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Hoellen Grant 2022

The Women and Leadership Archives (WLA) of Loyola University Chicago used the Hoellen Family Foundation grant to purchase a laptop for staff use and digitization of audiovisual materials from two WLA collections. The laptop will aid the WLA in making information about the collections available to the public and with other daily work. Audiovisual materials for digitization were chosen based on their age, condition, and research value. The digitization was primarily completed for preservation reformatting reasons, and to ensure future access to these items. Upon further review, items may also be included in Preservica for public access, thus increasing their availability to the public. Preservica is the platform the WLA uses to store digital collections and make them available online. Work was completed by Midwest Productions, the trusted vendor of the Women and Leadership Archives for audiovisual digitization.

[Image: Screenshot from documentary film, A College of Their Own Records]

AV items were chosen from two unique collections. The first collection was the A College of Their Own Records. In 1991, Mundelein College, the last women’s college in Illinois, affiliated with Loyola University Chicago. The following year, faculty from the Communications Departments of both schools decided to make a documentary about the affiliation and the issues surrounding women’s education. The film analyzes the history of women’s education, examines the issues surrounding the closing of numerous women’s colleges in the late 20th century, and specifically tells the story of Mundelein College. A College of Their Own was completed in 1998. Hours of interview footage was created for this documentary but was never included in the final cut. These unedited interview tapes are of great research value. They were recorded on now-outdated media formats and had not been preservation reformatted. Preservation reformatting (digitization) of these items will ensure that these items will be available for years to come.

The Helen Ramirez-Odell collection contains taped interviews of Chicago area school nurses for the book Working Without Uniforms: School Nursing in Chicago 1951-2001. Although the Helen Ramirez-Odell collection contains other materials, the interviews are the heart of the collection, and are of the greatest value to researchers. These fragile tapes were previously unavailable to researchers due to their condition. Now, researchers can have access to these firsthand accounts.

The University Libraries and WLA are honored to receive the 2022 Hoellen Family Foundation grant. We invite you to view this page to learn more about how the Foundation has made an impact: luc.edu/wla/specialprojects/hoellenfamilyfoundation