Archival Services, a division of University Libraries, is pleased to announce the successful completion of a
grant to digitize, preserve and to make available online 153 historic technical reports from the Daniel Guggenheim Airship Institute, which was a part of the University’s College of Engineering from 1929 to 1949. The digitized reports, which are available online as fully searchable PDF documents, can be accessed at http://cdm15960.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15960coll3.
The institute was operated by The University of Akron from 1929 to 1949 and was a partnership with the California Institute of Technology, the Daniel Guggenheim Fund, and the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation in Akron, Ohio. Experiments conducted at the institute focused on the effects of turbulence and drag on airship hulls as well as meteorological observations. The technical reports are a valuable source of information that primarily document research in lighter-than-air flight, heavier-than-air flight, meteorology, aerodynamics, and G-force measurements that was conducted at the institute. The reports are frequently used by students, historians, scholars, lighter-than-air enthusiasts, and researchers for a variety of research projects.
This project was supported in part by a nine-month $1,980 National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) Grant that was awarded last April through the Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board (OHRAB). Additional funding was provided by the University. UA gratefully acknowledges the support of these bodies.
The Daniel Guggenheim Airship Institute Records and other historical resources on the history of lighter-than-air flight and local history are available by visiting Archival Services located in Room LL10 of the Polsky Building. Business hours are Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm. Additional information about Archival Services and its collections can be accessed on the department’s website at http://www.uakron.edu/libraries/archives.