Thirty-one years of public service were recognized Thursday night when two Ohio universities joined together to digitally archive an Ohio University alumnus’ work.
Alden Library officially launched The Voinovich Collection’s website, containing materials from Sen. George Voinovich’s time as the mayor of Cleveland, governor of Ohio and a member of the United States Senate.
The archive is divided into three collections: a mayoral collection, a gubernatorial collection, and a senatorial collection.
“Together, these three collections span well over 2,000 cubic feet,” said Scott Seaman, dean of Ohio University Libraries during his speech Thursday. “They include correspondence, reports, legal opinions, renditions, requisitions, speeches, audio tapes, video tapes, photographs, briefing files, public inquiries, schedules, interoffice memos and even memorabilia.”
The process started about a year ago as a collaboration with Cleveland State University, said Melanie Furey, the manager of the Voinovich project and research project coordinator at Cleveland State.
The projected was funded by a grant from The 1804 Fund and seed money provided by Voinovich, Seaman said.
The digitized archive of the senator’s materials is the first of its kind.
“From what we can find, there is no other American politician with his records digitized,” Furey said.
The purpose of putting the materials online is so that students and faculty will be able to use them in the classroom as teaching tools, said Doug McCabe, the curator of manuscripts at Alden Library.
“Instead of reading somebody else’s interpretation of what events mean or how they transpired, a student, a scholar can look at official material, the primary sources themselves and then make their own decisions about what they are reading and what they are seeing,” McCabe said. “It’s a wonderful resource to be able to have.”
Voinovich said he is grateful that all of his materials have been archived.
“It makes you feel good,” Voinovich said. “It says that you’ve worked hard at what you’re doing and you’re finished, and people feel that the work you did was worthwhile.”
md781510@ohiou.edu
