Year two of the Horizons-Upward Bound (HUB) digitization project has begun. This phase involves digitizing photographs, including images taken by local photographer Jack Kausch. 

The first year of the project was dedicated to digitizing publications and documents, which amounted to over 32,600 pages of student and administrative material! Digitization of student films was also completed offsite, totaling 57 minutes of footage. Entering the second year of this project, I am very excited to continue working with HUB’s history as it was documented through photography.

HUB photographs include approximately 2.5 boxes (2.9 linear feet) of photographs in the form of prints, slides, and negative film created from 1965 to 1997. HUB students, faculty, staff, and extended community are featured across class and group portraits, within academic and extra-curricular settings, and during many events such as graduations, award ceremonies, fundraisers, and symposiums.

Similar to the first phase of the project, photo digitization began in-house at the Archives in Summer 2024. Two hard-working HUB student volunteers scanned 10% of the photographs.

I am continuing the students’ work by adding description to the files they created and digitizing the remaining photographs. I will also write descriptions and keywords for these items and transfer the digital files to our digital collections website, where they will be made public at the end of the project.

I look forward to sharing more findings as I continue to review and digitize HUB’s photographs! 

—Courtney Richardson, Project Archivist, Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research

HUB digitization is funded by a NHPRC Archival Projects Grant for projects that ensure online public discovery and use of historical records collections. The NHPRC was established by Congress in 1934 as a statutory body affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration and chaired by the Archivist of the United States.