UI Library digitizes Latah County collections
This content was reported on and written by a high school student for the University of Idaho’s annual journalism workshop.
The darkest, most unpredictable and horrifying moments in history fascinate many.
Approximately 569 hours of interviews transport listeners back to significant moments, including world wars and the Great Depression. The University of Idaho Library’s collections puts listeners in the shoes of Latah County residents who witnessed such iconic events.
The UI library paid respect to Latah County history by expanding its digital and oral collections with historical interviews. Numerous interviews with county inhabitants make up the oral history collection. The 569 hours of digitized tape recordings cover heavy subject matter.
“The interviews cover topics such as logging, mining, prohibition, depression, the world wars, lynching, murders, prostitution and the other kind of old west, wild west sort of subjects,” said Devin Becker, digital initiatives and web services librarian at the UI Library.
The oral history collection contains many hours of information about Latah County’s rich history, Becker said.
“It has 300-plus interviews with inhabitants of this county who grew up here mostly, or came here to work from the 1890s all the way to 1950,” Becker said.
Special collections is a broad department that covers a large ground. Part of this includes preserving relevant material like old books and government papers, he said. Those working on the project have also fully digitized the artifacts and made them accessible online.
“Special collections and archives is a department in the library that preserves and collects unique material pertaining to the university, the state and its people,” Becker said. “They range from old books, sort of rare books, to personal papers of governors and senators, organizational papers.”
Becker said both collections are available through the library’s website. The digital collection is available directly online. Viewing the special collection requires setting up an appointment by email and can be planned through the website.
“Digital collections, we take those items and materials and we scan them and describe them … We make them into digital objects that can be browsed online,” Becker said.
The Latah County Special Collection is one of many sets of special collections available at UI.
“It’s a very large collection, so special collection kind of encompasses a bunch of other smaller collections that often come from people, places and things,” Becker said.
Moscow’s 1912 Center held a launch party in April to announce the online access to these digital collections complete with refreshments and speakers.
Tony Murillo | Guest Writer