Elon University’s entire collection of yearbooks, from Phi Psi Cli’s debut in 1913 through its 2009 edition, is now available to view online with search functions that allow users to locate specific names and organizations in a given year.
The university partnered with Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to have the books scanned. UNC is host to the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center, a program to make freely available historic records from across the state at no cost to users.
Such resources will be a boon for alumni and historians alike.
“The yearbooks are something I use every day, and I’ve already given out the link and told a handful of researchers about it,” said Katie Nash, who oversees Elon’s archives and special collections. “They’re either looking for information about a relative who went to Elon or they want to know what campus was like during the period of time when their relative attended.”
“This makes it so much easier, and the response I’ve gotten from everyone I’ve sent this to has been positive.”
The scanned images themselves are currently housed on a server managed by The Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit founded in 1996 with a mission to preserve digital content, from text and audio to video and web pages. Links to the yearbook pages have been created on the Belk Library web site, as well as the Alumni Office web site.
Phi Psi Cli has been in continuous publication since 1913 with the exception of three years – 1918, 1919 and 1932. “I think alumni will enjoy going back and looking through yearbooks,” Nash said.