About the University of Louisville Images Collection

About the Building Book | Conditions of Use | Acknowledgments

This collection contains images relating to the University of Louisville and its history. It includes the "building book," an online encyclopedia of current and historical campus structures as well as images of faculty, administrators and students and campus activities and events.

About the Building Book

The Building Book began as a set of paper-based forms that University Archives staff completed on buildings (past and present) that were part of the University of Louisville experience. Information was gathered regarding the dates of construction, remodeling, dedications, re-dedications, and so forth for buildings that were owned by UofL, used by UofL, or simply frequented by UofL students, as in the case of the Cardinal Inn, a campus hangout of days gone by. The original forms had spaces for names of architects, architectural styles, and current and past uses. This analog book was brought into the digital age in the 1990s when it served as the basis for a set of html webpages. In most cases, there were no images provided; the text stood alone.

The spring of 2008 saw a simultaneous interest on the part of the University Archives and Records Center (UARC) and University Planning, Design and Construction (UPDC) to update the building book. UARC was also interested in including this encyclopedic "work" in the University Libraries' Digital Collections. Together, these two groups decided on the metadata to be collected, and how it would be presented. While the information presented on each building mirrors very closely the original Building Book, this newest version includes information on building size. In addition, the UPDC was able to provide information on the buildings that was not available in the historical files available at the Archives.

The building names used in the image titles represent the most commonly used form; many buildings have "official" names that are not in general use. For instance, the Student Activities Center, or SAC, is more formally known as the Donald C. Swain and Lavinia L. Student Activities Center.

At the time this digital Building Book was launched, images were not available for all buildings. In some cases, this was because the buildings were still under construction; in other cases, the Archives was still in the process of locating a suitable images. The Book will continue to be updated as additional photographs become available.

Conditions of Use

The University of Louisville welcomes fair use of this website and its contents. If you wish to publish, broadcast, or publicly display these materials, it is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions. For further information about permissions, use, citation formats, and ordering reproductions, please contact the department or library that is listed in the "Ordering Information" field in the descriptive information that displays with the image(s) you are interested in. Because some images in this digital collection are held by other departments in the Libraries, it is important that you include the image number in your request. If you aren't sure who to contact, the University Archives and Records Center will be glad to help you find your way.

Acknowledgments

The Building Book began in the 1970s in a loose-leaf binder maintained by Tom Owen, Archivist for Local History in the University Archives and Records Center. In addition to creating and revising earlier versions of this collection, Owen became the keeper and creator of the reference files that provided documentation for much of the metadata, as well as many of the images. He also reviewed all the metadata included in this digital version, and coordinated efforts between UARC and UPDC.

Will Armstrong, Intern, played an essential role in updating the metadata, bringing the building list up to date and in accordance with the University Planning, Design and Construction's list, and identifying and scanning appropriate images.

Carrie Daniels oversaw and coordinated the work of Tom Owen and Will Armstrong. She also scanned many of the images, edited the metadata after approval by Tom Owen, and assigned subject headings. The metadata was created in accordance with the University of Louisville Digital Initiatives data dictionary (PDF). All titles were supplied by the catalogers.

Rachel I. Howard provided valuable database support and played a leading role in metadata structure discussions. She also identified and scanned images from Photographic Archives' collections for inclusion in this digital collection.

The Building Book images were scanned by Will Armstrong, Carrie Daniels, and Rachel I. Howard in June-August 2008. Prints were scanned on a Microtek ScanMaker 1000XL flatbed scanner as 600 ppi TIFF images in 24-bit color, scaled to approximately 10 inches on the long side. Slides were scanned on an Epson Expression 1680 flatbed scanner as 600 ppi TIFF images in 24-bit color, scaled to approximately 10 inches on the long side. 8 x 10 black-and-white negatives were scanned on an Epson Expression 1680 flatbed scanner as 8-bit grayscale. Black and white images were converted to grayscale by Carrie Daniels using Photoshop version CS2. Daniels converted the TIFFs into JPEGs of 600 pixels on the long side using Photoshop Elements version 2.0, and uploaded the JPEGS into CONTENTdm version 4.3.

Terri L. Holtze designed the HTML pages.

Dwayne K. Buttler, J.D., provided copyright advice.

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