Wayne State University Libraries

Digital Library Initiatives

Digital library initiatives are managed by Library Computing and Media Services. These initiatives feature images from collections at the University Libraries, the Reuther Library and Labor Archives, various university departments, and other library and museum partners.

The collections focus on Detroit, its culture, history, and leading citizens. The emphasis is primarily on image collections including 35mm slides, negatives (including glass plate, channel acetate, nitrates), and new digital photography. One collection of Detroit/Windsor Poetry is primarily text. Other formats will be added later. Most collections can be searched individually or in combination.

These initiatives are funded in large part through grants from Sun Microsystems and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

For more information, contact the library webmaster.

• Art Images for College Teaching
Art Images for College Teaching (AICT) is dedicated to the principle of free exchange of image resources for and among members of the educational community.


• Building the Detroit Renaissance Center
A visual documentary of the creation of one of the largest buildings in the world the Detroit Renaissance Center.


• Digital Dress: 200 Years of Urban Style
  The collection includes examples of occupational, formal, recreational, mourning, masquerade, and everyday wear for men, women, and children. Pieces by European and American designers, local dressmakers and retailers, and home made garments are included.
  • Detroit Historical Museums Historic Costume Collection
  • Dorothea June Grossbart Historic Costume Collection
  • The Henry Ford Historic Costume Collection
  • Meadow Brook Hall Historic Costume Collection


• Herman Miller Furniture Consortium
  Herman Miller, Inc., based in Zeeland, Michigan, began in 1923 as a manufacturer of residential furniture.


• Kantrowitz, Adrian, Heart Transplant Images
The first U.S. heart transplant took place on December 6, 1967 at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., just three days after Dr. Christiaan Barnard performed the world's first transplant in Cape Town, South Africa.


• Making of Modern Michigan - Regional Digitization Center Projects
  This website contains information about the The Making of Modern Michigan project, including access to collections being developed at the Regional Digitization Center, Wayne State University, 446 Purdy/Kresge Library.


• Virtual Motor City Project: A Subset of the Detroit News Photo Archive
  The digitized images in the project represent a small subset of the Detroit News Collection, one of the premier photojournalistic resources freely available from a national-level newspaper and held at the Walter P. Reuther Library.


• WSU Marketing & Publications Photography Collection
  The Marketing Photo Library includes general university images and is not intended to replace the need to contract with the photography unit to shoot images at specific events, programs and activities.

Search all collections: WSU users with AccessIDs | Guests

• Writing the River
  A Portal to Detroit/Windsor Writers, Literature and Small Presses, 1960 to Present
  
• Michigan County Histories
• Letters of Florence Nightingale

• Changing Face of the Auto Industry (Under Development)

• Detroit Plays
  The Detroit Historical Museums Toy Collection
• Wayne State University Art Collection

• Design Detroit (digital objects from local museums, archives, and libraries)

DALNET Library Digital Collections

• The National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage
• ICOMOS Ename Charter: For the interpretation of cutlural heritage sites