The Abilene Photo Collection is now Online!

I spoke with friend Alice Specht, Head Librarian of the Richardson Library at Hardin-Simmons University this morning and she had a bit of news: the Abilene Library Consortium and its partners have finished the digitization of over 10,000 photographs in the Abilene Photo Collection. This is a terrific research tool for documenting and researching historic buildings in Abilene. To check it out, you can use this URL: http://rupert.alc.org/library/darc.html.

The beginnings of this collection date back to the 1981 Abilene Centennial, when as part of the celebration residents were encouraged to bring in family and commercial photos to be copied for archiving. Dr. B.W. Aston shepherded the collection in its early years. The Abilene Library Consortium received a grant to digitize the collection, along with some historic maps and other documents. Previously, you could search the indexes, but to see any of the images you would need to make a trip to the research center, but now the images are available for all to learn from and enjoy.

--wdm