UofS Football Archives now online

The University of Scranton’s football team may no longer be around (in fact, it’s famous on campus for being “undefeated since 1960″), but at the Weinberg Memorial Library, UofS football is back in a big way.  This week, the Library is proud to announce the University of Scranton Football Collection, a digitized version of our football archives.

The collection includes over a thousand photographs of University of Scranton (and St. Thomas College) football teams, players, coaches, and games – as well as photos of the cheerleaders and marching bands who cheered them on.  The collection also features a set of football game programs.  The programs, produced for each home game, have team rosters, statistics, and game analysis.  Most of the materials come from the years 1900 through 1960, when the varsity football team was disbanded.

This collection isn’t just for UofS football fans, though.  The game programs in particular are a rich resource for researchers interested in the history of Scranton and its surrounding area.  The programs were sponsored by local businesses (like the Hotel Casey), so the booklets serve as miniature “time capsules” showing slices of Scranton life over time.

We invite all students, staff, alumni, and community members to browse and search the collection at www.scranton.edu/library/football.  You may also want to take a look at our brief history of University of Scranton football.

P.S. While we have identified many of the photographs, some are still mysteries.  If you recognize a player, please let us know!  You can contact the Digital Services department at 570-941-7003.

Many thanks to librarian Kay Lopez, library systems specialist Jennifer Maher, and digital services assistant Kevin Pheasey, who all dedicated many hours of hard work to this project.

Register today for University for a Day

The Second Annual University for a Day
Saturday, September 12, 2009
8:45 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.

Start the new season thinking! We invite you to join us for a day of listening to, reflecting on and talking about some ideas and people that have changed our world.  Take part in this feast for the mind at The Schemel Forum’s second annual University for the Day.

Full Schedule:

8:45am – 9:30am Registration

9:30am – 10:45am Toni Morrison’s A Mercy: A Paradigm and a Cautionary Tale of Interdependence in a New World (presented by Stephen Whittaker, Professor of English and Theater)

11:00am – 12:15pm Rosalind Franklin: Another Twist in the DNA Double Helix (presented by Janice Voltzow, Professor of Biology)

12:30pm – 1:30pm Buffet Luncheon

1:45pm – 3:00pm The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Run it: White Collar Crime and the Global Financial Crisis (presented by David Friedrichs, Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice)

3:15pm – 4:30pm Globalization: For Better and Worse (presented by Goodwin Cooke, Professor of International Studies at Syracuse University)

4:30pm – 5:15pm Reception

All this plus morning coffee, lunch and a closing wine reception in very good company for a very low price! Free to current Schemel Forum Members. $25.00 Schemel Forum Non-Members.  Reservations are required, so please register by contacting Kym Balthazar Fetsko, Schemel Forum Events Coordinator, at 570-941-7816 or fetskok2 (at) scranton (dot) edu.  Also be sure to check out the full Schemel Forum fall schedule!

University for a Day is made possible through the generous support of the Neighborhood Development Trust Fund and the Scranton Area Foundation.

Congrats, Coach Strong!

Congratulations to Mike Strong, coach of the University of Scranton’s women’s basketball team, on his 700th win!  Coach Strong joined the “700 club” of the NCAA’s winningest coaches this Sunday when the Lady Royals beat Drew, 73-54.

In celebration of this milestone, I searched the University of Scranton Digital Yearbook Collection and found this photo of Coach Strong (on the left in the third row) and the Lady Royals, on p. 62 of the 1980 Windhover yearbook:

If you want to read more about Coach Strong’s 700th win, check out the University press release, or “The 700 Club,” an article by Scott Walsh that was in Monday’s Scranton Times-Tribune.

U of Scranton yearbooks online, from Aquinas to Windhover

January, named after the Roman god of gates and doorways, is not only a great month to celebrate the new year, but also to remember the past. The Weinberg Memorial Library has just made it even easier to reminisce by digitizing all of the University of Scranton’s yearbooks, from the 1916 Aquinas to the 2007 Windhover.

The Weinberg Memorial Library’s Digital Services department is proud to present the University of Scranton Digital Yearbook Collection, a 74 volume set of almost 20,000 digitized pages – all available to the public. You can browse the books to get a feel for each year’s unique student culture, or search the books to find photographs of your favorite University faculty, staff, and alumni!

Questions or comments? Contact the WML Digital Services department at (570) 941-7003.

Library pride

I couldn’t help but feel proud to see the Weinberg Memorial Library so well represented on the University’s Christmas card this year, signed by Father Pilarz himself. The Pro Deo room never looked so welcoming.