Library's new digital archives are a historical feast for Horned Frogs everywhere

An image of the 1899 AddRan football team is part of the library's new digital archive, showcasing the history of TCU, its archives and special collections.

Fort Worth, TX

9/27/2010

There are five pages of SuperFrog mascot photos and a scan of a May 1987 Sports Illustrated feature depicting Horned Frog hostesses lassoing top recruits.
 
If sports isn't your thing, check out the aerial photos of a secluded, near-barren TCU campus in the 1920s. Or see what Commencement in 1973 looked like — bell bottoms and all.
 
If you love TCU history, you're going to love the Mary Couts Burnett Library's new website launched this month, displaying more than 3,000 scanned images and materials from the university's Special Collections Department. They call it the Digital Archives.
 
Athletics, performing arts, campus activities, student life, faculty snapshots are all categorized in the searchable database. And there is more coming, says Senior Archivist Mike Strom, who's spent three years with Special Collections colleagues assembling the database and preparing each item's metadata. "This database is by no means exhaustive and represents only a small percentage of the images that are available," says Strom, who has been at TCU more than six years. "We are continually adding to the database in order to more fully represent Special Collections’ holdings."
 
Strom says the library hopes to add PDF (Portable Document Format) files soon of the university's collection of Civil War letters, audio/visual files of the school's radio and television marketing spots and other documents, such as the Speaker Jim Wright Collection and trove of Linda Kaye photography.
 
"We want to bring more attention to some of the holdings not many people know that we have," Strom said. "Also, the public has expectations for a certain digital presence for some of these materials, and this helps us meet that partially." Web users all over the globe will be able to view the database and use the site's order form to purchase an original scan. To see for yourself, go to http://library.tcu.edu/spcoll/DigitalArchive/