Skip to main content

Accessibility menu

Skip to main content Skip to footer

New Digital Collection - UMRCC Collection

Posted 1:38 p.m. Monday, March 25, 2019

A newly digitized collection consisting of more than 26,000 pages of material and over 400 photographs donated by the Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee (UMRCC) is now available online at Murphy Library. The collection was announced at the UMRCC 75thAnnual Meeting held in La Crosse last week. 

What began as a collaboration between Murphy Library and the UMRCC, grew into a larger collaborative project involving other local organizations as well. Indus International, Inc., based out of West Salem, WI, provided the overhead book scanner, which made the digitization of these items possible. The cost of the scanner was split between Indus, Murphy Library, and the UMRCC. Additionally, The ResCarta Foundation, previously located in Onalaska, provided the open-source digital collections software called ResCarta, which allowed the collection to be preserved and made accessible online.

The online UMRCC Library will benefit Mississippi River scientists and researchers seeking older documents that, until now, were hard to find and access. Along with researchers, the collection is for anyone with an interest in the Mississippi or other large rivers worldwide.

Find the collection here. Look for sub-collection “Upper Mississippi River Conservation Committee."

To learn more about this collaborative project, please see the article on the UWL Campus News website.

David Mindel, Murphy Library digital collections librarian, left, and Jeff Janvrin, a Mississippi River Habitat Specialist in Fisheries Management with the Wisconsin DNR in La Crosse, stand among the many boxes brought to archive at the library.
UW-La Crosse Murphy Library Digital Collections Librarian David Mindel, left, and Wisconsin DNR Mississippi River Habitat Specialist Jeff Janvrin display a 1982 map showing Mississippi River Pool 18 depth near Louisa County in Iowa. Materials like this are being scanned and put online through the library’s website.
UW-La Crosse Murphy Library Digital Collections Librarian David Mindel demonstrates how materials are scanned to be digitized for online access through the library’s website.

All images were provided by UW-La Crosse Campus Communications.


Permalink