About this University of Miami Libraries Digital Fellowship

The Swingle Plant Anatomy Reference Collection project is the result of a 2008-2009 University of Miami Libraries Digital Fellowship awarded to Barbara Whitlock, Associate Professor in Biology. The University of Miami Libraries periodically offer Digital Library Fellowships, which include funding and technological support, to Coral Gables campus faculty interested in creating innovative open access on-line resources designed to have long-term relevance to the teaching, learning, and research goals of University of Miami faculty and students. With her fellowship, Doctor Whitlock led a project to digitize an historical collection of plant anatomical microscope slides that were made early in the 20th century by W.T. Swingle, one of the twentieth century’s foremost authorities on citrus plants.

Acknowledgments

This web site would not have been possible without the generous support of the University of Miami Libraries’ Digital Fellowships program and the University of Miami Department of Biology, where special thanks go to Professor Jeffrey Prince for allowing the project to use his microscope and space in his lab, and to Doctor James Baker and Doctor Paul Groff for technical support. In addition, significant contributions of time and expertise were made by a number of external experts. These include the Harvard Botany Libraries for helping with old and obscure literature, Emily Wood of the Harvard University Herbaria who helped with the slide catalog, David Jones of The Kampong for sharing his knowledge of Swingle and citrus, and the Special Collections of the National Agricultural Library and Nancy Korber of the Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden for providing some photos for the site. Finally, a special acknowledgment must be made to Ms. Frances Smith, manager of the University of Miami Department of Biology, who had the foresight years ago to try and find a home for the Swingle collection.

Project Staff

Whitlock Lab

Barbara Whitlock, Digital Fellow

Student Contributors

Slide database:

• Samantha Koncal
• Neil Singh
• Daniel Escobar
• Adrienne DiTommaso

Microscopic imaging:

• Megan Morris
• Katie Peach
• Priyanka Surio
• Juan Montoya
• Ernesto Perez
• Jennifer Hwang
• Rochelle Marill
• Darlene Gamez

Richter Library

• Anthony D. Smith
  Director of Digital Initiatives, Resources, and Services
• Lyn MacCorkle
  Digital Project Development & Repositories Librarian
  Website design & development, Digitizing management database, CONTENTdm metadata and ingest management programming
• Alexander Thacker
  Digital Project Development Student Assistant
  JavaScript Animation Utility, Programmer
• Kyle Rimkus
  Digital Projects Librarian
• Robert Largaespada
  Scanning & Data Management Technician
• Michael Kim
  Head of Cataloging and Metadata Services
• Fiona Kelleghan
  Cataloger
• Cecilia Martin
  Monographic Copy Cataloger/Receiving Assistant
• Béatrice Skokan
  Special Collections Librarian

Technical Details

• Microscope: Olympus BX60
• Digital Camera: Olympus DB71
• Digital Imaging Software: Olympus DPController