Viewing entries posted in November 2020

New to DigitalNC: More Smithfield High School Memorabilia, Photos, Newspapers

Red white and blue paper shield, next to paper cut out that includes menu grapefruit, boiled ham, vegetable salad, potato chips, pimento cheese sandwich, tomato, pickle, rolls, butter, ice cream, cake, tea

Program from the 1942 Smithfield High School Junior-Senior banquet

DigitalNC has added additional photos and ephemera from Smithfield High School, located in Smithfield, Johnston County, North Carolina. This most recent batch documents SHS Junior-Senior banquets, music and drama, and graduates/graduations, and also includes issues of the student newspaper, the Smithfield High Times. This addition was made possible thanks our partners at the Smithfield High School Alumni Association.

Thirty-five issues of the High Times have been added, spanning the early 1950s to the late 1960s.  Starting in 1937 and lasting until 1969, High Times was published semi-regularly by students at Smithfield High School As a high school newspaper, topics ran the gamut, from informational to entertaining. Examples of material covered include school clubs, contests, career days, scholarships, field trips, sports, honor roll announcements, gossip, and fashion. While the newspaper wasn’t published on a set schedule, issues often came out around Thanksgiving, winter break, and at the end of the school year. Each issue features a hand drawn cover page while various smaller drawings add homemade detail to columns within the newspaper. There is a marked switch to a more professional layout in 1968, only spanning two issues.

Among the photos and ephemera added in this most recent batch you’ll find photographs of graduating classes, along with ephemera about graduates dating from 1909-1969. Snapshots and programs from Junior-Senior banquets are another highlight, with handmade menus based on each banquet’s theme. Finally, there are collections of programs, newspaper clippings, and photos related to music and drama activities at the school.

To view all issues of the Smithfield High Times by cover page, click here. You can view everything the Alumni Association has shared on DigitalNC on their contributor page. You can view the items by subject on their exhibit page. To learn more about the Smithfield High School Alumni Association, you can visit their homepage here.



10 for 10: Celebrating NCDHC’s Birthday with Stakeholder Stories – Vicki Coleman

Head and shoulders view of smiling woman indoors wearing black blazer

Vicki Coleman, Dean of Library Services at the F. D. Bluford Library, at North Carolina A&T State University

This year marks the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s 10th anniversary, and to celebrate we’ll be posting 10 stories from 10 stakeholders about how NCDHC has impacted their organizations.

Today’s 10 for 10 post is from Vicki Coleman, Dean of Library Services at the F. D. Bluford Library, at North Carolina A&T State University. We’ve partnered with NC A&T (Library home page | NCDHC contributor page) to digitize yearbooks, catalogs, and student newspapers. The Library also has their own extensive digital collections online, where you can find faculty research, agricultural history, and history about NC A&T. Read below for more about our partnership with NC A&T.

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Happy 10th anniversary to the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center!

Over the past decade, the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center (NCDHC) has played a vital role in helping the F.D. Bluford Library at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T) ensure the success of its digital conversion projects. More specifically, the NCDHC’s digitization services have aided Bluford Library by providing the infrastructure to create thousands of preservation-quality digital images and other historical materials that are now accessible by students, faculty and researchers world-wide.

Working collaboratively with the NCDHC has opened opportunities for Bluford Library to give visibility to the wealth of history stored in its archive and to the many resources accessible from the DigitalNC website. Listed below are examples of how some digitized collections are used:

  • The university’s digitized yearbooks (1939-2013), catalogs and bulletins (1895-2013) and student newspaper (1915-2010) serve as indexes, directing researchers to names, places, photos and historical events that helped shape the university, the surrounding Greensboro community, and the history of African-Americans with regards to higher education and the civil rights movement.
  • In 2015, I oversaw the publication of NC A&T’s pictorial history book commemorating the university’s 125th anniversary. When it came to the digitization of some of our most brittle materials for inclusion in the book (e.g., minutes from an 1891 Board of Trustees meeting) it was the NCDHC that got it done.
  • Over the past three years, James Stewart, the Archives and Special Collections librarian at Bluford Library, has taught more than 300 students how to access community histories about NC A&T and African-American history via the DigitalNC website.
  • This past summer, Mr. Stewart and I conducted research pertaining to the naming of all the buildings and streets on the NC A&T campus. We were able to locate much of the historical information in the A&T Register, the NCA&T student newspaper that was digitized by the NCDHC and by searching the Newspapers collection on the DigitalNC website.

The NCDHC has advanced Bluford Library’s efforts to make historical materials accessible online by providing visionary guidance, high-level expertise and access to state of the art scanning equipment. I appreciate the great skills of the many individuals that make up the NCDHC and look forward to continuing a productive partnership with them. Congratulations to the NCDHC on its tenth anniversary and I await with pleasure another 10 years of remarkable achievements in increasing open access to the state’s cultural heritage.

Celebrating 10 years NC Digital Heritage Center, with confetti background


Women in Leadership Panel discussion from Mitchell Community College now online

DigitalNC has a hit a new milestone – a virtual panel held during the COVID era is now part of the NCDHC collection, thanks to our partner Mitchell Community College.  

screenshot of a google form

From the Google form used to sign up to attend the virtual panel

Recorded using the software Blackboard Collaborate, the panel hosted by the community college library featured four Iredell County women Dr. Porter Brannon, Dr. Camille Reese, Sara Haire Tice, and Dorothy Woodard, who answered questions about what inspires them, how they overcame obstacles along their career paths, and more.  You can watch the panel yourself here

To view more materials from Mitchell Community College, view their partner page here.  To view more audiovisual materials on DigitalNC, visit our collection North Carolina Sights and Sounds


10 for 10: Celebrating NCDHC’s Birthday with Stakeholder Stories – David Wright

Smiling adult with grey beard wearing blue collared shirt standing under trees on a sunny day

David Wright, Associate Dean, Learning Resources, Surry Community College

This year marks the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center’s 10th anniversary, and to celebrate we’ll be posting 10 stories from 10 stakeholders about how NCDHC has impacted their organizations.

Today’s 10 for 10 Q&A is from David Wright, Associate Dean for Learning Resources at Surry Community College. We’ve partnered with Surry CC (Library home page | NCDHC contributor page) to digitize yearbooks, newspapers, and genealogical collections. Surry CC Library has been active in digitizing a lot of Surry County history, making connections with area groups and institutions to share their history online at Surry County Digital Heritage. Read below for more about our partnership with Surry Community College.

What impact has NCDHC had on your institution and/or on a particular audience that means a lot to you?

NCDHC has been an advocate, a source of information about the process of digitization, and has provided our rural community with the tools to bring a digital history project to fruition. Surry Community College has benefited from the expertise of the NCDHC as well as a partner in digitizing yearbooks from the county. At the beginning of our digital history project, I felt like I had a sounding board (& expertise) in Lisa Gregory and the staff at NCDHC. A project of the size and scope of the Surry County Digital Heritage had not been attempted anywhere in our area. We needed good advice and found it at NCDHC.

Do you have a specific user story (maybe your own!) about how DigitalNC has boosted research or improved access to important information?

The “yearbook project” that NCDHC has helped us bring together is an amazing resource. It has been a lot of footwork and many deliveries and pickups in Chapel Hill, but the libraries in Surry County can refer patrons who inquire about yearbooks to DigitalNC, where all the yearbooks are gathered in one place and are easy to browse and use and not scattered in locations throughout the county. As in many counties, before school consolidation, there were lots of community schools, many that were K-12. This is a valuable resource for genealogists, other family history researchers, and just fun browsing for people who remember the community schools.

If you were asked to “describe what makes NCDHC great” in a few words, what would they be?

A dedicated and helpful staff who want to preserve the historical records of communities.

Celebrating 10 years NC Digital Heritage Center, with confetti background


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This blog is maintained by the staff of the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center and features the latest news and highlights from the collections at DigitalNC, an online library of primary sources from organizations across North Carolina.

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