Volunteers Needed for UMaine Online Yearbooks Project
Contact: Gretchen Gfeller, 207-581-1696
ORONO — Visitors can already browse digital pages from every University of Maine Prism Yearbook from 1894 to 1997, but volunteers are now entering data that will make the UMaine Yearbooks Online website searchable by name and year of senior class.
After the first phase of scanning and editing of images was finished for the Raymond H. Fogler Library website, people began asking whether the information would be fully text searchable. As the volumes are primarily graphic in nature, the staff found it prohibitively labor-intensive to offer full text searchability. However, an effort to create a name index began with the test of a pilot page for the Class of 1949. All 794 names were entered into an initial database and tested. After assessing the potential for this added feature, the library put out a call for volunteers via the project website.
“We were delighted when Brian Bouchard of earlyMaine.org came forward,” says Sharon Quinn Fitzgerald, head of the technical services department at Fogler Library. “Brian not only offered to contribute to entering data for the index, he offered his considerable programming skills to provide a database front end that eases the way for volunteer participation.” As a result of this successful partnership volunteers have indexed the seniors for the years 1894 through 1940 in addition to the original 1949 project. This information is already available to the public through both the Fogler Library Web portal and the earlyMaine.org website.
“We think this community project will be of great interest and value to genealogists as well as UMaine alumni and friends, and there is more work to be done,” notes Fitzgerald. Anyone with computer access can participate from any location.
Those interested in volunteering can email Brian Bouchard at brian@earlyMaine.org.