On May 5, 2025, the Alcohol Studies Archives Exhibit was officially added the RU Libraries Digital Exhibits page. While the exhibit is still a work in progress, it is in a suitable state for sharing and gathering constructive feedback. We are following the successful timeline previously used for the the Alcohol Studies Collection in 2023: a soft launch in May, collecting stakeholder feedback over the summer, and implementing modifications and additions during this period. The goal is to complete the exhibit by the end of August, with an official launch and promotion planned for mid-September.
The five sections of the exhibit
The Alcohol Studies Archives Exhibit is structured into five sections, showcasing “firsts” in alcohol studies, including the Summer School of Alcohol Studies, related to the Center. Two prominent scholars, E. M. Jellinek and Mark Keller, are featured through one-of-a-kind documents and artifacts preserved exclusively at Rutgers. The section on Temperance explores this historical movement through the lens of the Archives as a research resource, illustrating how the materials continue to support scholarship at the Center.
Expected additions include the Finding Aid to the Mark Keller Papers (currently in draft), a challenging digitization of Temperance Tales with a narrated slide show (in the pilot phase now), and some more content selected from the 200+ digitized documents and images yet to be reviewed and added to RUcore’s Alcohol Collection of 1,497 items, as of today.
Technical details
Drawing from the Omeka exhibit, the new exhibit is built on the latest Drupal platform available at RU Libraries. It was set up by Sam McDonald, who also migrated the content from the original four exhibits, which was created as a pilot in 2022, with the knowledge that it wouldn’t be sustainable on that platform. With slight modifications of the plan detailed earlier, we managed to meet all mile markers in the plan.
The Alcohol Studies Archives Exhibit features 51 pages with 403 images and 101 links to documents (already uploaded to RUcore), 26 canned searches in RUcore, 98 links to the Alcohol Studies Digital Collection, 31 to the RUL catalog, 23 and 6 to books in HathiTrust and the Internet Archive, respectively, 37 to articles published in JSAD, and a few more external links, bringing the current total to 798, as of this week.
Feedback wanted
The first comments are all positive. I shared the exhibit at the inaugural SALIS Speaker Series on Monday, May 5, 2025, called A fireside chat with Dr. Denise Hien (Rutgers Center of Alcohol and Substance Use Studies). The response was overwhelmingly positive. My fellow librarians appreciated the efforts, liked the content and design, and in general, supported my work, as always. Since then, I have also heard from two prominent scholars in the field. One simply called the Exhibit “amazing,” and the other praised it for being concise and visual appealing.
The work on this exhibit will continue through the summer, with more content and enhancements to come. I’m looking forward to hearing from librarian colleagues, researchers, students, and members of the public in the next few weeks. If you explore the pages and have feedback, I’d love to hear from you!
A rewarding experience
It has been a long journey (and not one without roadblocks) since my interest turned into the history of the Center of Alcohol Studies more than fifteen years ago. Like running a marathon, it was rewarding to hit every single mile marker, but now it feels like I can see the finish line, too. I can’t express my gratitude enough to my colleagues who supported me all the way. I am also incredibly thankful to all of my predecessors who collected and preserved material for the Alcohol Studies Archives.
