As Special Collections & University Archives staff enter the 12th week of working remotely during this global pandemic, I wanted to aggregate and share the digital repositories and collections that you can explore online to gain access to our many unique materials. With so much available content, it can often be confusing deciding where to begin your search.
Frequently when I get a research question, I start by going to this listing of our digital collections. You can use this page as a portal to access our more specific digitized collections. For instance, if your question is related to the earlier history of the University, start with a search in Eagle Explorer, an interactive full-text search tool of many of the University’s publications. You can discover student newspaper articles as well as yearbooks and academic catalogs through the years.
The Bullet, October 23, 1942
Much of UMW’s recent history is now published online and can be found by searching through UMW’s Web Archives. For the last six years, the SC&UA Department has been archiving the University’s online content in accordance with our mission to preserve UMW’s history. This includes the University’s main website, athletics sites, social media accounts and more.
Screenshot of the UMW News page from May 15, 2020.
If you are looking for specific digitized collections, like the James L. Farmer Collection or UMW Blogs, or are searching for oral histories and extensive visual materials, our Digital Collections repository is the stop.
Dancing performance at an early Multicultural Fair.
Curious about the latest student and faculty scholarship? Check out Eagle Scholar. This repository is home to over 2,500 creative and scholarly open-access works by the UMW community. Quick links are provided to the most downloaded items in the collection as well as to recent additions. Eagle Scholar is also the repository for UMW’s 5,000+ herbarium collection. A wonderful collection of digitized specimens to peruse during your days inside.
A specimen of ground cedar from 1974.
Finally an oft-overlooked resource and one of my favorites, our Online Exhibits and Projects site which includes Artifacts in the University Archives, as well as various thematic exhibits created from our collection materials.
Lots of online sources to navigate and explore! If there are resources you need to access that are not available here, contact us at 540-654-1752 or email archives@umw.edu. The SC&UA team is continuing to work remotely and here to assist you. We also have an Accessing Special Collections & University Archives Materials During the COVID-19 Pandemic guide detailing collection access during this period.
We miss seeing everyone in the Research Room. Stay healthy and stay safe!