Nebraskaland

58 Nebraskaland • March 2026 MIXED BAG Want a rabbit hole to climb down? Nebraskaland Magazine has unearthed a century's worth of stories, photos and history, just waiting for you to explore. Celebrate 100 years of the Nebraska outdoors in the newly expanded Nebraskaland Magazine Digital Archive at https://archives. OutdoorNebraska.gov. Inspiration for the project began in 2014, when photo librarian Jaclyn Cruikshank Vogt joined Game and Parks. With a background in transforming print and visual materials into searchable digital content, a skill she learned on-the-job as a graduate research assistant at UNL's Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, digitization of Nebraskaland seemed like a natural fit for the magazine. It would bring together the entire run of the publication into a single, unified space — making every word, every image every story — fully searchable and easily accessible online. Game and Parks partnered with UNL's CDRH to bring the idea to life. Project staff scanned back issues page-by-page, performed optical character recognition and encoded textual transcriptions. The content was then organized, indexed and made available online in 2020, with the digital archive website then capping off at the December 1977 issue. Bringing the next 50 years of the magazine into the fold, including born-digital issues like those Nebraskaland produces today, necessitated some creative thinking and migration to a new server, hosted directly by Game and Parks. Now, as we mark the 100-year anniversary of Nebraskaland, it's a thrill to share the entire run of the magazine, from 1926 to today. In addition to nearly 50 more years of content, this refreshed iteration of the digital archive offers several new features, including a redesigned search, additional browse and filter options, and an integrated PDF viewer for born-digital issues. The archive brings to light much about the history and evolution of the magazine, as well as the history and evolution of the Nebraska outdoors, its people, places and cultural touchstones through the years. A jaunt through the 1950s shows the awe-inspiring work of artist Bud Pritchard, while the 1970s features the magazine's first of 31 special issues, "Portrait of the Plains." The January 1931 issue reveals a poignant first mention of the Great Depression, while a visit through the early 2000s reveals a time when the magazine staff boasted more than 200 years of experience working for Nebraskaland. From the reader's perspective, the Nebraskaland Magazine Digital Archive is a walk down memory lane, an education of the times, and a look into an incredible body of work created by a long list of Nebraskaland contributors. It's a rabbit hole, for sure. Visitors to the Nebraskaland Magazine Digital Archive can delight in every cover image since 1926. JEFF KURRUS, NEBRASKALAND NEBRASKALAND MAGAZINE DIGITAL ARCHIVE By Jeff Kurrus Celebrating 100 Years of Nebraskaland Magazine

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