Juliette Gordon Low letters online at Digital Library

SAVANNAH, GA. — Reading Juliette Gordon Low’s cen- tury-old letters on a home computer is a good exam- ple of the Digital Library of Georgia’s work as it builds an archive of historical works important to Georgia.

On Feb. 9, 1908, Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, wrote about her visit to Prin- cess Bamba Dhuleep Singh in Lahore, India (now Pakistan), whose great-grandfather “conquered the entire Punjab from the Indians,” Low wrote.

“She looks about 25 but is probably older. Her features are exquisite. She was white in England but since she has been exposed to the sun of India, she has got about as dark as Sophie’s child Mary. ... Her home was the size and looked a little like old Habersham house at home. She had her white ... horse tied to the tree in the tennis court. There was a shady nice garden with grass and shrubs and trees, no flow- ers. Everything was dried up as there is famine in this land because of a drought.”

The India diary, available in a 63-page PDF, was added to the Digital Library of Geor- gia’s Galileo collection in May after the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace applied for and received a Competitive Digitization grant.

Juliette Gordon Low’s India diaries are part of a broad historical collection the Digital Library of Georgia is compiling for the public to use. The Digital Library, which is part of GALILEO, includes access to a histor- ical newspaper collection with more than 1 million pages, said Sheila McAlister, director of the Digital Library of Georgia. “Right now, we have in the Geor- gia portal 570,000 different historical materials. Music, maps, it runs the gamut,” McAlister said.

GALILEO, available at galileo.usg.edu, was started in 2005 to pull together elec- tronic resources and share them among Georgia’s university system. Then it expanded to public librar- ies, K-12 school systems, tech- nical colleges and more. The Digital Library of Georgia hosts four different portals with materials from cultural heritage institutions.

“It is one place people can search for information from all over the state,” McAlister said. A grant received in 2002 allowed the Digital Library to launch a civil rights digital library with content on the topic from throughout the nation.

Low’s India diary offers international content of par- ticular interest to Savannah because of the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace, said Lisa Junkin Lopez, executive director of the birthplace.

Previously, the India diary was stored at the Andrew Low house, where Juliette Gordon Low lived for many years. Then the collection of letters was moved to the Juliette Gordon Low Birth- place home, where it was available upon request. But most people didn’t know it existed. Now anyone can see the digital images of the let- ters. “We were very fortunate we were able to work with (the Digital Library of Geor- gia). They are so supportive and enthusiastic about mak- ing a broader swath of collec- tions available,” Lang said.