State library grant to fund digitizing Cyclops yearbooks

September 8, 2021

Since Allison Galloup arrived at the University of North Georgia (UNG), she searched for funds to finish digitizing the university's yearbooks. The associate professor and special collections and digital initiatives librarian succeeded this summer.

The Digital Library of Georgia (DLG) awarded UNG's Special Collections & Archives a $7,400 grant to digitally chronicle the Cyclops yearbooks from 1975-1995. Cyclops was the yearbook for North Georgia College (NGC) before UNG was born through consolidation with Gainesville State College.

UNG's grant is one of nine awarded through a program intended to broaden partner participation in the DLG and engage diverse institutions across Georgia. UNG was one of three higher education institutions to receive a grant. The other recipients were cultural heritage institutions.

It marked Galloup's first grant.

"It was very exciting," she said. "And it will be a relief to put these yearbooks online."

Currently, the digital versions of the Cyclops from 1906-1964 are available on the Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository (NOIR). By adding 20 more years, it will complete the run of NGC's yearbooks. In 1996, the higher education institution changed its name to North Georgia College & State University (NGCSU).

"We already have a full run of Gainesville Junior College's yearbooks of the Fathom from 1967-1981," Galloup said. "This will complete the run for North Georgia College."

Galloup aims to find money to digitize the NGCSU yearbooks from 1996-2012, which will to complete the yearbook collection.

Mary Owens, alumni relations officer for special events, said the digital yearbooks are meaningful to alumni because it preserves their history and memories of their time at the university.

"You get an emotional feeling from a yearbook photo, and we lean on those memories," she said. "We live in the present, but when we look back at a picture we relive it."

Providing digital versions of the yearbooks allows alumni to access those memories and connections from anywhere at any time.

Galloup said the yearbooks appeal to more than alumni. Historians, genealogists and current students seek out the yearbooks.

Galloup said the digital yearbooks are the most popular items available on NOIR. Since its installation, yearbooks have been downloaded more than 240,000 times. About 123,000 downloads occurred in the United States with the remainder stemming from international sources.

"The most popular Cyclops is the 1948 issue," said Galloup, who noted her favorite is 1973. "I like it because it was the university's centennial."

She said the yearbooks track the transformation of the student body and the changes in hairstyles and clothing over the decades. Yearbooks even document historic shifts and moments.

"You can see how the student body changed after desegregation in 1967," Galloup said. "Then in 1970, the Corps started adding women, and you see the uptick of female faces in uniform."