Old Emersonians Now Available Online

College historians, zealous networkers, and mullet connoisseurs no longer need to make an appointment to view old Emerson yearbooks in the College’s Archives and Special Collections—they can now peruse them online.

This year, Archives and Special Collections partnered with Digital Commonwealth to digitize the College’s collection of Emersonians. Based out of the Boston Public Library, Digital Commonwealth supports the creation, access, and preservation of cultural materials in Massachusetts with a network of more than 130 educational and cultural institutions.

“The services the Digital Commonwealth provides are invaluable,” Emerson Digital Initiatives Librarian Amy Bocko said in a statement. “They are dedicated to making large-scale digitization projects a reality for institutions that might find them out of reach otherwise.”

Bocko came to Emerson in October 2015 with the goal of widening access to more of the Iwasaki Library’s collections. She worked with staff in the Archives to identify those collections that would most benefit from open access.

Nearly 60 percent of requests from patrons using the Archives has been to see back issues of the Emersonian, according to Christina Zamon, head of Archives and Special Collections.

“We wanted to digitize something that would provide access to one of our most requested materials,” Zamon said in a statement.

Next up for digitization: the full run of Berkeley Beacons, Emerson’s student-run newspaper, from 1947 to today. Archives and Special Collections plans to launch a USeed campaign later this summer to raise money for the project.

The digital archive can be found at emerson.edu/library/archives/digital-collections