Wednesday, June 10, 2009

MacLaren Digital Collection Available in Luna

The C&MS Digital Resources Cataloging Team and the CU-B Special Collections Department are pleased to announce that the Thomas MacLaren Collection of Architectural Drawings is available to the public in digital form through the CU Digital Library. The collection consists of 328 pencil sketches, ink sketches and watercolors of buildings and architectural features created during MacLaren’s travels in England, Scotland, Italy, Switzerland and elsewhere in the 1880s, as well as student exercises, landscapes, and other drawings. MacLaren moved to Colorado in the 1892-93 to mitigate the effects of his tuberculosis, settling in Colorado Springs where he lived until his death in 1928.

Making this unique collection available online required a tremendous team effort. Cataloging the collection was especially challenging, due to the condition and format of the existing metadata, where it existed. The work was intricate, detailed, and sometimes difficult. The Digital Resources Cataloging Team would like to recognize the catalogers who worked so hard to document this collection: Josie Fania, Christina Howard, Zoya Nazari, Jina Wakimoto and Jane Zumwalt. Special thanks are also due to Holley Long for her tireless work with the Luna interface, and Kris McCusker for answering innumerable questions about individual items in the collection.

Please direct questions about the metadata portion of this digitization project to Michael Dulock.