Electronic Lincoln Prize Awarded to Documenting the American South

Documenting the American South, the signature digital publishing program of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's University Library, has won the 2006 Electronic Lincoln Prize from Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, PA, the college announced April 6.

The $10,000 award is given for significant contribution in new media to scholarship about Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or a subject relating to the Civil War era.

"The winner of the Electronic Lincoln Prize proves that the historian's work can be immensely improved if scholars move fully into the 21st Century," said Gettysburg College Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies Gabor Boritt, who serves as chair of the Electronic Lincoln Prize.

Sarah C. Michalak, University Librarian and Associate Provost for University Libraries at UNC, believes this recognition from the scholarly community is especially significant. "Our library first envisioned Documenting the American South as a way to serve scholars," she said. "This award is a real affirmation of our sustained commitment to scholarly values. It's a terrific honor for us and for all of the individuals and organizations that have supported the development of DocSouth."

The library launched Documenting the American South in 1996 to make several fragile and highly circulating slave narratives available for consultation and study. The online library has since grown to include thousands of books, images, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, and recorded music and oral histories related to southern history, literature and culture.

Readers conduct more that 400,000 research sessions on the DocSouth site each month, according to Natasha Smith, the librarian who oversees the initiative.

"We know from the comments we receive that our readers come from all over the world and for every purpose you can think of," said Smith. "Researchers and historians are a key audience, but so are K-12 students, genealogists, novelists, journalists, and just people who get drawn into the incredibly vivid history that is there."

Michalak sees a correlation between the growth in readership as the library's commitment to quality and scholarly values. "We have found that this approach, where we thoughtfully select and digitize works of value, then present them in a considered way for research and discovery, benefits everyone, even those far removed from the academy."

The Electronic Lincoln Prize will be presented at a formal ceremony April 6 in New York City. The ceremony will also include the presentation of the Lincoln Prize to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin for her book "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln."

Previous recipients of the Electronic Lincoln Prize include the 2003 winner Harpweek.com's web site "Lincoln and the Civil War.com," which contains the complete contents of 40 wartime newspapers published in both the North and the South, and the 2001 co-winners Edward L. Ayers, Anne S. Rubin and William G. Thomas for their CD-ROM, book and website "Valley of the Shadow: The Eve of War" and Stephen Railton for his website "Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive," which was a joint project of the University of Virginia and the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Conn.

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