USU’s Merrill-Cazier Library to participate in project to digitize World War II history

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LOGAN — Utah State University Libraries have been chosen as the first participants in a United States Government Publishing Office pilot project.

What this means is they are going to take a large collection of World War II-related materials currently housed at USU and get them all online, digitized and preserved permanently.

On KVNU’s For the People program, archivist with USU Libraries Jen Kirk indicated it will be available and accessible to anyone – anywhere, even non-students.

“As part of this collection, we interact with the G.P.O., or the Government Publishing Office, fairly regularly. We get materials from them today, everyday we’re receiving new printed materials and making them available to the public. And then we also have this wonderful historic collection that really dates back to the beginning of government printing and open transparency and the late 19th century. The federal government really starts printing things after the Civil War,” she explained.

Kirk said they have pictures, documents in their collections that the public is free to come look at.

“One of the most fascinating pieces of the collection, in my mind, is a document about Utah. It’s about Utah women who served on salvage committees for the War Production Authority, and these women were in charge of keeping the community together, as we know Utah is great at community involvement. These women helped lead drives for tin cans, if you have a grandparent or parent that has talked about remembering collecting tin cans, that would have been part of this movement.”

The digitized project just underway is expected to be completed by winter 2023.

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