Courtesy of Morgan State University
A $500,000 Title III HBCU Part F grant awarded in 2020 is helping Morgan State University’s Beulah M. Davis Special Collections Department transform access to the school’s rich history through new digital projects.
As part of its commitment to creating an open-access digital repository, the Davis Room has successfully digitized historical materials, allowing scholars, students, and the general public to learn more about Morgan’s past than ever before.
Now Available Online
Among the newly digitized materials are publications such as “The Spokesman,” Morgan’s student-produced newspaper which ran from 1944 to 2012, and more than 50 full-color editions of the university’s yearbook, “The Promethean,” from documenting campus life from 1937 to 2019.
Also available online are the “Morgan Mirror,” a faculty-produced newspaper from the 1980s and 1990s featuring over 40 issues, and the “Morgan State University Women Collection,” which compiles newsletters, programs, and archival materials celebrating the contributions of women at Morgan from 1939 to 2019.
“This effort represents a transformative step toward modernization and accessibility,” said Dr. Ida E. Jones, associate director of Special Collections and University Archivist. “By digitizing these invaluable collections, we ensure that Morgan’s rich history is preserved and made readily available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. This initiative empowers students, researchers, and the broader public with unrestricted access to critical historical narratives.”
Students and faculty now have the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world archival settings and prepare for careers in digitization, data mining, and information retrieval.
Coming Soon
These digitized collections are available under the Digital Collections section on the Davis Room website. The next phase of the digitization project will convert Morgan State’s course catalogs from as far back as the late 1800s into digital formats.
Additionally, the Davis Room plans to introduce academic internships for students interested in analog and digital archival processes, creating pathways for hands-on experience managing historical documents.