guessing that Kate's dress won't be this colorful, but it should be this grand much like the dress Princess Diana wore at her wedding. 


Our collections are full of wedding dress fashions from around the world. Soon we will have a day of Twitter images dedicated to wedding dresses. 


So what do you think Kate's dress will look like? Will you be watching the royal wedding?

Today we are celebrating our 100th blog post! We hope that you have enjoyed reading our blogs and will continue to read them as we go. We want to keep providing you with interesting and useful information. To celebrate our 100th, we asked some of our coworkers what their favorite collections were, here is what they said. 

Alhambra

One person said they could get lost in our Casselman archive. The Casselman Archive of Islamic and Mudejar Architecture in Spain is a beautiful image collection containing over four thousand color slides and black and white photographs of medieval Spain taken by the late Eugene Casselman during his thirty years of travel throughout the Iberian peninsula. It is easy to see how you could get lost in this collection, the images are so detailed and interesting. 

"Blackbirds" - group of men and women on a fallen tree

Another collection, which many of you may recognize, got two votes for staff favorite, one of them being mine. The Kenosha County History collection is another well digitized image collection. The image collection is made up of the Dewey Lantern Slides and the Louis M. Theirs Glass Negatives. I highlight this collection quite a bit, but I can't help but love the great images of my hometown. This image is probably my favorite in the Kenosha History collection and arguably my favorite in our entire collection.  

Lastly, the Artists' Book collection was also mentioned as a favorite. This collection is a descriptive index to the Artists’ Book Collection, located in the Kohler Art Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The images in the collection provide a detailed looks at the books within the physical collection. The database indexes approximately 760 of those titles, over 500 of which have one to four images to visually represent the structure and/or content of the book. These books are very intricate and detailed. If you haven't yet, take a look and then visit the actual books over in the art library. 


I hope you enjoyed this post and will continue to read out posts. Do you have a favorite collection? Let us know! We'd love to hear from you. 

This past weekend the University of Wisconsin Varsity Band performed three concerts celebrating their 125th anniversary. The birthday celebration featured pyrotechnics, multimedia, special guests and surprises, all led by conductor Michael Leckrone. 


To commemorate this 125th birthday, we wanted to highlight some images of the Varsity band through the ages. On the left is the first known photograph of a University of Wisconsin-Madison band. The photo dates back to 1896. This band looks pretty small compared to the 300 person band we see at football games today. I wonder if they even had enough people to make a stable pyramid?

Here is a photo of Mike Leckrone directing the band in 1982. Leckrone has been the band director since 1968. I wonder if he knew how to 'Bucky' back then? 


Our UW Madison History collection is full of images of the band. There are images from football games, hockey games, images of the band in formation and standing on their heads. It is a great collection and anyone interested in the band should take a look.


For those that went to the concert this weekend, how was it? Do any of our images do justice to your experience? Let us know!

1975 Yearbook

Today is finally the day the new Union South opens.  At 11am, a large terrace chair will be moved from Memorial Union to the new Union South to symbolize the connecting of the two buildings and mark Union South as officially open to students, union members and their guests. There are events happening all day, and all weekend at the new union. For more information on events visit the Grand Opening website.

To help celebrate the opening of Union South, we thought we would take a trip down memory lane and look at the old Union South with the help of our Badger Yearbooks collection. The first Union South was opened in 1971 at the same spot the new union is now. Union South has always offered students a different atmosphere then Memorial Union, and this new one has many of the same features.

In the 1975 Badger Yearbook, they had this article on the two unions.  The article says Union South is especially for students "on the other side of campus" or for those who had classes past the railroad tracks. At this union students could play video games, pool, table tennis, go bowling and hang out at the Snack Bar.

1976 Yearbook

One tradition that always took place at Union South was Fasching. Fasching was the beer drinking festival that students looked forward to just before Ash Wednesday. Students could travel between both unions on buses to celebrate. There was polka music and lots of beer. Fasching brought lots of great entertainers to the union and the students were treated with free sauerkraut, brats and cheese.

This all sounds wonderfully Wisconsin to me. Maybe in the next few years we will see some of these traditions come back to the unions. For now, everyone should try and make it to some of the Union South Grand Opening celebrations.

Welcome, Union South, we cannot wait to make more memories with you.  

Yesterday was the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War. We've been tweeting Civil War related images all day and though it would be nice to highlight one collection in particular, the Wisconsin Goes to War: Our Civil War Experience collection. 


Wisconsin Goes to War is filled with first person stories and narratives from Wisconsin soldiers and citizens. The collection includes poems, letters, diaries and other written records that help us understand Wisconsin's part in the Civil War and how it effected us at home. 


Many of these items are hand written and were chosen based on subject matter and legibility. Many of them also include a typed transcription to help with research.


In the collection is a poem written by Jules Francois in March 1862 while in Camp Utly at Racine, Wisconsin. Here is an excerpt from the poem:


We come from the valleys of the young Badger State,
Where the prairies are so grand, so magnificent and great.
We have rallied round the banner of the brave and the free,
Around our own starry banner in Dillion's battery. 


The rest of the poem can be read in the collections. When you have time, take a look at some of the letters, they can help you get a real sense of Wisconsin's part in the Civil War. 

This week, the UWDC and libraries all over the country are celebrating National Library Week 2011. We are celebrating by highlighting some library gems in our collections. 


This image on the left is from our History of UW-La Crosse collection. Students and faculty worked “all day and into the evening” Feb. 4, 1957 for operation book lift. They carried books from the library in Graff Main Hall to the university’s new library, the Florence Wing Library, named for the school’s first librarian.

This image on the right is from the Kenosha County History collection.  The image takes place in Library Park and the large building in the back is Simmons Library.  I remember visiting this library for the first time when I was little, it was beautiful. This image was taken on the day the monument was unveiled. 


Do we have any images of libraries that you want to celebrate this week? Let us know and we will highlight them for you!


Also, we are tweeting libraries all day! If you aren't already, follow us @UwDigiCollec.

As everyone may know by now, tomorrow is the election in the state of Wisconsin for Supreme Court. We thought we would highlight this event with a little history information about the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 


Our Wisconsin Blue Books collection  remains the primary one-volume reference source about the state, documenting the organization of the state’s three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial). Our collection dates back to 1853 and includes all sorts of information on Wisconsin government. 


This image on the left is from the 1907 Blue Book. It has sketches of the Supreme Court Judges.  


If you search "Supreme Court" in the collection you will find tons of sketches and interesting information. Take a look and see what you can find.  

This collection is little known but is a great for anyone who enjoys reading Vogue or any other women's magazine of today. The Peterson's Ladies National Magazine collection contains two magazine's from 1865 and 1867.

These magazines are extremely interesting and document stories and fashions of the time. This image on the left is from the 1865 magazine and talks about the latest fashion from Paris, the Patti jacket. The article talks about how this fashion came to be, how it is made and the different styles it comes in.  There are reviews on books and other culture references.

This is a great collection for a day like today when the weather is terrible and you just want to lay around and look at something interesting.  This is a bit of a hidden collection but take a look and you will be surprised at the material that people were talking about in the 1860s.

On Wednesday, LSTA, the WI Library Services and Technology Act, will grant 5 libraries funding for projects. These libraries include the Kenosha Public Library, Indianhead Federated Library System, Hedberg Pubic Library, Eastern Shores Library System and New Glarus Public Library.  We want to say congratulations to these libraries!

In the past, we have worked with three of these libraries on digitizing their content. One collection that you may recognize is the Kenosha County History Collection. This collection contains texts that depict the early European-American settlement in Kenosha and a great image collection. The family albums in the collection are two of the most well-preserved documents created by L. M. Thiers. Handwritten photograph captions and detailed descriptions make them the most personal works featured in this collection. 


We have also worked with Indianhead Federated Library System on the Chippewa, Dunn, Eau Claire, Pepin, St. Croix, and Rusk Counties: Local History Collection. The Indianhead Federated Library System is comprised of 53 member public libraries in West-Central and Northwestern Wisconsin. The collection’s texts are comprised of community records, local history narratives, retrospectives, and high school yearbooks. The collection’s images include street scenes, historical buildings, notable people, and important events.


Lastly, we worked with Hedberg Public Library on our Janesville's Past Collection. This is an excellent image collection, which also includes city and County directories, providing researchers information for both the 19th and 20th centuries.


These are all great collections and are widely viewed and appreciated.  We are excited to see what new projects all of the grant winners will be working on this year. 

This week has been pretty stressful and to easy the tension I thought I would blog about something fun, crazy hats.  Hats are awesome, and at some point in your life you will either want to or have to wear a crazy hat. So let's have a little laugh this friday, and look at some crazy hat pictures.  


Now this image at the left does not really have a crazy hat in it, but come on, a dog in a hat is crazy. This picture just makes me less tense just looking at it.  



This hat on the right, is amazing.  If I could find a hat like that I would definitely wear it. Can you guess what this hat is a uniform for?


And then there is this picture of the crazy hat store! Oh wait, these are “Royce” brand women’s hats at the Henderson-Hoyt department store in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The display includes more than a dozen hats! 


This woman on the right has the kind of crazy hats I want to wear. I wonder if she bought this hat at the store in the previous picture? 


All of these hats have made my day a little more fun.  Do you have any favorite images of crazy hats in our collection? Or maybe a fun story about your favorite crazy hat?


I hope everyone goes out and has a great weekend.

Yesterday we tweeted images from one of our new collections, the School of Library and Information Studies Teaching Slides Collection. This collection brings together unique and valuable teaching materials from University of Wisconsin staff and faculty. This collection hopes to aid in scholarship and study of these materials and disciplines.  

Our Twitter and Facebook fans enjoyed seeing parts of this collection and we learned some fun facts about the content.


Fun Fact #1: The image on the left is from the book Der Struwwelpeter, which also happens to be the book Dwight reads to the children in The Office episode, Take your Daughter to Work Day. 


Fun Fact #2: We also learned that one of our Facebook friends was given this book while they lived in Germany to learn the language!


This collection is very interesting and different then a lot of other materials we have throughout our collections.  Did you see anything yesterday or in the collection that you thought was particularly interesting or had a fun fact you want to share? 

Welcome back to all of the UW-Madison students who went away for spring break.  I hope you all got reenergized for this last push until summer.  But, while you were laying on the beach or laying on your couch at home, the women's hockey team was winning championships.

The Wisconsin women's hockey team won its fourth national championship in the past six years yesterday. They beat Boston University, 4-1, to win the title.  You can find more information about the game and the players in this article on the athletic website.

This article is from the 2000 Badger Yearbook.  It highlights the first time the women's hockey team took the ice at UW-Madison. There were nearly 4,000 fans in attendance at that game including the Govenor and Olympic Gold Medalists Cammie Granato and Karen Bye.


We also have the athletic media guide for this inaugural season.  Our UW-Madison Athletic Department Collection has media guides for almost all of the seasons.

We just wanted to say congratulations to the women's hockey team, and thanks for a great season and many seasons past.

And to all of the students out there, stay focused we're almost done!

This weekend will be filled with students commuting somewhere for spring break.  Campus will be quiet for a while, but I bet you can find students using all means of transportation to get to their final destination.

Maybe you are one of the lucky going somewhere warm for break.  Laying on the beach or and relaxing sounds great, but I hope you booked a larger airplane then this one.

Maybe you are a student participating in an alternative break.  Building houses and helping people sounds like a great way to spend your time.  How are you commuting, maybe a train like this one?

Or maybe you are a student like me, heading home to unwind from a long week of finals and papers. You might live far away and be taking a plane or a train like the ones pictured, but I will be taking a bus to good 'ol Kenosha.

Whatever your plans are I hope your transportation goes smoothy and you have a relaxing break.

See all of you back on campus soon.

Our University of Wisconsin Collection is still growing.  Today I thought I'd highlight the newest collection. The History of UW-La Crosse is a great image collection showing the evolution of this campus.  

You can search the collection for information or browse the images by subject: athletics, buildings, daily life, events, landscape, music, people and traditions. 

The image on the left is from the athletic section.  It shows cheerleaders on the UW-La Crosse campus circa 1980s. There are a ton of great sports images in this collection.  

The image on the right is from the traditions section.  The image shows the homecoming hanging of the lantern tradition. The "Hanging of the Lantern" tradition began over the south entrance to Graff Main Hall at the suggestion of English teacher Orris O. White who said, "We'll hang the lantern in the old college tower...You won't need to look for the key - the door will be open."

The images in this collection are great.  We highlighted a few on Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday, do you have any favorites? Let us know!

One of our Facebook Fans requested we highlight our Publishers' Bindings Online collection. This collection is a partnership between us and The University of Alabama, University Libraries. The collection contains decorative bindings, along with a comprehensive glossary and guide to the elements of these objects.  This collection hopes to bring greater awareness to the cultural and historical significance of books.

The collection brings together 5,000 decorative bindings from two collections in one place.  This project increases the awareness of the general public about the importance of publishers' bindings as reflections of historical events, art movements, and the evolution of commercial binderies.This resource will encourage people to look at their own books, and to gain an understanding of design movements and trends both within the United States as well as in Europe. 

The book shown on the left is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The book dates back to 1899, and the binding is signed by Margaret Armstrong. The book is covered with white checkerboard grain cloth with gold, red, orange and green stamping on the front and spine. The endpapers are printed with brown goblet, pipe and pitcher pattern.  

The book on the right is a book of poems by Emily Dickinson. The book is bound with Half white leather with black and tan floral printed paper sides. It also has gold stamping on front and back. The endpapers are printed with black floral pattern. 

For those interested in books or material culture this is a great collection for you.  But for those who may find a book at grandma's house with beautiful binding, take a look at this collection, you may learn something about that book.

Desk and Bookcase, ca. 1750

On Monday, I asked our Facebook Fans what collections they would like to hear more about or share with other users.  We had a couple people mention our Decorative Arts collection, so today I will share with you more information about, in particular, our Chipstone Collection.  


The Chipstone Collection contains more then 1,250 digitized images of beautiful ceramics, furniture and prints dating from the 17th to early 19th century.  The objects belong to the Chipstone Foundation, which was created in 1965 in part to preserve and interpret the decorative arts collections of Stanley and Polly Stone of Fox Point, Wisconsin. 


This image on the left is a beautiful piece of furniture found in the collection.  This desk and bookcase dates back to the 1750s and is attributed to John Welch.  This piece is made of mahogany and is intricately carved with great detail. 


This piece on the right is part of the ceramics collection. This harvest jug also dates back to the 1750s and is attributed to John Hockin. The jug is pale red-brown earthenware and is extremely detailed.  The piece has a unicorn and a lion holding the Royal Arms with the initials GR for George II.  Also below the handle the rhyme:

Harvest Jug, 1748

now I am come for

to Supply your workmen when

in harvest dry when they do

Labour hard and Sweat good drink

is better fare then meat also

in winter when tis cold I like

wise then good drink can

hold both Seasons do the

Same require also most

men do good drink desire

John Hockin

1748 

This collection is great for furniture enthusiasts and just people who appreciate great craftsmanship.  The collection also has prints that show views of Boston and other U.S. cities during the 1700s. 

The Chipstone Collection is only one part of our Decorative Arts Collection.  Dig around a little and you never know what you could find. Let us know what you think!

Dempsey Hall, 1930s-1940s

Our University of Wisconsin collection has such great images we love highlighting them.  Today I'm going to focus on one of our newer collections. The History of UW-Oshkosh collection documents the evolution of this campus over time.  This collection is still evolving and includes published materials, books, images, recordings and other archival materials. 


The collection has great images of buildings, students and activities on campus.   The image on the left is of Dempsey Hall taken in the 1930s-1940s.  Today Dempsey Hall is the oldest building on campus. 

Female Students at Dempsey Hall

But this collection is not just old shots of buildings, it also has some quirky shots of students. This image on the right shows three female students standing on a light post in front of Dempsey Hall in 1932.  


This collection has tons of interesting images. From giant elephant decorations in the front yards of houses, to cheerleaders striking a pose and images of students taken all over campus, this collection is just fun to look at.  


Take moment out of your busy day and check out this collection. 

Lagoon in Tenney Park

At this point in winter, I am starting to think about how excited I am for summer to come so I can spend some lazy summer days in Madison's beautiful parks.  But I've never thought about how those parks came to be. Recently we went live with a collection dedicated to the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association, these are the people who helped create the parks we have today.

Maple Bluff, Farewell Drive

The Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association Reports and Related Materials collection provides accessibility to early information about the City of Madison around the turn of the 20th century.  The reports detail money coming in and going out and work done on various parks and pleasure drives. The drives and parks that this group helped create are an integral part of our Madison community. 


During the turn of the 20th century, the Madison Park and Pleasure Drive Association wanted to attract attention to this cities beautiful lakes. They wanted to make Madison a popular place for summer vacation homes and visitors. 


If you've ever wondered how our parks and pleasure drives were constructed take a look at this new collection.  And cross your fingers that we will be able to enjoy our Madison parks soon. 

The whole nation is watching the protests going on at the capitol right now. Here at the UWDC office we wanted to share some history of protests on the UW campus.  

Have any of you been apart of past protests on campus.  Our UW-Madison History collection contains tons of images from protests and other events on campus, but on our Flikr we have highlighted the protest images into one easy to view collection.    

Take a look at our Protest at UW-Madison set on Flickr and maybe you could learn a little more about the history of protests on campus.  

Love Rock, Wisconsin Dells

As I'm sure we all know, today is Valentine's Day.  We want to celebrate by highlighting everything love related in our collections.

First lets start with this image of Love Rock in the Wisconsin Dells. The image was taken in 1908, and is part of our Brittingham Lantern Slides Collection.  I couldn't find any information out about this Love Rock or the history behind it but maybe you know the story. Care to share with us?

I Love Her Just the Same

Maybe for Valentine's Day some of you sang a song, wrote a song, made a mix tape or used music in some way to make the day romantic. Well did you use this song? I Love Her Just the Same is a song from 1896 found in our Wisconsin Sheet Music Database.  The chorus starts off: I love her, yes I love her just the same. If you didn't add this to your music selection, you might want to think about it.

Crown Imperial

Or some of you may have received flowers from your significant other. Were they as pretty as these? These flowers are from our Bowles's Florist book in the Decorative Arts collection.  The book contains images of flowers with instructions on how to draw and color them according to nature. The flowers are beautiful maybe you can find the ones you received in this book.

Today is really just about celebrating love.  So take a moment to celebrate who you love or what you love.

Well for all of you evolution lovers, it is that time of year again, Darwin Day! The UW will hold its 6th annual Darwin Day Celebration from February 10-12. This year the UW has planned lectures, films, and family-friendly activities to celebrate evolution.  So for any of you that love Darwin come out and join in on the activities. 


For Darwin Day we wanted to share our Galapagos Collection. This collection documents the University of Wisconsin Madison Zoological Museum's expeditions to the Galapagos islands. Since 1978, UWZM has been one of only 3 museums granted permission by the Ecuadorian Government to collect, preserve, transport, and maintain scientific anatomical specimens from the Galápagos Islands.


This collection contains interesting materials for any Darwin fan.  Take a peek and let us know what you think!

Today I wanted to share another new collection with you. The Badger Village Collection is the third collection in the UW-Madison Campus Voices series. Badger Village was a housing community for married student veterans and their families located in Baraboo, Wisconsin from 1946 to 1951. The collection consists of excerpts from interviews with UW residence staff, administration, and student veterans and their wives who lived at Badger Village.

Along with the audio recordings, the UW-Madison Collection also contains images of the village and many images of the students living there.  


Take a listen to some of the interviews while looking at the image collection.  You will learn about a little slice in UW Madison's student history. 


Let us know what you think!