Announcing a New Digital Collections Platform
A new digital collections platform, launched in September 2026, provides access to selected digitized and born-digital materials—including images, documents, books, audiovisual recordings, and other original materials—from the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections and other rare collections at WashU Libraries.
WashU Libraries Digital Collections will make it easier for students, faculty, researchers, and other patrons to identify and access rare and historically valuable collections. These materials were previously hosted on different platforms and were either more challenging to find or not available for wider access. The unified site provides access to several distinguished legacy collections, including the works of important nineteenth-and twentieth-century American illustrators in the Walt Reed Illustration Archive, the landmark civil rights film series Eyes on the Prize, the correspondence of American poet James Merrill, and two of the earliest printed broadsides of the Declaration of Independence.
“We are so thrilled to finally have a single solution for increasing the accessibility and discoverability of our expansive digital and special collections. Countless staff hours have gone into building one-of-a-kind collections, creating digital versions of rare, original materials, and designing infrastructure. The new digital collections platform has enabled us to realize our longstanding goal of preserving and openly sharing the pieces of the historical record under our care with the world,” said Nadia Ghasedi, Associate University Librarian.
The platform has several features that will enhance the use and discovery of special collections materials by students and researchers, according to Mitch Sumner, Head of Digital Preservation, who jointly led the project with Karen Knox, Head of Library Technological Services. These include transcription support for digitized images, documents, and audiovisual materials, comprehensive metadata to make materials easily searchable, and the ability to find the materials quickly and directly through the main search box on the WashU Libraries website.
The Henry Hampton Collection illustrates how the new platform improves access to significant and previously difficult-to-find audiovisual materials. The 310 interviews from Hampton’s award-winning civil rights documentary series, Eyes on the Prize I and II, feature prominent civil rights activists and other figures involved with the civil rights movement and can now be readily accessed by patrons.
“For the first time, we have a digital asset management system where all our digitized collections material can be viewed in the same place. This will vastly improve our ability to serve and make discoverable important interviews, footage, and audio recordings held by the Film & Media Archive,” said Lydia Creech, Curator of Film & Media at WashU Libraries.
The site currently holds 158,349 records, ranging from single items like photographs and documents to books and entire archives, across thirty-six collections, The Libraries will continue to digitize and add materials to the platform, ensuring historically valuable collections remain available to students, researchers, and the public.