NCSU Libraries Focus Online

Volume 23 number 2 - Winter 2003

By Russell S. Koonts, Special Collections

The NCSU Libraries Special Collections Department, in collaboration with UNC-Asheville, the Biltmore Estate Company in Asheville, and the Forest History Society in Durham, has received a $50,000 North Carolina ECHO (Exploring Cultural Heritage Online) EZ-Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) digitization demonstration grant. Building on the "Birthplace of American Forestry" Web site (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/archives/forestry) established with a 2001-2002 EZ-LSTA NC ECHO grant, the goal of this collaboration is to create a virtual archive of forest history resources that researchers can search seamlessly.

The project, by providing access to resources from four significant collections and to interpretative Web pages, will increase research opportunities in exploring forest history. The resources provided through this collaboration will expand the visual and textual information available on the Web on southeastern forests, forest management, and forestry education. These materials are currently used primarily by researchers who either travel to North Carolina to view them firsthand or by researchers outside the state who ask archivists at the four institutions for help in examining the materials. The institution then usually sends photocopies of small portions of the collections in response to these long-distance queries. Now, these digitized materials and finding aids will assist researchers in several ways. Many researchers will not need to travel to use the materials. They will not necessarily need to have previous knowledge of the subject to find materials that will answer their questions. They will be able to examine a virtual copy that will more accurately reflect the actual document than a photocopy does, and the virtual copy can be examined repeatedly without damaging the original copy in the archives.

The initial focus of the "Birthplace of American Forestry" concentrated on Carl Alwin Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School. During the second LSTA grant phase, this focus will be expanded to include statewide and southern United State forest history materials. Many new resources will be added to the Web site:

• The Biltmore Estate Company plans to provide access to digitized versions of the body of Carl Schenck's correspondence described in finding aids that were produced during the first phase of the project.
• The Forest History Society will digitize photographs, correspondence, and oral histories that further detail the development of the forestry profession in the United States.
• UNC-Asheville will provide access to materials from the National Forest Service (NFS) Region 8 collection housed at that university. The collection is comprised of some 3,249 images, field study notes, and an oral history that relates directly to the work of the regional research station.
• The NCSU Libraries Special Collections Department is digitizing photographs, correspondence, reports, and publications found in the NC State College of Natural Resources Hofmann Forest collection.

Materials from the NFS Region 8 resources that are digitized as a result of this grant will enable users to assess forest management, review the geographic area for environmental concerns, and trace the development of NFS activities in the southeastern United States. Digitized access to the Hofmann Forest materials will permit researchers to make direct comparisons of nineteenth- and twentieth-century educational methods and forest management approaches between western (Pisgah National Forest) and eastern (Hofmann Forest) North Carolina. Resources will be made available on the Web site as they are completed, with a "grand launch" planned for July 2003 after the end of the grant cycle.