Written by Abrianna Miller ’23
Doane’s Perkins Library is home to irreplaceable primary sources — like the Doane Owl newspaper, yearbooks and photographs dating back to the early years of the university. In the past, these materials could only be seen in-person. Cali Neuberger Biaggi ’14 has led efforts to change that, along with fellow library employees and Doane students.
Biaggi is Doane’s online learning librarian. As an alum, compiling and digitizing the Doane Owl newspaper, historical documents and photos into a comprehensive and accessible database has been rewarding.
As a student, she worked in the archives with Janet Jeffries, who retired from the library and is now the university’s historian. Those experiences showed Biaggi that creating and preserving an accessible archive is an invaluable resource for current, past, and future students.
“In terms of education, I am really passionate about developing critical thinking in students, and I think using primary sources and using archives is an excellent way to do that,” Biaggi said.
The person viewing the archive acts as a filter, she said. They use critical thinking to interpret a document or image and draw conclusions based on their own experience.
Connections to the greater Doane community played a key role in the digitization of Doane’s archives, too. Biaggi cites experiences with family members searching for information about a loved one and relying on archived yearbooks.
“We aren’t going to digitize everything because there's a lot, but there are some things that definitely would be worth digitizing just so that people don't have to travel to campus,” Biaggi shared. “We have alumni all over the world and they can look at these things and learn from these things, too.”
Biaggi said the Doane Owl was digitized by an outsourced company and is now available on a database. Her next goal is digitizing the yearbooks in-house, then other materials, like photographs and negatives.
Biaggi aims to make the database of archived materials as accessible and user-friendly as possible by using metadata, which acts as a digital card catalog. Metadata allows database users to easily locate materials through keywords or phrases. They can search wherever, whenever, too, which reduces the amount of physical contact with the original materials.
“Frankly the fewer people who physically touch things the longer they last, too, so digitization is important for preservation,” Biaggi said.
But if someone needs a clearer or more specific scan of any resource, Biaggi said she’s happy to do so upon request.
Biaggi is thankful to the student workers and faculty members that have helped throughout the process, including students Erin Burke Benal ’22, Jeremy Henning ’22 and Christian Stacy ’20. She thanks Jeffries for laying the foundations and Holly Baber ’10, previously the library’s cataloging assistant, now gift accounting specialist in the Office of Advancement, for cataloging the archives with her.
While there is still work to be done, Biaggi and those who have assisted in preserving the archive have accomplished an impressive amount of work that will be appreciated for years to come.
