In the spring of 2016, the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center (NCDHC), a statewide digitization and digital publishing program that promotes and increases access to North Carolina’s cultural heritage, put out a call for submissions of audiovisual materials repositories wanted digitized and shared online in the Sights and Sounds Collection. This online audiovisual collection is comprised of moving images, sound, and oral histories that document North Carolina’s unique history.
The Duke University Medical Center Archives submitted materials, and we are pleased to announce that four of our previously undigitized items were selected, digitized, and are now available online as part of the Sights and Sounds Collection. The materials include a Black History Month lecture by Dr. Charles Johnson, the first black professor at Duke’s School of Medicine. During the lecture, Dr. Johnson describes his early life and work at Duke. “The Sound of Mucus,” a 1989 comedic musical created and performed by Duke Medical students and faculty, and interviews with Wilburt Cornell Davison and Jane Elchlepp, which give firsthand accounts of Duke Hospital and Duke School of Medicine.
The digitization of these two films and two sound recordings by the NCDHC is important because it helps preserve Duke’s history, as digitization protects original analog records from further deterioration and damage by eliminating repetitive handling, while also increasing access by making the content of the materials available to a much wider audience.
To learn more about this project and the materials, contact the archives staff.