The Miami University Libraries recently completed an effort to digitize yearbooks from Western College for Women. Originally titled The Western Multifaria, 65 editions of the yearbook were published from 1910 to 1974, when Western College merged with Miami University. The digitization was conducted in connection with a comprehensive periodicals digitization effort funded by a grant from the W. E. Smith Foundation.
Visitors to the Multifaria digital collection can explore the students, faculty, staff, academics, extracurriculars, and organizations of Western College over the years as chronicled through photographs and illustrations. The yearbooks are available in high-definition, and their contents are fully searchable thanks to text recognition processing and robust metadata tagging.
In addition, two newly added features of the Libraries’ digital collections platform enhance the yearbook viewing experience: a flipbook-style reader and PDF download. The flipbook reader makes it possible for users to turn pages virtually and view the yearbook pages side-by-side as full spreads, while the PDF download option allows users to quickly download a widely compatible PDF format of the full yearbook to view in whatever application they choose.
The yearbooks join several other digital collections of periodicals, including:
- Miami University Recensio yearbooks
- Oxford College for Women’s Oxae and Oxonian yearbooks
- Western Roundup and Question Mark student newspapers
- The Miami Student newspaper
- Miami University M-Books: annual handbooks for first-year students
- Various periodicals published by Miami University students including the Literary Focus, Literary Register, and student group newsletters
- Miami Alumnus newsletter (digitization is currently in progress for this collection)
The Libraries’ digital collections contain over 165,000 images and videos and continue to grow, currently comprising 48 different collections spanning a wide variety of topics including university documents and records, Myaamia Tribe history, Victorian trade cards, 19th and 20th-century postcards, Miami football films, and more.
The Libraries digitize and make these historically significant materials available for use by scholars, students, and the general public. All materials should be viewed within the context of their time, and some of these materials may contain offensive language or images. Miami University and the Miami University Libraries do not endorse any views expressed in these collections.