Online Resources

To continue your research outside of the Special Collections reading room, the following resources may be helpful:

An Augustana Campus History
This an online timeline of campus history, based heavily on Glen Brolander's An Historical Survey of the Augustana College Campus. It was created in 2010 as part of the celebration of the college's 150th anniversary. The last edition of Brolander's survey was published in 1992, so this web timeline is especially useful if you are looking for campus changes that occurred between 1992 and 2010.
An Historical Survey of the Augustana College Campus by Glen Brolander (1985 ed.)
This is a digitized copy of the 1985 edition of Glen Brolander's An Historical Survey of the Augustana College Campus. This is an excellent source of information about the changes to the college's physical campus from 1875-1985. It contains maps of the campus footprint and buildings at various points in time, profiles of individual buildings, and information about the acquisition of tracts of land. Use the table of contents and the index to locate information relevant to your needs.
Augustana Observer database
This database contains digital copies of the Augustana Observer (student newspaper) from 1902-2020. 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 newspaper. This is a tremendous digital resource, but requires some patience and practice to use effectively. See the instructions below.
Rockety-I database
This database includes digital copies of the yearbook from 1900-2004. Like the database above, the digital images have been rendered full-text searchable using optical character recognition (OCR) technology. See the instructions below.
Augustana College Digitized Photographs (Flickr)
Many photographs of campus are digitized and available through the Special Collections Flickr page. Search the photostream for buildings and locations. Each image includes citation information.

Steps for Conducting a Search via the Observer/ Rockety-I Database

Both the Observer and the Rockety-I have been digitized and processed with optical character recognition (OCR) software to render the images into machine-readable text. This processing is what enables us to do full-text searching. While this is a powerful research tool, it is important to note that the OCR process does not produce perfect results, particularly when interpreting highly decorative fonts, text printed at odd angles, hyphenated words, or poor-quality print. Newsprint can be particularly difficult for computers to interpret correctly.

At the home pages, you can either use the search engine box at the top of the screen or perform an advanced search. An advanced search will allow you to search for keywords with specific parameters. If using this option, be sure to only select the Augustana Observer and/or Rockety-I yearbook from the "Collections" checklist.

To begin the process, let's do a simple search for "Latinos Unidos." There should be 49 records available after conducting this search.

Next, select a digital object from your results. Once viewing the object completely, the keyword that you searched for should be highlighted within the transcript. There may be multiple results within one object, so it is recommended that you review the transcript located below the image and the results bar on the right-hand side of the screen. The results bar shows us the image or images we will find the keyword located within. For example, I located 'Latinos Unidos" on page/image 4 of a 1999 article.

By clicking the "expand" feature, you will be able to further interact with the digital object. For example, you will be able to zoom in and out, as well as print or download the image.

To download, you will click the highlighted folder icon on the upper right-hand side of the digital object. Then, a PDF document should download and be visible at the bottom of your screen. If you experience any difficulties, contact Special Collections for assistance.