Digitizing the Fitzgerald Family at the University of South Carolina

Abstract

Copyright © 2014 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA Not everyone finds themselves fresh out of college having one of their biggest dreams realized. However, I was lucky enough to find myself exactly in that position in August 2013 on my first day of work at the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of South Carolina. I came to USC to earn a Master’s degree in library and information science and knew about many of the collections in the university libraries, but I never dreamed that I would be holding a first edition copy of The Great Gatsby in my hands less than a week after I began my program. A lifelong Fitzgerald fan and an English student, this truly was one of the most fulfilling moments of my life. As exciting as that day was for me, I was even more thrilled to discover that my projects during my first semester in graduate school would directly relate to F. Scott Fitzgerald. In this article, I will share my experiences and achievements in digitizing the Fitzgerald family’s photo albums and scrapbooks. The Ernest F. Hollings Library is the newest library facility at the University of South Carolina, opened and dedicated to Senator Ernest “Fritz” Hollings in 2010. A state-of-the-art facility behind the Thomas Cooper Library, it is home to the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, South Carolina Political Collections, and Digital Collections. The Irvin Department is one of four special collections libraries at USC and collects mostly print materials and manuscripts. It houses over 150,000 volumes and fifty archival collections. The University of South Carolina is home to the Matthew J. and Arlyn Bruccoli Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose holdings now rival those at Princeton University for scholars interested in researching Fitzgerald and his contemporaries. The collection was formed by the late Dr. Bruccoli and his wife and grew over the course of five decades of collecting and research. In addition to his scholarly and teaching interest in Fitzgerald and his work as an author, editor, publisher, and collector, Dr. Bruccoli was a friend of Scottie Fitzgerald Smith. Some of the highlights of the collection include unrevised Digitizing the Fitzgerald Family at the University of South Carolina