LibGuides: Special Collections: Researching Augustana College History: Frequently Used Digital Resources

Frequently Used Digital Resources on Augustana College History

These are some of the most frequently used resources for researching the history of Augustana College. Many basic questions can be answered by consulting one of the sources below, all of which are available outside of the Special Collections reading room. If you need help using one of these resources, please don't hesitate to ask at the Research Help Desk on the second floor of the library, visit the Special Collections reading room when we are open, or send an email to specialcollections@augustana.edu.

150 Years of Augustana College History: A Timeline
This online resource is a timeline of Augustana College history that was prepared for the college's sesquicentennial celebration in 2010. It is organized by decade and is an excellent place to start if you are looking for a broad overview of the college's development. This timeline was adapted from the book Reflecting on the Past, which you can find in the Books section of this LibGuide.
An Augustana Campus History
This is another digital timeline, focused on the history of the physical campus in Rock Island, Illinois. If you are looking for information about a particular building, this is a great place to start. It is organized chronologically, and was based on a book by Glen Brolander that you can find in the Books section of this LibGuide.
Augustana Observer and Rockety-I Digital Collections
Both the Augustana Observer student newspaper and the Rockety-I annual yearbook are available in digital collections that allow full-text searching. The Observer collection covers 1902-2016 and the Rockety-I collection covers ~1900-2004. The digital images have been rendered full-text searchable using optical character recognition (OCR) technology. This means you can search for keywords or phrases within the pages of the newspapers and yearbooks. These are tremendous digital resources, but require some patience and practice to use effectively. NOTE: the previous Observer/Rockety-I database is being phased out in August 2020 and will be replaced with new collections on a more user-friendly platform. The migration is on-going, and there may be a brief period when the Observer is only partially available.
Augustana College Special Collections on Flickr
Our Flickr site provides an easy, intuitive way to browse through a small selection of digital images scanned from photographs in our collections. It is intended for casual browsing rather than in-depth research. If you are looking for photographs of specific people, events, buildings, or time periods, please see the Photographs section of this LibGuide.