Archives Month (October) has almost come and gone, but the Special Collections Department in Albertsons Library, Boise State University, has recently mounted two online exhibits highlighting primary archival sources in several of its collections:
The Gracie Pfost Gallery
http://library.boisestate.edu/Special/GraciePfost.htm features photos and campaign literature from the career of Gracie Bowers Pfost (1906-1965), the first woman elected to Congress from Idaho. The exhibit items come from a collection of memorabilia donated to Boise State University by Mrs. Pfost's sister, Pearl Mabe, in 1998.
The Sunshine Mine Disaster
http://library.boisestate.edu/Special/Sunshine.htm
was created to support Boise State University's First Year Read, in which all freshmen are assigned to read the same book. This year the book is "The Deep Dark," by Gregg Olsen, about the Sunshine Mine fire in Kellogg, Idaho, in 1972. The primary source materials in the online exhibit come from the manuscript collections of Senator Frank Church, Senator Len B. Jordan, and Governor Cecil D. Andrus.
A complete list of online exhibits mounted by Special Collections at the Boise State University Library featuring primary source documents from our collections is found at http://library.boisestate.edu/Special/Exhibits.htm .
Alan Virta, Head of Special Collections and Associate Professor
ARTstor is an online database that includes half a million images in over fifty themed collections that you can browse and search at your leisure. Not only can you view the images online, but you can save them into groups, organize them, and share them with others using ARTstor's "image groups" feature.
Did I mention that ARTstor has half a million images? Digital reproductions of works held at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and a long list of others. The image quality is tremendous, offering you the ability to zoom in and see the item in great detail. It's like having an art museum in your living room!
ARTstor is a database you can use for research or just for fun; either way you get easy access to amazing works of art. To get to the database, go to the library homepage, click "Online Databases," jump to "A," and scroll down to where ARTstor appears in the database listing. You can view a quick-start guide to get you rolling. Enjoy!
