News

TARC is excited to announce the debut of a new exhibit highlighting the work of the Slavery, Colonialism & Their Legacies Project at Tufts University, Deep Roots at Tufts. Currently on view on the main floor of Tisch Library, the exhibit highlights the lives and little-known stories of some of the earliest students of color at Tufts. 

As we begin 2024 we at the Tufts Archival Research Center (TARC) are excited about our partnership in  the Slavery, Colonialism, and their Legacies at Tufts University (SCL) initiative. The SCL initiative is a university-wide collaborative effort that seeks to employ interdisciplinary research, public programming, and community partnerships to uncover the history of slavery and colonialism within and beyond Tufts. In addition to the Tufts Archival Research Center, SCL is sponsored by the Center for the Humanities at Tufts, the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, and the Office of the Provost. 

TARC is excited to announce that the online companion to our new exhibit, The Charge and the Challenge: Tufts Presidents from Ballou to Kumar, is now live. The physical exhibit is located at the Tisch Library main entrance and around the corner in Dranetz Tower. The online exhibit expands on the information offered in the physical exhibit, diving a little deeper into each president’s work and showcasing a wider array of photographs and papers. Visit exhibits.tufts.edu/spotlight/tufts-presidents to learn more!

Please join us October 6, 2023, from 4-6 pm for the opening of our new exhibit in celebration of the inauguration of President Sunil Kumar.

Title: The Charge and the Challenge: Tufts Presidents from Ballou to Kumar 

Description: Thirteen presidents have celebrated their installations on the hill since the founding of Tufts College. As the Tufts community prepares to inaugurate the University's fourteenth president, Sunil Kumar, this exhibit offers a glimpse at each president and a survey of the highlights and major events of their tenures. The exhibit opens with a welcome to President Kumar then moves back through time all the way to Tufts' first president, Rev. Hosea Ballou, 2d.

Following President Kumar's inauguration ceremony archivists will be on hand to discuss exhibit highlights and present an additional selection of presidential artifacts, from the Tufts Charter to Jumbo's Tail. All are welcome to drop in at anytime between 4 pm and 6 pm on October 6th. 

We are pleased to announce that the archives of the reSentencing journal are now available for research at the Tufts Archival Research Center. The journal, a project of the Tufts University Prison Initiative of the Tisch College of Civic Life (TUPIT), was published in 2022, and contains 150 stories, poems, essays, photographs, artworks, and letters created by people across the country impacted by the prison system. The archival collection includes nearly 700 submissions that could not be included in the published journal due to space constraints.

We in Digital Collections and Archives are very excited to announce that the name of our department will be changing to Tufts Archival Research Center (TARC) in early 2023. Our website as well as related sites, such as Archives at Tufts, TASCR, Newspapers at Tufts, and Exhibits at Tufts will all reflect this change starting on January 4, 2022.

There is something very unique about learning about history through archival research. Most of the information I was handling while researching for the Leading While Black symposium was obtained from archival primary sources. Thus, the picture came together not through reading coherent histories about our honorees, but rather through observing photographs of the honorees in action, listening to oral histories and audio cassette recordings, as well as reading their archived meeting minutes and their extensive curricula vitae. In contrast to how it would feel to just read biographies of these honorees, which would feel more like being told a story, archival research allowed me to feel like I was back in the ‘50s, ‘60s, or ‘70s, perhaps sitting in a room with fellow Tufts undergraduates, listening to Dr. Harleston address the university’s current issues at hand with such honesty and humor.

We at DCA have been very pleased to participate in Leading While Black at Tufts, an initiative that illuminates the long-standing presence and contributions of Black university leaders at Tufts to governance, institutional decision-making, and community leadership.

DCA is excited to announce Newspapers @ Tufts: a new portal for browsing, searching, and reading Tufts University student newspapers.

Are you a member of a student organization? Do you want to preserve your organization’s history with Digital Collections and Archives?

Join us for our virtual Archives Drop-Off Day on Thursday, December 17 from 11:00-1:00!

Three collections of student literary and art magazines held by Digital Collections and Archives have been digitized and are fully available online! The magazines, S.A.L.A.A.M, Onyx, and Voices, offer a rich and diverse array of various forms of creative expression from three different communities.

We were saddened to learn of the passing of Dan Coleman (A73) and George Cox (A70), last week. Dan Coleman and George Cox were leaders of the Tufts Afro-American Society and Students Concerned Against Racism, and led protests against discriminatory hiring practices of a construction company working on the Tufts campus. We are grateful to Dan and George, as well as to Charles Yancy (A70) and Phil Primack (A70), for participating in oral history interviews last year prior to the 50th anniversary of their occupation of the construction site. Phil and Charles reflect on George and Dan below.

Elizabeth Lord was a student of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in the early 1920s, when the bookplate craze was at a fever pitch. Recently transferred with the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Records to Tufts Digital Collections and Archives, Lord’s bookplates are excellent examples of the beauty and whimsy of this lost art.

We at Tufts Digital Collections and Archives are delighted to announce a new partnership with the Medford Historical Society and Museum to protect, preserve, and improve access to a treasured collection of thousands of Civil War photographs. A detailed story about the partnership and history of the collections is available from Tufts Now. 

These photographs were brought to the archives in late February 2020. They can be viewed in person in the DCA Reading Room during open hours when our normal schedule resumes and have also been fully digitized and made available for online use through Digital Commonwealth.  

Your stories, together with University records and web archives collected by our staff, will help to create a fuller picture of the Tufts community in these historic times. Please visit our webpage for more details about ways to participate.

Update – Digital Exhibit Now Online!

As of spring 2020, the physical exhibit Zella Luria: Leading the Charge has also been converted into a digital exhibit bearing the same title. The online exhibit includes digital versions of the materials showcased in the physical exhibit along with additional content, including photos of Professor Luria and more documents related to her teaching, research, and activism.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the height of the Lewis Hall protests at Tufts, one of the community's most significant and effective protests against institutional and societal racism, which was led by the Afro-American Society.

Digital Collections and Archives recently received approximately 180 boxes and items (160 linear feet) of records from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, documenting the nearly 150-year history of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA). The records date as far back as 1888 and run up until 2016, when the SMFA began a new formal partnership with Tufts University.

As you may have noticed, we have a new website. 

Have opinions about our change? If you need help finding information, please contact us. If you'd like to offer feedback about the new site, we'd love to hear it. Please use our feedback form.

We are very pleased to announce that the Alpha Omicron Pi Records are available for research at Digital Collections and Archives. The Alpha Omicron Pi Records are a wonderful resource for those interested in the history of the Delta chapter at Tufts, the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority, and Greek life at Tufts. The records also document the experiences of cis and transgender women involved with sororities, and provide a lens through which to view many social issues of the day and student responses to them.

Tufts Digital Collections and Archives is excited to announce the availability of a new collection of The Crisis Magazine. The collection was donated in September of 2018 and includes a large selection of issues from The Crisis Magazine, dating from December 1929 to May/June 2002. The Crisis is a publication focused on African American civil rights, history, politics, and culture, and whose mission has been to pursue "the world-old dream of human brotherhood" by bearing witness to "the danger of race prejudice" and reporting on "the great problem of inter-racial relations."

Archives and Special Collections are sometimes described as mysterious or even “hidden.” In DCA we’ve been working to make information about our collections known and accessible through our outreach efforts, exhibits, and work with faculty and students in classes. Our collections management team has also been working to gather information about the material in our care through a multi-year collection assessment survey that addressed every manuscript and university archives collection at DCA.
 

Digital Collections and Archives has a new display in the entrance to Tisch Library’s ground floor: the Berger Exhibit Case. Dr. Samuel Harry Berger (1948-2009) graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine in 1973 before beginning an accomplished career as a pediatrician. Because of the strong...

Digital Collections and Archives is pleased to announce a new exhibit in the lobby of Tisch Library here on the Medford Campus, drawn from our newly accessioned student protest posters collection. Recent Archival Find In April 2018, Digital Collections and Archives (DCA) was contacted by two...

We are excited and pleased to announce the availability of a new online exhibit from DCA and the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy! Screenshot of the Tufts Black Freedom Trail walking tour online exhibit This exhibit, built on the work of the late Professor Gerald R. Gill, documents and...

As the campus office charged with collecting and preserving Tufts history, Tufts Digital Collections and Archives is seeking to partner with student groups to document their activities. We accept records in about as many formats as you can imagine, including digital materials. We are especially...

“Although individual black alumni of Tufts have been duly recognized for their on-campus accomplishments, the overall experiences of black students, past and present, have largely remained unrecorded. This exhibit seeks to highlight the experiences of black students at Tufts over the course of the...

Our staff at Digital Collections and Archives was very pleased to participate in the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy’s symposium “ The Past Present and Future of Black and Native Boston,” which took place March 31st in Breed Memorial Hall. DCA staff provided support for students...

Gerald R. Gill was a beloved faculty member in the History Department of Tufts University from 1980 to 2007. In those twenty-seven years he had a profound and lasting impact on the lives of his students and the Tufts community as a whole. This past fall Digital Collections and Archives accessioned...

By Steven Gentry Digital Collections and Archives (DCA) unveiled our newest exhibit this fall: “Tufts Traditions: Then and Now.” Found in the two glass cases near the Tower Café, “Tufts Traditions: Then and Now” highlights some of the many traditions practiced by Tufts students over the years—from...

By Stefana Breitwieser Here at Tufts DCA, we’ve recently installed our Fall 2016 Exhibit, Tufts Traditions: Then and Now . It showcases a number of student traditions over Tufts’ history, including many that are no longer practiced on campus today. We had a lot of traditions to choose from, and we...

By Katie Anderson This summer, the Class of 1991 returns to the Tufts campus 25 years after their graduation. This exhibit, “The World According to Tufts,” aims to capture some of the elements that shaped student experiences. Some obvious parallels emerged between this class and the other two...

By Sally Meyer Located in the hallway leading to the Tower Café is a new exhibit related to this spring’s class reunions. The Class of 1966 is celebrating 50 years, the Class of 1991 celebrates 25 years, and the Class of 2006 celebrates ten years since graduation. Identifying events and objects...

By Dan Bullman and Rose Oliveira Lois Gibbs founded The Center for Health, Environment, and Justice (CHEJ) as the Citizens Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes (CCHW) in 1981. Though it began as an information clearinghouse for environmental health issues, its scope has since expanded into other...

Rubin Carter in a boxing promo picture, circa 1950s-1960s. Rubin "Hurricane" Carter papers, MS226.006.013.00003. We are very pleased to announce that the Rubin “Hurricane” Carter papers are now available for research at Digital Collections and Archives. Rubin Carter (1937-2014) was a professional...

We are very pleased to announce that the Rubin "Hurricane" Carter papers are now available for research at Digital Collections and Archives. An official University press release is below and we'll be posting more about the collection soon. In the meantime, please contact us with any questions. Rubin...

In the last few years, it has become the norm for archival repositories to accept hybrid collections – that is, collections that have both paper and digital records. The digital records may come in on legacy media such as floppy disks or zip disks, in the form of a network transfer from...

A new Digital Collections and Archives exhibit, “Jumbos in Protest: Student Activism at Tufts, 1965-2015,” is now on display on the second floor of the Tisch Library, near the entrance of the Tower Café. This exhibit of materials from DCA’s collections highlights a variety of student movements that...

Today marks four decades since the end of the Vietnam War, a conflict in which left approximately 3.1 million Vietnamese and over 58,000 American soldiers dead.[1] The war made an impact on our entire nation and the Tufts community was no exception to this. This article will provide an overview of...

If you read Jill Lepore’s recent article on Wonder Woman in The New Yorker, "The Last Amazon," it is very possible that a passage about Tufts caught your eye. On page 67 of the article, Lepore, a Tufts alum and recent honorary doctorate recipient, makes a brief mention of a curious and long since...

The Digital Collections and Archives and the Tisch Library are pleased to welcome Samantha (Sam) DeWitt to Tufts University as a National Digital Stewardship Resident. Sam comes to us as a nine-month resident through the National Digital Stewardship Residency (NDSR) program in Boston. The program is...

Have you read "Stokely: a life" the new biography written by Tufts History professor Peniel Joseph? Want to learn more about this era and get to know Stokely Carmichael through his speeches? Come visit the DCA. Here at the DCA we have audio recordings of the three lectures Stokely Carmichael gave at...

The Digital Collections and Archives is happy to welcome Dan Santamaria as our new Director and University Archivist. Dan began working at Tufts on September 2. Dan comes to us from Princeton University where he was the Assistant University Archivist for Technical Services at the Seeley G. Mudd...

The Digital Collections and Archives is happy to welcome Kendra Ciccone, who started at the DCA on August 18 as a term Processing Archivist. She will be spending most of her time working on the records of the Institute for Global Leadership and the Center for Health, Environment & Justice. Kendra...

DCA’s fall exhibit, From the Deck to Downtown: Commemorating 120 Years of the Boston Floating Hospital is now on display in Tisch Library (located near the entrance to Tower Café). The exhibit features photographs, publications and the original charter of incorporation from two recent DCA...

Susanne Belovari, Archivist for Reference and Collections in the Digital Collections and Archives, is leaving Tufts on August 20 to accept a position at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagn. Susanne will serve as Archivist for Faculty Papers, a tenure-track librarian/archivist position...

Tufts DCA is proud to welcome a new addition to our office: the Samuel Berger Exhibit Case! Generously donated by the Berger family, the case will display items from the Samuel Berger Tufts Memorabilia Collection (MS159) on a rotating basis. Dr. Samuel Harry Berger (1948-2009) graduated from Tufts...

There will be a lot written and said about Terry Cook following his passing yesterday. He was a Canadian archivist whose theories of appraisal have shaped archival theory. I suspect that his archival legacy will focus on his many contributions to the field. But while I deeply admire his writing and...

The annual Murrow Forum is one of the highlights of the year for the Digital Collections and Archives because it holds the two largest Murrow related archival collections in the world: the Edward R. Murrow Papers and the recently donated and now digitized Janet Brewster Murrow and Edward R. Murrow...

On Monday, I left the DCA office for the last time, ending 10 years as director, 16 years in the archives, and 20 years working for Tufts University. It's hard to know how to process leaving a place after so long, but after a few days to reflect, I know there are a couple of things I will really...

Here at the DCA we manage a lot of material. We have images, folders of documents, ground breaking shovels and other three dimensional objects, digital files, books, and A/V material. In order to manage the material effectively, we need a system that helps us identify, describe, and locate it all...

Many of us did not know that Tufts had a beautiful small bronze by Rodin. In fact very little was generally known about the sculpture except its plaque reads "Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Carl J. Gilbert-Brought from the Rodin Atelier by Mrs. Abigail Adams Homans, mother of Mrs. Carl J. Gilbert.” Laura...

Today is my last day at Tufts DCA, and I keep dwelling on all the things I love about this place. There's what I I love about Tufts University; today on my way into work, as I walked past the straw bales they put against trees so local kids sledding down the hill won't hurt themselves, I thought...

We are pleased to welcome Liz Francis to DCA, who has joined us in a term appointment in the Records Archivist position. She has already become a key contributor to the archives team. I asked Liz to write a little something to introduce herself here. Stop by and say hello if you're in Tisch. Welcome...

The 2014 Reunion Classes Exhibit, now on display in Tisch Library (in the cases located near the entrance to the Tower Cafe), highlights the classes of 2004, 1989, 1979, 1964, 1939, and 1914. The exhibit commemorates Tufts alumni through photographs, news clippings, and ephemera selected from the...

Here at DCA, we receive a number of reference requests relating to Tufts graduates who have gone on to do amazing things. For some of these graduates, their career trajectories must have been easy to predict from the time they came to the hill. Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria, both noted actors...

New England Medical Center model and poster, ca. 1950 DCA is pleased to announce that as of July 2013, it is preserving the historical New England Medical Center (NEMC) Archives for the Tufts Medical Center located in Boston, MA. Please take a look at our new featured collection page for the...

[Guest post by intrepid student worker Tim Walsh] Stop by the DCA display cases in Tisch Library (located near the entrance to Tower Café) and check out the new fall exhibit: Jester Hairston, A29: He and His Talents Prevailed. The exhibit, which includes photographs, correspondence, news clippings...

As Douglas Adams said, "I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be." While anyone who knows me will attest that this quote certainly applies to my personal lack of direction, especially when driving, it also applies to my career path. I left college with a...

Did you know that the Digital Collections and Archives holds the oral history recordings and transcripts of the West Medford African-American Remembrance Project? These oral histories were created conducted under the supervision of Tufts Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Associate Professor...

There will be two events at the Society of American Archivist annual meeting in New Orleans about the Tufts University Digital Collections and Archives LiAM grant project on linked archival metadata. Research Forum Presentation Anne Sauer will give a 15 minute presentation on LiAM at the Research...

Last week, while others were worrying about Sharknado, I was worrying about how we were going to preserve all the Sharknado tweets, memes, and news references. Perhaps not that exactly. But in between homages to Anne of Green Gables, I was engaged in numerous discussions about how archivists should...

The Digital Collections and Archives will be offering two in-person training classes on managing institutional data and records on the Boston campus. To sign up for these classes send an RSVP to Eliot Wilczek (eliot.wilczek@tufts.edu). Both classes have an enrollment limit of 20 people. July 23, 12...

April 28, 2013 marked the 75th Anniversary of the Quabbin Reservoir and the flooding of the four town that now lay at its bottom: Dana, Enfield, Greenwich, and Prescott. However, through the A New Nation Votes project, we have access to a piece of the history from these towns - their voting records...

June 9, 2013 is The International Archives Day. Exhibitions, conferences, visits, debates and other events will be organized by the International Council of Archives. and many archives and archivists across the globe to promote archives and the archives profession. The Universal Declaration of...

The latest issue of the Journal of the Early Republic is composed of articles written using data found in the voting records which comprise the A New Nation Votes project. The opening article by Caroline F. Sloat provides a succinct introduction to the history of the project and to Phil Lampi, the...

We all deal with a lot of paper and electronic records and data in our work at Tufts. Some stuff we can throw away quickly and some stuff we have to keep for a long time. One of the challenges we all face is figuring out where to put this stuff. There are a wide range of places to store electronic...

Congratulations to Lois Gibbs and Phil Lampi on receiving honorary degrees during the Tufts University's 157th Commencement on May 19, 2013. Stephen Lester and Lois Gibbs from the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice with Philip Lampi from the American Antiquarian Society and Anne Sauer...

The DCA is pleased to announce that the finding aid for the papers of the Center for Health, Environment and Justice is now available. The Center for Health, Environment and Justice was founded in 1981 by Lois Marie Gibbs. The organization began as an information clearinghouse for environmental...

Tufts Technology Services and the Digital Collections Archives will be offering the following trainings about managing and protecting institutional data and records at Tufts: Tufts Technology Services is offering "Information Protection and Management," a half-hour webinar at 11:00am on the...

On Monday, May 6, 2013, the DCA held a special luncheon to celebrate our amazing student workers and the incredible amount of work they have completed this school year. And it was a truly astounding amount of work they accomplished. Here are a few stats: 403 new record cartons processed and sent off...

Tufts has organized a Edward R. Murrow Forum since 2006. The guest of this year's forum on “International Reporting in the 21st Century: Coverage, Context and Courage” was Christiane Amanpour, Chief International Correspondent, CNN Global Affairs Editor, ABC News. While Johnathan Tisch talked with...

The family history of Dr. H. Martin Deranian, whose papers are preserved at DCA as the Hagop Martin Deranian papers, 1931–2008, has been the topic of a recent article in Tufts Now. "Resilient Women" talks about Armenian women and the Armenian genocide, in particular the experiences of two women who...

The DCA staff was overjoyed to see the announcement that Philip Lampi and Lois Gibbs are among the 2013 recipients of honorary degrees. Both Phil and Lois are amazing people who are hugely deserving of this honor, and they are near and dear to all of us at DCA. Researcher Philip J. Lampi and project...

We are excited to announce that the papers of Ellen Lutz are processed, and a collection guide is now available in the Tufts Digital Library. Ellen Louise Lutz (1955-2010) devoted her life to the defense and advocacy of human rights as a prolific lawyer, teacher, writer, world traveler and activist...

With the crazy, gloomy weather today, it's hard to remember that it is spring and the Patriots' Day -- and the Boston Marathon -- are right around the corner. So in celebration, here are a few pictures of marathons past to get you in the spirit. Clarence DeMar, winner of the 1927 Boston Marathon, at...

Running a committee and need to distribute meeting agenda and documents to a lot of people from several Tufts schools and divisions? Working on a document with a group of Tufts colleagues across the University? Part of a project with people outside of Tufts that requires a lot of document sharing...

Prospectus for Linked Archival Metadata: A Guidebook Released Tufts University Digital Collections and Archives announces the release of a prospectus for Linked Archival Metadata: A Guidebook. The Guidebook is the primary deliverable of Tufts' IMLS-funded National Leadership Grant planning project...

When Edward R. Murrow and William Shirer reported from Vienna, Austria, and London about Hitler's March into Austria on March 12th, 13th and 14th of 1938, they began a type of news round up for CBS that eventually would turn into the CBS World News Roundup. This week, CBS Evening News celebrated the...

There is a unique personal letter in our archives from 1905 which covers two amazing aspects of life at Tufts at the time. Forrest Herbert Bolton wrote a letter to his friend Flossie [full name unknown] in December of that year. In his letter he reported two incidents without commenting on any...

DCA is pleased to announce it has recently signed a donor agreement with the Cambridge based organization, Cultural Survival, to preserve its historical records. Cultural Survival (CS) was founded in 1972 to assist indigenous peoples across their globe in ‘struggles for human rights, sovereignty...

The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs is now freely available online. This twice-yearly student publication was founded in 1975. It publishes articles, essays, and book reviews on legal, political, economic and diplomatic aspects of international affairs. Thanks to the new digital library interface...

On February 5, 2013 the Jumble posted a clip of the Beelzebubs from the early 1980s. This seemed like a good opportunity to highlight some of the 'Bubs materials we hold in the DCA. For example, we have quite a few pictures, some of which are available on the Tufts Digital Library. Also, if you come...

We all hope and expect that our personal data we must share in the course of our daily lives will be protected by those that we trust with that information--be that financial information we give to banks and lenders, credit card numbers we turn over to stores, health information we share with our...

Each spring, DCA features an exhibit highlighting the year's reunion classes and the 2013 exhibit is now up in the Tisch Library's display cases located near the Tower Cafe. The larger display case features images and objects from the 60th reunion (1953) to the 5th (2008). This includes items that...

Digital Collections and Archives, in conjunction with UIT Educational & Scholarly Technology Services, is pleased to announce the launch of our new interface for the Tufts Digital Library. Our new interface is built entirely on FLOSS (Free, Libre, and Open Source Software). The underlying data...

So I was planning to do a post about Dr. Robert L. Nichols, but I think that will have to wait for another day. Today I think stop for a moment and think about how wonderful children are and how they need our love and protection. So here are some photos from the Tufts Digital Library highlighting...

On this day when we remember the attack on Pearl Harbor, I thought I would share some images from the Tufts' Navy ROTC and V-12 memorabilia collection NROTC Visitors' day presentation, 1942 NROTC color presentation on Alumni Day Open door, 1869, from War game, December, 1943

As we near the end of one of the saddest side effect of our beloved democracy -- the every-four-years cycle of Americans thinking the worst of one another -- I found myself with the need to reassure myself about human nature. This I Believe was a radio program that Edward R Murrow hosted from 1951...

Sometimes in the course of our work at Tufts we will run into situations where we think, “We need a new policy.” or “We really need to update this policy.” How do we move from these thoughts to actually developing and implementing a policy? The DCA has some basic advice on how to do this. Not every...

Happy Open Access Week! This week we celebrate open access scholarship, and remember that it is time to set the default to Open Access. Our collection of open access scholarship in the Tufts Digital Library is small but growing, aided in a large part by our Provost's Open Access Fund. (This morning...

We are extremely pleased to announce that Erin Faulder has joined the DCA staff full time through June 2013! Erin has been a valued member of our student staff since May 2011, providing support for a host of reference and processing activities. We are thrilled that Erin is willing to step in to...

"American Archives Month is a collaborative effort by professional organizations and repositories around the nation to highlight the importance of records of enduring value. Archivists are professionals who assess, collect, organize, preserve, maintain control of, and provide access to information...

Last week was the Society of American Archivist's annual conference. This year it was held in sunny San Diego where the fish tacos are plentiful, the weather was not the promised balmy 75 degrees, and playing spot the archivist among the tourists in the Gaslamp quarter was far too easy. Several...

Sally Ride died a week ago, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. She was amazing not only for being the first American woman in space, but for her career after her retirement from NASA. She (among many other achievements) founded Sally Ride Science, an organization dedicated to motivating both...

The recent talk of the archive world is this article from the Atlantic. I know this because I was sent it by my colleagues here at Tufts and my colleagues at AAS. In essence, it points out that what people term "discoveries" aren't really discoveries. They're in the archives and have been preserved...

Nothing exciting today; I just felt like picspamming from the Tufts Digital Library. Smiling Girl Two Fletcher students laughing, 1975 A man and a woman laughing at Convocation, 1989 Open door, 1869, from Tom Brown's School Days Paul Richards as Joseph Garcin, Erica Goldstein as Estell Rigault, and...

Whoa, it has been a month since we last blogged. It's busy around here in archivesland! Trial of Queen Catherine, 1842 One of the many world events on our mind is the decision in the Georgia state e-reserves case. Of course e-reserves themselves are the purview of the library, not the DCA, and I...

The Collected Poems of John Holmes contain several poems about spring, but this one is particularly apropos: John Holmes, Summer 1960 Spring on the Hill (Audio) Spring on the Hill Spring on the Hill is sweeter far Than springs before or after are. The time will come, for time's old reason, When...

Tufts University has recently implemented its next generation Responsible Use Policy. University Information Technology recently announced the new Information Stewardship Policy and three supporting information policies. These policies will officially replace the Responsible Use Policy on May 7th...

One of key strategies for protecting personal information is ensuring that we are not unnecessarily keeping records with confidential or sensitive information. These are records that no longer have a business, legal, financial, or historical value and that should be destroyed. These records provide...

Interested in becoming our new Archivist for Digital Collections? The Archivist for Digital Collections (ADC) oversees the formulation, preparation, and management of digital objects and collections for the DCA with a particular focus on developing tools and workflows to maximize efficiency in...

Do you find some of the laws in your state odd? There are various lists out there of laws that are still on the books that seem ridiculous, not only for the present, but for any point in time. Personally, I love that Massachusetts still has a law that bans the use of tomatoes in clam chowder. But...

Tufts Professor of Philosophy Daniel Dennett has received the 2012 Erasmus Prize from the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation, joining the ranks of such luminaries as Mary Robinson, Simon Wiesenthal, Fatima Mernissi, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Marc Chagall. The foundation, when announcing Professor Dennett...

James Leach, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, presented Philip Lampi, the driving force and researcher behind the A New Nation Votes project, with a commendation "for scholarly perseverance and tireless research into election returns from the earliest decades of the American...

Did Tuesday's results in the Republican primary confuse you? As explained here, by the New York Times, the three elections on Tuesday didn't really award any delegates. Yet, that didn't stop people from voting in them (not a lot of people, as turnout was quite low, but thousands of people...

In the course of doing our work at Tufts, we create or receive a lot of records in paper and electronic form. Many of these records are drafts, copies, or other records that we will need to dispose of at some point. (See the general Records Retention Schedule for rules on how long to keep records...

You may be asking yourself, "why is DCA posting about the Poetry Society of America?" If you are asking that question, you don't know about Gustav Davidson. Davidson was executive secretary of the Poetry Society of America from 1949 to 1965, after which time he was elected executive secretary...

In an era where people claim we have lost all civility in politics, we look back at an era where civility in politics had a whole different meaning. Specifically, we can look at three specific elections in Virginia in 1817 and 1818. In the first one, the congressional race for the 8th district in...

Congratulations to our former intern Derek Mosely who the Black Caucus of the American Library Association just named an ALA Emerging Leader! We loved having Derek around and are proud to see the field recognizing him for his leadership skills. We wish you the best, Derek, as you bring the...

A young woman wearing a leather coat and a knitted cap, controlling an observatory telescope while looking through the eyepiece. It's hard to fight the perception that archives are filled with old things: dusty old elephant tails and black and white photographs. Now, old things can actually be great...

The Digital Collections and Archives is pleased to announce the completion of its TAPER Project (Tufts Accessioning Program for Electronic Records). During the project the DCA designed, developed, and implemented machine-readable submission agreements and records context records. The DCA fully...

To mark Open Access Week the Tufts University Libraries' Scholarly Communication Team has launched a website celebrating the recipients of our Provost's Open Access Fund. The fund has two components: the first, for publishing, funds scholars who choose to publish with author-pays open access; the...

The much anticipated instructional videos on using the Tufts University Submission Agreement Builder Tool (SABT) to make, submit, and finalize Transfer Agreement Forms (TAF) are finally available! They can be accessed through the DCA Channel on YouTube. Two of the videos are geared toward archivists...

Professor August Petermann Guest blog from Mae Humiston, one of our Tufts student employees. Below she reflects on her work on the Ryder collection which is now partially available through the Tufts Digital Library. Two months ago I was presented with a box of cartes-de-visite of 19 th century-era...

On September 11 2001, about 400 students and staff gathered at Tufts' Hillel to grieve, to spend the day together, or to talk about possible actions in the face of the attacks. Within a couple of hours students decided to create a Patches for Peace Quilt to provide a creative outlet and set a...

The Society of American Archivists held their annual conference in Chicago, IL from August 22 through August 27. Many of the DCA staff were able to attend this conference and presented on a variety of topics: Anne Sauer: Research Forum presentation (with Mary O. Murphy, Radcliffe Institute)...

The students are back! It's hard to talk about the past, when right now I'm so excited about what we are planning for the future here in the DCA. (Super secret hint: it's going to be AWESOME.) But I guess the incoming freshmen can be grateful they're no longer required to wear beanies. The rules...

Stop by the DCA display cases in Tisch Library (near the entrance to the Tower Café) and check out our recently-unveiled fall exhibits: Selections from the Atomic Veterans Collection and Whimsy in the Stacks: A glimpse into the mind of Myron J. Files. The exhibits highlight materials from two very...

It was my privilege to attend SHEAR (Society for the Historians of the Early American Republic) last month in Philadelphia. I gave a short presentation on the New Nation Votes project in conjunction with two papers that have made good use of our data. The first was from David Houpt, a graduate...

The Digital Collections and Archives is wrapping up a three-year National Historical Publications and Records Commission ( NHPRC) electronic records Program Expansion Project grant (RE10005-08) to support the Tufts Accessioning Program for Electronic Records (TAPER). A key component of the TAPER...

Okay, so it's actually the World Peace Foundation (WPF) that is returning to Tufts, to the Fletcher School to be precise. But the WPF has a long history with Tufts, and DCA has the records to prove it! For one thing, the WPF--which was originally called the International School of Peace--was founded...

So far, the New Nation Votes project has added name_id's to 23,869 candidates. This is the tip of the iceberg, as we have 17,685 candidates who do not yet have id's and some 20,000 pages of elections to enter yet. But, we can find some interesting information from what we have. John is by far the...

Special feature for Tufts Accessioning Program for Electronic Records (TAPER) from grant employee Betsy Sherman: I’ve been working on the TAPER project writing histories of Tufts’ departments, and in the course of my research developed a fondness for the young ladies of the Tufts “affiliates” of the...

Here at DCA, like most archives, we have tons of stuff. In fact, we have 7,000 linear feet of stuff on our shelves (that's almost two miles of documents, books, and photographs!) and 100,000 digital objects in our digital library. And it grows daily! Keeping track of all this stuff is one of the...

Anyone who has visited the Medford campus lately can't help but have seen the emphasis that is being placed on sustainable farming and the creation of green spaces. From the planters in front of the Tisch Library building right up to its roof garden, plants are sprouting. But did you know that the...

It was Tufts' Commencement this weekend (congratulations, graduates!), and that seems like as good an excuse as any to make a post about... Hats! Yes, despite all of the mortar boards, graduation has been a time where some attendees break out the fabulous headwear. There are plenty of images behind...

Smithsonian.com recently put out a contest where you can vote for who had the best facial hair of the Civil War. This light-hearted look at male grooming habits of 150 years ago got me thinking of all the crazy hair pictures DCA has in the Tufts Digital Library. However, a search for period...

DCA is pleased to welcome Aaron Rubinstein to the staff of Digital Collections and Archives. Aaron is our new Archivist for Digital Collections, and will be focusing on metadata management, digital object preparation and related workflows, and digital preservation activities. Aaron comes to Tufts...

This week we are taking a step back from highlighting our collections to highlight our local professional organization: New England Archivists (NEA). NEA is hosting their spring conference this weekend at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The program committee for this conference was...

We all know what accessibility means, right? It means designing physical spaces for wheelchairs and websites for screenreaders. Hmm. It's clearly nonsense when I say it like that, isn't it? We know that there are a multitude of different disabilities, and we need to design both our physical spaces...

The environmental and health consequences of radiation released after explosions at several Japanese reactors in Japan will be felt for generations to come in Japan, the region, and the globe. This photograph from May 1962 is probably from the Dominic I atomic tests on Christmas Island. It is part...

There is so much going on in the world right now it's hard for me to even process. It feels a little bit like back when the Berlin Wall fell, doesn't it? People in the streets, peacefully demanding their rights. Tufts students have a history of being willing to come out to support causes they care...

As is well known, Jumbo the Elephant is the mascot of Tufts University. Jumbo is as storied in death as he was in life. But it was in death that he ended up a little, shall we say, dispersed. The skeleton ended up at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The skin was on display in...

In looking at an old election today in Alabama ( this election for State Representative in Dallas County in 1820), I was trying to decide whether or not the listed polling places were towns or just polling places. Selma was easy. If you've never heard of Selma, Alabama then you desperately need to...

Between the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, I keep finding a lot of information to help me understand what's going on in Egypt right now. For example, the Fares Center put out an occasional paper, " The United States and the Middle East...

Casual viewers (as opposed to researchers) come to New Nation Votes looking for election information about a variety of people. For the most part they look for two types of people - either Presidential candidates in their earlier elections (such as James Madison, whose numerous electoral results can...

DCA has rolled out the first update to the Submission Agreement Builder Tool (a product of an NHRPC grant) and one major update is that the main form is now known as the Transfer Agreement Form. The other exciting news is that for the first time DCA is making available general guidelines on how we...

We are sorry to bid farewell to Jennifer Phillips, our fabulous Digital Collections Specialist. Jennifer has accepted a job doing metadata at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and they're lucky to have her. We wish you all the best, Jen!

Edward R. Murrow, Mary Marvin Breckinridge and William L. Shirer putting on ice skates in Amsterdam

Congratulations to Laura Uglean Jackson on her recent publication in the Winter 2010 American Archivist, " But You Promised: A Case Study of Deaccessioning at the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming" [pdf], by Laura Uglean Jackson and D. Claudia Thompson. Laura is a former DCA casual...

The news around campus today (and the Boston airways) is that Tufts has announced their new president: Anthony Monaco. Over the next few months, DCA looks forward to working with Larry Bacow as he transitions out of the position and transfers his papers to the archives to join the work of his...

In the years covered by the New Nation Votes project (1787-1825), democracy was thriving. Huge percentages of eligible voters took part in the process (far more than scholars used to think, information we now have thanks to Philip Lampi). Some of the elections were much different than we are used to...

On November 11, we honor military veterans by observing Veteran's Day. People serving in the armed forces have been an important presence at Tufts throughout its history, and the DCA is host to numerous collections that document that presence. 'Colors' on the Hill In 1942, Tufts was one of eight...

Archivist for Digital Collections, job description and link to application. The Digital Collections and Archives (DCA) supports the teaching and research mission of Tufts University by ensuring the enduring preservation and accessibility of the university's permanently valuable records and...

We are redesigning the Tufts Digital Library and we need your help! We are scheduling 30-minute individual interviews, by phone or in person, to better understand how we can improve your experience finding content in the Digital Library. No need to be affiliated with Tufts to participate in an...

Recent events have gotten me thinking back to a previous post we did on subject headings, and on how hard it is to highlight minority groups within collections. The previous post dealt with primarily with identifying racial minorities, but even more difficult is representation of sexual orientation...

Not to overwhelm you with a whole second post today, but we have to announce the new Scholarly Communication website. In celebration of Open Access Week, Tufts has released a new version of its Scholarly Communications of our website, designed to provide resources on open access, copyright, and fair...

By Krista Ferrante. For several years the New Nation Votes project existed here at Tufts. If you go here you can learn more about this project. It involves a partnership between Tufts DCA and the American Antiquarian Society. Data entry on this project has been dormant on this project since December...

By Krista Ferrante. After over five years, I will be saying goodbye to Tufts Digital Collections and Archives. I can’t think of a better place to have started my career. I came as a security guard and left an archivist. Where else could I have learned how to organize boxes, code election data into...

We are redesigning the Tufts Digital Library and we need your help! We are scheduling 30-minute individual interviews, by phone or in person, to better understand how we can improve your experience finding content in the Digital Library. No need to be affiliated with Tufts to participate in an...

After a summer hiatus from the DCA blog, I am back for one last post, to say goodbye. Today is my last official day as a graduate-student-casual-employee-reference-and-processing-assistant at Tufts. Though I'm not sure of the exact date, I'm fairly certain that I've been here approximately three...

CBS wartime staff in London 1942. Left to right: Edward R. Murrow, Frank Greco, John Daly and Robert Trout. 70 years ago on September 7, 1940, nearly 1,000 German air planes attacked London and the UK - attacks that were to last until 1941. Edward R. Murrow and his team covered the Blitz from the...

DCA is proud to announce Tufts University's gold level sponsorship of DuraSpace. DuraSpace provides leadership and innovation in open source technologies for libraries. It maintains the Fedora Commons open source software used by DCA in partnership with Tufts UIT/Academic Technology for the Tufts...

The annual Society of American Archivists conference was held last week in Washington D.C. A large number of our staff attended this conference, and many of them presented at various sessions. On Wednesday, August 11th, Susanne Belovari, Archivist for Reference and Collections, made a presentation...

The rest of my department is off at the annual conference of the Society of American Archivists, and I'm sitting here watching the twitter hash tag #saa10 and getting all jealous. Which reminds me, we now have a twitter account: @dcatufts. I can't promise we will be as entertaining or erudite as...

On July 20 2010, DCA and UIT/Academic Technology hosted a regional conference for Fedora users at the Tufts Dental School. The event was very successful in sparking useful conversations and reinforcing strategic relationships. Thorton Staples of DuraSpace spoke about the union of DSpace and Fedora...

Susanne Belovari, DCA: Donald died July 10, 2010. I am truly grateful that I had the chance to meet Donald and Charlotte Lindgren when he contacted DCA to donate Tufts related records. Over the years and throughout our collaboration in creating his online biographical exhibit, Memories of Tufts...

On Tuesday July 20, 2010, DCA and UIT Academic Technology will present a one-day regional Fedora conference. Thornton Staples of DuraSpace will give an overview of DuraSpace, Fedora, and DuraCloud, and Mark Leggott of the University of Prince Edward Island will talk about Islandora, a Fedora and...

It's my week to do the blog, and I've got so much to blog about I'm almost overwhelmed. I'm currently attending the Open Repositories 2010 conference in Madrid, and I've spent much of the conference listening to smart people and thinking "We need to do that! And that! And oh, wait, that!" Three year...

It's summer, but there is still a lot going on at here DCA! On June 9, 2010, Eliot Wilczek, University Records Manager, received a "Change Agent" Award at the Tufts Distinction Awards ceremony in Cohen Auditorium. The ceremony and reception were a lot of fun for DCA, and for all the coworkers of...

First female graduates of Tufts College The history of women at Tufts College--it wasn't Tufts University until 1955--has many ups and downs. When the school was founded in 1852, many within the Boston-area Universalist churches that supported the school assumed women would be allowed to enroll...

Documentary film maker Chelsea Kearin recently visited the Digital Collections and Archives for images to include in her film Jumbo in a Jar for the WGBH Lab. Also featured in the film is Rocky Carzo, Sports Director Emeritus and one of the DCA's favorite frequent researchers. video platform video...

DCA is happy to announce that one of its staff members, Eliot Wilczek, was given the CHANGE AGENT AWARD for creating new opportunities for innovation at Tufts. Eliot works on a variety of University-wide information management initiatives. Because of his University-wide connections, Eliot is able to...

Tell us what you think of when you hear "May Day"! May-pole before St. Andrew Undershaft This weekend is the first of May, and that means... well, it depends who you are. To Tufts University poet John Holmes, that might have meant New York and youth in the springtime, as he says in his poem Sort of...

I have a confession to make. I love office supplies. I really, really love them. The rainbow of color-coded file folders, the audacious quality of a turquoise post-it, the bold assertions of a red sharpie marker, and the elegant glide of roller-ball pen. But I don't like pencils - they're smudgy...

Yesterday, April 14th, 2010, Anne Sauer, Director of the Digital Collections and Archives, gave a talk on the founding of Tufts and on the early decades of Tufts College in Medford. Her talk was sponsored by the Medford Historical Society, and there was an historic walking tour of the campus that...

The Digital Collections and Archives and Academic Technology are pleased to announce the launch of the Tufts Dark Archive. It is so cool that we can't show you. The Dark Archive is a secret place for storing archival material with restricted user access. We have been accepting and storing...

We're moving down the hall! Starting on Wednesday, March 31st the DCA offices and Reading Room will be closed so that we can pack up and move into our new space. We will reopen - in the new space - on Tuesday, April 6th. If you need to access materials during the time we are closed, please email the...

Unidentified engineering professor Do you recognize the engineering professor in this photo? If so, please comment to let us know who she is! Yesterday was Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. To celebrate, I looked...

Tufts University Digital Collections & Archives and UIT Academic Technology present a one-day regional Fedora conference. July 20, 2010 9 AM-5 PM In a tough economy, it's especially important to make sure we stay in touch with our local colleagues in the Fedora Commons community. This day-long...

So I was preparing to write a blog post about fraternities and sororities. My yet unformed post was something about the long history of Greek letter societies at Tufts, their beautiful houses on Professors Row, their parties, and of course the information and images we have of them in the Tufts...

New Massachusetts Data Privacy regulations went into effect on March 1, 2010, requiring the proper collection, handling, and safeguarding of personal information. Personal information is defined as first name or initial and last name in combination with any of the following: social security number...

This always happens. An institution or company thinks of a new and special way to conduct its business but fails to think about the mandate to save it in perpetuity. On the front page of the New York Times today, Tufts makes the headlines by giving their prospective student the option to include a...

Do you ever use the Tufts Digital Library? Would you be willing to be contacted about your user experience? Whether you use the digital library for academic research or whether you use it to find nifty pictures, we are interested in your experience using the website. If you'd be interested in being...

A recent conversion in the DCA office reminded me of the often problematic nature of subject headings. A casual employee noted that images in the Digital Library use the term "Blacks" as the approved subject term. She was curious as to why. Alas, it is a complicated issue. For one, it is an approved...

1980-81 Men's Basketball Team Here at Tufts, we knew that Scott Brown should not be under estimated. Just check out this quote from page four of the Tufts Daily, November 20, 1980: "Undoubtly, Seniors Scott Brown and Phil Moran are the team's most consistent outside shooters. Brown, who is...

There are times when, no matter your cultural/political/religious what-have-you affiliation, we have a sense that history is passing before our very eyes. I had one such moment today, when I read the piece Quiet Riot in the New Yorker. Evidently, the personal papers of Kathleen Hanna (of third-wave...

The Tufts University Experimental College allows Tufts undergraduates access to courses outside the traditional liberal arts curriculum. These classes range from the downright quirky to the groundbreaking courses in what will eventually become the canon, such as the university's earliest attempts at...

We've received word that snow is coming to Boston this afternoon, so let's all make like these gentlemen from the Student Army Training Corps (training at Tufts in 1918) and be safe out there!

Ice skating in Sun Valley, ca. 1941

Wonderful news for the DCA's collections. The National Endowment for the Humanities, in partnership with the President's Committee on Arts and Humanities, the National Park Service, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, has awarded DCA one of its...

Now, you might think that working in the archives is danger-free…it’s a library right? It’s not like working retail during the holidays or at a coffee shop in the morning or postal service in the rain. But there is more here than meets the eye. Much more. Today, as my new sweater was rapidly covered...

Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate bounty, to feast with family and friends. Part of giving thanks might entail recognizing that not everyone enjoys the same bounty. In 1947 then Governor of Massachusetts Robert F. Bradford spearheaded the "Silent Guest" program. Through this program Americans were...

From the people who brought you Digital Preservation and the Nuclear Disaster, here is Digital Preservation and Aeroplane Disaster! While the scenario is a little hokey, the basic ideas it presents -- obsolescence and migration -- are critical topics when dealing with digital materials. Nothing make...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c Want Ads - Grateful Dead Archivist www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis Honestly, It's not all that often that archivists come up in a public forum like the Daily Show. I'm not offended. Maybe I should...

(Warning: In linking to and quoting from our collection of books from 19th-century London, this post references terminology and attitudes around people with disabilities which we do not consider acceptable any longer. The words are still there, however. Be warned.) One of my favorite new blogs is...

Ever wish there was organization that did everything from parties and dances to food drives and publications? Well, back in the day at Tufts there was. In 1898, the 75 (!) women of Tufts College elected officers for a club to serve the intellectual and social needs of Tufts women - the All-Around...

Since the students have returned and we’re well into the fall semester, I thought it would be a good time to share some of my favorite Tom Hart photographs from the Tufts Digital Library. Tom Hart was a 1968 graduate (B.S. in Biology) who documented life at Tufts while he was and student and after...

(Sorry this blog post is so late! We had a seven-hour power failure last week that derailed lots of inessentials.) Last week, when Jen and I were fixing some special character problems in the digital library, we came across A Mapp of the County of Lincolne, with its divisions & Hundreds: or...

October is National Archives Month! It's a year for special celebration as the National Archives and Records Administration celebrations its 75th anniversary, and the Digital Collections and Archives pushes into its second decade. Here are some images from 1934 and 1999.

This week, the Tufts Libraries hosted a disaster recovery workshop with Gregor Trinkaus-Randall of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. It sounds boring, but trust me, sometimes workshops are like playing with crafts in kindergarten. We hosed down piles of old books, records, and...

Because of the cool advertisements From the following editions: March 3, 1981 November 14, 1983 September 29, 1997

Come meet staff from the Digital Collection and Archives and Academic Technology TODAY, September 17th, at the Tufts Technology Fair. The Tufts Technology Fair takes place on the Tisch Library Patio from 11am to 1:30pm, and features representatives from various Tufts IT organizations. DCA and AT...

On January 15, 1973 Senator Edward Kennedy addressed the Tufts Community and public at large on the topic of health reform. Below is an excerpt from the speech. If you would like to read the full text, please visit the Digital Collections and Archives, Tisch Library Building, ground floor from 9-4...

Like many of my colleagues, I teach in the graduate schools at Simmons College. Unlike them, however, I don't teach in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Instead, I teach a class at the Center for the Study of Children's Literature. My first class of the semester was last night...

One fine day this summer, I was at the beach with my family. Relaxing after a good swim, I had settled down on the beach with Meg Cabot's Big Boned, perfect reading for a sunny New England afternoon. But when I glanced over at family member lying next to me, he was reading Dan Dennett's...

Archival reference isn’t always about searching for the sparse facts that cleanly define an event or person in three sentences or less. It offers a microcosmic view of the interconnectedness of life and history - a question leads from one person to another, to an organization, to a piece of artwork...

Before images can be put into the Tufts Digital Library they must be described. Without a title, a date, and lots of other metadata, images would not be usable or retrievable. There are at least 14,000 images in the TDL. Each of them has been described by someone like me who has the assigned task of...

If records are created by people, and people create records when they do something, then how do you define the things they do? While looking for a list of things people do at any University this question has been front and center in my mind. The question becomes even more complicated when I think...

The Secretary of State Office, the Massachusetts Archives, and the National Historical Publications and Records Commission is pleased to announce that the Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board (MSHRAB) has been reactivated. A State Historical Records Advisory Board (SHRAB) is...

Often, when I'm looking for good material for a blog post, I looked to see what materials the Tufts Digital Library has regarding current events. Today, I decided to look for materials about Iran. Of course, I forgot to bargain with the Fletcher School. Because of the Fletcher School and all the...

Did you know that Tufts' former chaplain, William "Scotty" McLennan, was the inspiration for Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury character Reverend Scot Sloan? McLennan attend Yale with Trudeau, and Trudeau provided the introduction and cover art to McLennan's book Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You...

Accessioning (or gathering) Electronic Records may not seem all that exciting to you. But for us at the DCA it is at the very core of our tasks here at Tufts. It's not as easy to gather electronic records as you might think. At least not if you are going to do it right. To help us out we have...

Sunday, May 17, 2009 marked the 153rd Commencement ceremony held at Tufts. This year, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick was the keynote speaker. Here are a few pictures of previous speakers. Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963 Elie Wiesel, 1986 For more images of Commencement from years gone by, check out...

The DCA has made amazing progress in the last few months on stabilizing and processing digital records. Here is a video out of Europe that explains why (in the extreme) it is important to take care of digital materials.

With today being the last day of the semester for Tufts College, final exams are next on the agenda. For all the hard work and stress associated with finals, they still lend themselves to some interesting photographs. Here's one from the 1940s of an exam in Cousens: Cousens Gym was constructed in...

This Monday will be the 113th Boston Marathon, a holiday so important to Greater Boston that we celebrate it by reenacting the battles of Lexington and Concord. Here at Tufts, this seems like a good time to celebrate our own track team. My favorite part of Patriots' Day isn't actually the marathon...

You're invited to the Fourth Annual Edward R. Murrow Forum on Issues in Journalism Topic: Digging Too Deeply? Headlines, Politics, and Public Service Tufts University April 13, 2009 12 pm to 1:15 pm Barnum Hall - Room 008 Panelists: Chris Matthews Host, MSNBC's Hardball Michael Dukakis Democratic...

Anne Sauer, Tufts University Archivist and DCA Director, was interviewed for the March 23, 2009 episode of Chronicle on WCVB Channel 5. The segment was about Powderhouse Square, and since Tufts is Square-adjacent, Anne spoke about the history of the Hill and its relationship to Somerville.The video...

With temperatures this week ranging from 22 degrees to the 50s, I think we are justified in asking whether it is spring yet - that is in any way more than technically. My thoughts are akin to those of the snowman pictured here: Somebody tell nature to make winter go away. In the hopes of encouraging...

Darn you, Tufts Digital Library! When I began looking for Tufts resources about the Great Depression (hoping to make some clever parallels to the current grim economic news), I was expecting articles about bread lines and unemployment. Instead, I found this fascinating 1931 photograph of medical...

After an political career that involved writing speeches for JFK, RFK, and LBJ, and a legal career that is highlighted by the exposure of the "Quiz Show Scandal" of the 1950s, Richard Goodwin, class of 1953, is bringing his first play to Boston. Two Men of Florence pits Galileo Galilei and Pope...

You may be familiar with the famous glass flower collection housed at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Those glass flower models were created by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, who were once better known for making glass marine invertebrates. In a time before modern technologies made it possible...

I'm pleased to announce the Tufts eScholarship collections in the Tufts Digital Library. The eScholarship collections showcase the Open Access publications and presentations of Tufts faculty and staff. It's a small set of papers right now, but growing rapidly. DCA is proud of eScholarship's flagship...

Well, we've had our fair share of snow this winter, but I suppose it could be worse: campus could look like it did after the ice storm in November of 1936. Great for photos, but not good for the trees. In Québec, the celebration of Winter Carnival breaks up the monotony of winter. Did you know that...

This year's Academy Award nominations were announced last week, but did you know that a Tufts alumnus is an Academy Award winner? In 1986, William Hurt (A'72) was awarded the Best Actor in a Lead Role Oscar for his work in Kiss of the Spider Women. Hurt didn't stop there. The following year he was...

Today DCA staff attended disaster preparedness training. Among the many useful facts we learned (for example, long sleeves, gloves, and freezers are all key ingredients to a good disaster response), we learned the basics of how to deal with ash and soot. Ash and soot are greasy and gritty, get...

Pretty much everyone is aware that next Tuesday, January 20th, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the U.S.A. Perhaps fewer people have been thinking about Tufts presidents and their inaugurations, but the topic is worth considering... Did you know that Tufts University has a...

MacJannet School Winter Holiday Skiing trip, 1927

Congratulations to Bill Richardson on his nomination for Secretary of Commerce in the Obama Cabinet. Richardson graduated from Tufts in 1970 and received a degree from the Fletcher School in 1971. He received an honorary degree in 1997. As a Tufts undergraduate, Richardson played shortstop on the...

With Thanksgiving on the horizon, the DCA celebrates dinners and dining. What better defense against cold weather is there than getting together with friends and family to enjoy a nice meal? Think festive clothes, fine food and fabulous cocktails. View more images of Tufts events revolving around...

We were saddened to learn this weekend of the loss of a good friend, Jason Samuels, E1945. Jay served throughout the Pacific during World War II, and was a staunch advocate for ROTC at Tufts. I got to know Jay working with him on two projects near and dear to his heart: the V-12/NROTC exhibits in...

The last game of the 2008 season is this upcoming Saturday at Middlebury. But did you know that football has well over 100 years of history here at Tufts? Not sure who played what sport when? DCA also has a huge collection of athletic rosters available on the Tufts Digital Library. Here are a few of...

Tufts students with Halloween jack-o'-lanterns, circa 1990 I knew we had an eclectic collection, but searching for Halloweeny materials in the Tufts Digital Library showed me just how eclectic. For example, Walks in London, vol. 1 is a text in Tufts' Edwin C. Bolles collection on the history of...

Were you impressed by last night's presidential debate? Did you think that the candidates finally got down to answering some tough, relevant questions? Or perhaps you think you are be a better debater then either of this year's presidential candidates! Maybe you are right, especially if you are a...

This year's theme for National Archives Month is Celebrating the American Record, and DCA has a partnership with the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) that will allow you to get up close and personal with some of the earliest evidence of American democracy. A New Nation Votes is a searchable...

Everybody is thinking about bailouts this week, but at least we don't have to bail out Jumbo's boat. Walter B. Wriston was a banker and former chairman of Citicorp. An expert on commercial banking, Mr. Wriston wrote and spoke widely on topics relating to finance, banking, technology, and...

T.J. Anderson is a distinguished and influential composer who taught in the Department of Music at Tufts from 1972 to 1990. Anderson is now Austin Fletcher Professor of Music Emeritus, and he received an honorary Doctor of Music from Tufts in 2007. Digital Collections and Archives is proud to have a...

Now that the semester is underway for all of Tufts' schools we reach that time of the year when students may be looking for ideas for research papers and faculty may be seeking opportunities to have their students engage in primary source research. We're here to help! In recent years, students have...

Check out the new exhibit, on display in the Tisch Library, highlighting Tufts Theater History, 1910s-1960s. The exhibit includes production photos, scripts, programs, and artifacts, as well as special features on Pen, Paint and Pretzels and on the Arena Theater. The Tufts Arena Theater building was...

The DCA would like to welcome new and returning students to Tufts. The beginning of the academic year is always filled with excitement about the future. It is also fun to look to the past and think about how things were in days gone by. Did you know that just prior to registration in 1938 a...

The primary season may be over, but that doesn't mean we don't still find interest in this image of former Democratic presidential candidate and Tufts University baseball team pitcher, Bill Richardson '70. (He's also had a few other jobs, including current Governor of New Mexico, congressman...

The Cannon stands at attention awaiting the arrival of the Class of 2012. Bring on the paint! For information of the history of the cannon, please visit the Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History.

Welcome to the inaugural post of the Digital Collections and Archives (DCA) blog. We at DCA are excited to share with you the wealth of great collections we hold in the archives. You can look forward to posts highlighting famous alums and events from Tufts’ history as well as updates on exhibits and...