Duke Digital Collections is pleased to announce that we have published 310 newly digitized interviews in the Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South digital collection! The new interviews are specifically focussed on North Carolina residents. Although several regions are represented, many interviews focus on the Charlotte, Durham and Enfield regions of the state.
The North Carolina recordings were all digitized as part of the Triangle Research Libraries Network’s project “Content, Context and Capacity: A Collaborative Large-Scale Digitization Project on the Long Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina.” Publishing these recordings concludes this multi-year endeavor, which digitized collections from UNC Chapel Hill, NC Central University and NC State’s special collections holdings as well as Duke.
Prior to publishing the new NC recordings the Behind the Veil digital collection, contained 100 recordings. Although we were able to build on the existing collection without developing new technology we essentially QUADRUPLED the number of interviews available online!! The digital collection was created by digitizing the original audio cassettes and scanning any existing transcripts. The entire collection (over 1,200 interviews on audio cassettes) is available for research at the John Hope Franklin Center for African and African American History and Culture in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Visit the Devil’s Tale (the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library blog) for more details.
Speaking of blogs, you are looking at the brand new blog of Duke’s Digital Projects and Production Services Department. Visit Bitstreams to learn more about all the exciting and innovative digital projects at Duke University Libraries!