University Libraries seeks digital photos, video of recent floods

The University of Louisville Libraries are asking both the UofL community and Louisville residents to submit digital photos and videos of the recent flood for use in an archived community collection.

The collection will document the flood, one of the worst in the city's history, by those who lived it. In addition to creating the collection, some of the images will be shared on an August 2009 Flood website hosted by the Libraries Digital Collection.

Contributors can e-mail digital photographs to digital@louisville.edu , or send a CD or USB drive to University Archives and Records Center, University of Louisville, Louisville, Ky 40292, Attention: Rachel Howard.

Contributors are required to sign forms giving the libraries permission to preserve and post their images. These are the permission form and an information form (doc) that allows donors to describe where and when the images were taken.

As a member of the MetaArchive Cooperative, the libraries will have the digital files replicated and stored at six different geographic locations so they are not lost due to natural disasters or other problems. The MetaArchive Cooperative has previously preserved documentation of disasters in New Orleans and at Virginia Tech.

The University Libraries' Digital Collections launched in 2007, and now offers over 17,000 items in sixteen digital collections. The August 2009 Flood collection will be Digital Collections' first community collaboration.

For more information about the project, contact Rachel Howard at 852-4476 or rachel.howard@louisville.edu .