Digital Collections: UWL External Collections

UWL Campus History Collection: This collection includes resources that document the history and evolution of this campus. The collection includes published material as well as archival materials and may eventually include additional books, manuscripts, sound recordings, photographs, maps and other resources deemed important to the study of our state's university system and its campuses. The materials included in this rich and growing collection were selected by librarians, scholars, and other subject specialists.

UWL Steamboat Photograph Collection: This collection consists of over 40,000 photographic images of steamboats on the inland waterways of the United States, primarily the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers and their tributaries. The photos depict steamboats in every phase of their life span — from construction to destruction — and every aspect of their daily operations from the 1850s to the present.

The Taylor Brothers Photograph Collection: The photographic images in this collection were taken by the Taylor Brothers photographic studio of Adams County, Wisconsin, circa 1910-1930. In 2001, Murphy Library, UW-La Crosse received the collection as a donation from a private estate. There were 665 glass plate photographic negatives in the donation. Growth and change in rural and small town Wisconsin in the early 20th century are reflected in the photos of the Taylor Brothers. Most of the photos were taken in central Wisconsin, centering on Adams County and the county seat of Friendship.

Before launching our current Digital Collections in 2014, Murphy Library worked on several projects with the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center (UWDCC) in Madison. The physical items reside in Murphy Library Special Collections, but the content is hosted and maintained by UWDCC. You can find all of this content free and available to everyone by browsing the collections below or by searching in the Library Catalog, which pulls in records for all of the items at UWDCC.