One of the things we enjoy using the Digital Collections Blog for is to highlight notable items from Duke’s digital collections and tell you why we think they’re interesting, or thought-provoking, or important, or funny. But there are some digital objects where it’s obvious why we love them, so no explanation seems necessary. This image, from the Sidney D. Gamble Photographs, is one of those.
This is Tiger Baby, who we love BECAUSE HE IS AWESOME. Seriously, come on. You can’t not love this.
What are your favorite things you’ve found in our digital collections? Leave a comment about it and share it with the world!
I have a couple of favorites. My first is “Child standing on a chair and an infant seated on a chair, identified as Bennie children” from the Michael Francis Blake Collection.
I am a little sister and remember how hard it was for my parents to get a picture of both me and my brother together. I empathize with both of their facial expressions. I also empathize with the photographer. This particular historic photo process took several seconds to expose, and keeping kids still long enough (and Blake almost got it) would be difficult.
Being relatively new to my job, I’m finding new and exciting things around every corner here at UNCG. But this one is special. We call him “Bob”, and he’s become the mascot for the digital projects unit here as well as the sign on our office door.
My other favorite is the image of Howell Cobb from the William Emerson Strong Photograph Album.
Howell Cobb was to be my namesake if I were born a boy. He is hanging somewhere in my Father’s family tree. This side of the family is mostly unknown to us (research is pending) and we have never found an image of Cobb before now.
How I found this was totally coincidental. I happened to be in a meeting about digitizing this album and was looking through it to determine whether it could withstand the imaging process. Lo and behold, my great-great-whatever-uncle is staring me in the face. I must have let out a little squeak, because everyone around the table looked at me. I said, “this gentleman is my family, my Dad is named after him and I would have been, too.”
Thanks for your comments, Beth and David — and for visiting our blog! We appreciate hearing your stories and your sharing your favorite images with us. Keep them coming!
Egad! I used to work on a Univac 70/45, in the 1970’s when I was working for Administrative Data Processing at UNC-CH. Do you have any information on where that picture was taken?
There are some great vintage computers on display in our 1960s IBM ads in the AdViews collection, too. I especially like the “Electronic Data Processing Machine” in this IBM recruiting ad. (iTunes required to view)
We love the photo. How remarkably cute and timeless!
How precious! Look at the expression on his face, his starry
eyes, his adorable little tiger/dragon boots and his little man outfit? LOL – too cute!
Photos of animals and children are my favorites.