Suddenly last summer, the winds of change swept through when SAA switched from
paper to electronic newsletters for all sections and roundtables. This announcement
came too late to include in the Summer 2004 newsletter, the last one to be mailed,
or to make the announcement at the section meeting in Boston.
This is a big change, particularly for those of us who like the feel of paper.
But there are advantages:
You will never lose it.
The newsletter won't be at home and you need it at the office.
You no longer have to keep your personal archive of old newsletters.
You can forward it to a friend.
You can read the newsletters of all sections and roundtables and search
them as needed for information.
There is no page limit. Within reason we can include all news, not having
to tweak the margins or font size.
Most importantly, we now have the ability to post information and reach all
of our members quickly. For the printed newsletter, we needed to allow a month
for the printing and mailing process.
Karen Spicher, our web liaison, will send an email to all section members when
a new posting is made. Many thanks to Karen for making this transition appear
so effortless, for it has been a lot of work on her part.
The deadline for the next newsletter will be posted at the end of each newsletter.
They remain as before: October (post-conference), February/March, and June/July
(pre-conference).
To read the newsletter, from the SAA home page, go to sections, then Manuscripts.
The newsletter continues to be our most important communication and source
of repository news. Keep it coming!!
The Relationship Between the Program Committee and Sections
and Roundtables Tom Hyry, Yale University Library
As a member of the section steering committee and incoming co-chair of the
SAA Program Committee for the 2006 annual meeting, I have been asked to write
this short piece about the relationship of sections and roundtables to the Program
Committee's work and procedures and to comment on the session endorsement system
in particular.
The SAA Vice President (who takes the position of President at the August meeting)
appoints the chairs of the Program Committee (PC), who in turn work with the
vice president to appoint the members of the program committee. In making appointments,
the vice president and co-chairs strive to achieve diversity by appointing archivists
who represent different ethnicities, genders, geographic areas, and types of
repositories and functional expertise. With a membership no larger than twelve,
however, the committee cannot possibly reflect the entire range of SAA's membership.
When developing the program for the annual meeting, the PC relies on session
proposals submitted by members. Because there are almost always many more proposals
than available session slots, the committee faces a very difficult task. Traditionally,
section and roundtable endorsements have served as an aid to the committee in
evaluating proposals, as they each bring their own particular expertise into
the process. From year to year, the procedure for attaining endorsements has
changed. Some committees have requested a simple yes/no approval on the many
sessions that could be submitted to individual sections and roundtables; others
have asked that sections rank the sessions they have agreed to endorse. Plans
for tweaking the endorsement process for the 2006 conference are underway but
not finalized. Sections and roundtables treat endorsements differently as well.
Some take a great deal of time evaluating and making selective endorsements,
while others seem to endorse every session submitted to them.
Regardless of the number of endorsements a proposal receives, the PC still
considers each one independently and makes decisions based on the overall quality
of the proposal and its relationship to other sessions on the program. Section
and roundtable endorsements provide a boost to proposals under consideration
by the committee, but they are by no means determinative. In other words, session
proposals can receive an endorsement from a section or roundtable (or multiple
sections and roundtables) and still not be accepted by the program committee.
Conversely, proposals can also be accepted even if they have no endorsement.
Sections can have perhaps an even greater impact on the program by developing
good proposals, to be submitted under the name of the section chair. The PC
carefully considers these proposals, which are, in my mind, the best way for
SAA groups to affect the annual program. The Manuscript Repositories section
has a long tradition of submitting proposals that have developed into excellent
sessions. Please keep the section leadership in mind when developing ideas for
proposals. We can help flesh out ideas, make connections between section members,
and use our expertise to hone proposals. In the end, an excellent annual program
depends on the participation of members, so please work to develop new ideas
for great sessions!
Those wishing to know more about the workings of the Program Committee can
read "'Demystifying' the SAA Program Committee," the excellent overview
of the process written by 2004 co-chairs Mark Greene and Christine Weideman
in the September/October 2004 issue of Archival Outlook.
Director of the Russell Library Recipient of the Scone Foundation's
2004 Archivist Award Jill Severn, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
at the University of Georgia
Sheryl B. Vogt, director of the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research
and Studies at the University of Georgia, is the 2004 recipient of "The
Archivist of the Year Award," presented annually by the Scone Foundation.
The award recognizes an archivist who has made considerable contributions to
his or her profession and who has provided significant support to scholars conducting
research in history and biography.
The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies has the distinction
of being the sole repository in Georgia dedicated to the support of scholarly
research in modern political history with the collections of more than 100 public
officials, influential citizens and political organizations. Recent additions
include the papers of former governor and U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, those of current
U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop, and the papers of Georgia's junior U.S. Sen. Johnny
Isakson.
Vogt has been an archivist at the Russell Library for 30 years and its director
for 25. "During her tenure, Sheryl Vogt has established the Russell Library
as one of the most important centers in the United States for the documentation
and study of politics and public policy," said William Gray Potter, the
University Librarian. "She has overseen the exponential increase of the
Library's holdings from the cornerstone collection of Sen. Richard B. Russell
to more than 100 collections of politicians, political parties, civic and lobbying
organizations, and political observers. She has also initiated strategic partnerships
for collection development and public programming such as those with the university's
Foot Soldier Project for Civil Rights Studies and the Center for International
Trade and Security. The UGA Libraries are grateful to the Scone Foundation for
recognizing Sheryl's many contributions to the profession."
Stanley Cohen, president of the Scone Foundation, said he established the award
when he realized there were no programs to recognize outstanding archivists.
In the "peculiar" selection process, the prominent historian chosen
to lecture in tribute to the honored archivist chooses the honoree for the next
year. On December 9, 2004, Ina Caro, researcher for Robert B. Caro and author
of The Road from the Past: Traveling through History in France, presented the
award to Vogt at a reception in New York. Asa Briggs (Lord Briggs of Lewes),
one of Britain's foremost social historians, delivered the lecture in honor
of the event. Vogt has worked closely with Ina and Robert Caro as they researched
Caro's multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Baines Johnson and was nominated
for the award by Ina Caro. "They are most grateful for the way she has
helped them in their research," said Cohen. "A good archivist can
save you six months to a year in your work; a bad archivist makes you crazy.
A first-rate archivist responds to questions that we writers forget to ask."
The Peoples Temple Collection at the California Historical
Society's North Baker Research Library is featured in a new play and a new book
about Peoples Temple and Jonestown Denice Stephenson, Archivist & Mary Morganti, Director of Library &
Archives, California Historical Society
Early settlers of Jonestown
The California Historical Society is the chief repository of documents, publications,
and photographs related to Peoples Temple and events that surrounded the 1978
tragedy in Jonestown, Guyana. In addition to holding the official records of
Peoples Temple and the settlement of the organization's estate overseen by Robert
A. Fabian, the court-appointed receiver, the Peoples Temple Collection encompasses
individual collections of documents and personal papers, including the Moore
Family Papers, 1968 -1988, John R. Hall's research materials on Peoples Temple,
1954 -1987, the Ross E. Case collection pertaining to Peoples Temple, 1961-1984,
and the FBI collection of Peoples Temple papers from Jonestown, Guyana, 1972-1978,
consisting of papers collected by U.S. and Guyanese government agencies in the
immediate aftermath of the Jonestown tragedy and assembled by the FBI for it
investigation of the death of Congressman Leo J. Ryan. Recent additions to the
collection include papers from the family of Berkeley based psychologist Margaret
Thaler Singer who worked with former members of Peoples Temple and Jonestown
survivors, a collection of more than twelve hundred images of Peoples Temple
members in the U.S. and Guyana from the late 1960s to 1978, and hundreds of
audiotapes of Peoples Temple services, communications between the U.S. and Guyana,
and media broadcasts that were also gathered by the FBI after Jonestown.
In April 2005, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, in association with Z Space Studio,
will present the world premiere of Peoples Temple based on contemporary interviews
and archival materials. Heyday Books, in collaboration with CHS, will publish
Dear People: Remembering Jonestown based on selections from the Peoples Temple
Collection. Peoples Temple, written and directed by Leigh Fondakowski (The Laramie
Project) is a riveting examination of the charged events surrounding the deaths
of more than nine hundred members of Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana and
the unique mixture of radical local politics and Pentecostal fervor that fueled
this organization. KQED, the San Francisco based public television station is
filming a documentary on the making of the play. Dear People: Remembering Jonestown
includes letters, personal histories, internal organizational documents, and
photographs, many published for the first time, that provide an emotionally
dense and vivid portrait of a compelling and ultimately tragic social movement
of the twentieth century. The books will be available in bookstores in April
2005.
For more information about the Peoples Temple Collection and other collections
at the California Historical Society, please visit our website at www.californiahistoricalsociety.org.
University of Iowa Horvat Collection of Science Fiction Fanzines Amy Cooper Cary, University of Iowa Libraries
The University of Iowa has acquired more than 250,000 science fiction fanzines
and almost overnight has increased its stature as a prominent science fiction
research center. The collection was assembled by Martin M. (Mike) Horvat of
Stayton, Ore., a longtime science fiction fan and collector of fanzines. Rob
Latham, a UI professor of English and American Studies who researches science
fiction literature and its fan base, originally brought the collection to the
attention of the University of Iowa Libraries. Sid Huttner, Head of the Special
Collections Department at the University of Iowa Libraries, and Latham worked
with Brooks Landon, professor of English, to bring the collection to the university.
Latham said the collection is one of the most impressive he's ever seen, with
titles from the U.S., Canada, Britain and Australia.
The Horvat Collection contains substantial runs of all major and many minor
fanzines from the 1960s to the 1990s. Zines from the 1940s and 1950s-such as
Bob Tucker's legendary Le Zombie and Robert Silverberg's Starship-are also well
represented. The collection includes many British, Canadian, and Australian
zines, such as Pete Weston's Zenith/Speculation and John Bangsund's SF Commentary.
The archive rivals the Bruce Pelz and Terry Carr collections, housed in the
J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of the University of California at Riverside.
At present, the archive is being sorted and indexed, a painstaking task that
will take many months. "One portion of the collection -- issues of about
3,000 titles -- came very well organized in file cases," said Huttner.
"We have prepared a list of those titles that is already available on the
Web." The link is on the University of Iowa Libraries' Special Collections
home page at www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll.
"It's an extraordinary collection and a significant contribution to the
resources available in our library," said Huttner. "When it is fully
available to scholars, the Horvat Collection will provide an invaluable resource
for research into the history of modern science fiction and the formation of
fan communities," said Latham. "We are deeply indebted to Mr. Horvat
for providing us with this superb archive."
Recently processed collections at the Moorland-Spingarn Research
Center, Howard University Manuscript Department Lela Sewell-Williams, Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University
Max Yergan Papers, 1917-1969, (10 linear ft.). Yergan was a missionary,
educator, civil rights activist and sociologist. The bulk of his papers consist
of writings reflecting his work with the Young Men's Christian Association in
South Africa, where his mission from 1921 to 1936 was to establish African YMCAs
throughout the country; his co-founding of and resignation from the Council of
African Affairs, and his campaign for civil rights for black South Africans. His
papers also include correspondence, research files, subject files, photographs
and artifacts.
William Lorenzo Patterson Papers, 1919-1979, (15.5 linear ft.).
Patterson was a political activist, lawyer, orator, writer and a member of the
Communist Party from San Francisco. William L. Patterson, known as "Mister
Civil Rights" and a "race man" because of his courageous and
tenacious battles against racism, spent the major portion of his life participating
in, organizing and leading mass struggles in defense of the victims of racist
and political oppression in the United States. By initiating and drafting the
historic petition "We Charge Genocide," following adoption by the
United Nations of a resolution condemning genocide, William Patterson exposed
the crimes of the United States government against its African American citizens,
citing the nature and depth of racism at home and abroad. The papers, which
cover the mid-1950s to 1979, contain correspondence, printed materials, writings
and clippings, and reflect his political activism.
Clarence Cameron White Papers, 1872-1965, (19 linear ft.). White
was a violinist, composer and music educator. White's papers consist of correspondence,
writings, programs, and photographs documenting his life as a performing artist
and composer. The collection also reflects the lives of White's family members,
including a noteworthy amount of material related to his second wife, Pura Belpré
White, the first Latina librarian in the New York Public Library System.
Williams J. Faulkner Papers, 1914-1980, (38 linear ft.). Faulkner
was a Congregational minister, folklorist, author, and Fisk University dean.
The bulk of this collection is made up of Faulkner's correspondence and writings,
which span his entire career. Faulkner's renown throughout African American
society is reflected in the voluminous correspondence from his professional
and personal relationships. There are also several manuscript versions of his
book, The Days When the Animals Talked: Black American Folktales and How They
Came to Be (1977, a collection of folktales representing a substantial and significant
contribution to African American folklore. The papers comprise family materials,
personal papers, correspondence, photographs, artifacts and audio recordings.
Recently processed collections at the Richard B. Russell Library
for Political Research and Studies at the University of Georgia Mary McKay, University of Georgia Libraries
The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies (the University
of Georgia) announces the opening of two recently processed collections:
William Armstrong Smith Papers, 1966-1978, 18 linear feet, 188 photographs.
William Armstrong Smith was a Georgia senator from the 34th District (Fulton
County) from 1966 to 1974. During this time, Smith introduced various bills,
served on and/or chaired numerous senate committees, and actively supported
the development of the Republican Party in Georgia. The collection of Smith's
state legislative papers documents his career and to a lesser degree his campaigns
as well as his continued interest in legislative matters after his senate career
ended (1975-1978). The majority of the collection consists of correspondence,
newspaper clippings, financial records, legislative bills, and photographs.
Some examples of his legislative accomplishments include: safer highways, better
pay for teachers, additional parks and playgrounds, and elimination of pollution
from streams. Proposals that were important to him personally, but that did
not pass, include making the daily reading of the Ten Commandments mandatory
in public schools and requiring biology textbooks to give the biblical version
of creation in addition to evolution. Smith also sponsored legislation that
engendered controversy. In response to increasing rape statistics in Atlanta
and the fear of a possible baby boom in the state's mental institutions once
patients were granted the right to marry, Smith proposed legislation requiring
the castration of convicted rapists as well as sterilization of the mentally
retarded. Another important aspect of the collection is correspondence Smith
created after his senate career with politicians. Correspondents include: Georgia
politicians Howard "Bo" Callaway, John J. Flynt, Jr., Wyche Fowler,
Zell Miller, Sam Nunn, as well as United States Presidents Jimmy Carter, Gerald
Ford, and Richard Nixon.
Iris F. Blitch Papers, ca. 1930 - 1985 (bulk 1954-1962) 67.5 linear feet,
239 photographs. In 1954, Democratic national committeewoman and three-time
member of the Georgia State Legislature, Iris Blitch, announced her candidacy
for the United States Congress. After conducting a grass-roots campaign, Blitch
became the first woman ever elected from Georgia to serve a full term in the
United States Congress. The Iris F. Blitch Papers document her two terms representing
Georgia's Eighth District in the United States Congress from 1955 to 1963, and,
to a lesser extent, her personal life. The majority of the collection consists
of correspondence, newspaper clippings, legislative bills, research and campaign
materials, scrapbooks and photographs. Well-documented throughout the entire
collection, particularly in the Legislative and Subject Series, are the issues
that were important to Blitch and to the twenty counties that composed the Eighth
District, including agriculture and environmental issues. Additionally, the
papers provide insight into the political climate for women in the second half
of the 1950s and the early 1960s as well as into social mores regarding their
participation. As one of only 15 female members (and the only "southerner")
in the House of Representatives in 1958, the challenges faced by Blitch and
other females in Washington, as well as the public's perceptions, are recorded
throughout the papers, mainly in feature newspaper articles and interviews.
Blitch's personal beliefs and opinions regarding women's roles and responsibilities
in government and politics are evident in the speeches and interviews she gave
throughout her career. Correspondents include the following Georgia politicians:
D.W. Brooks, Phil Campbell, John J. Flynt, Jr., E.L. Forrester, Ed Friend, Henderson
L. Lanham, Herman E. Talmadge, John Leonard Pilcher, Prince Preston, and Richard
B. Russell, Jr.
For finding aids for these collections and information about other collections,
programs, and services of the Russell Library, please visit the Library web
site at www.libs.uga.edu/russell.
You may contact the Russell Library at 706-542-5788 or
.
The Louise Bryant Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Sterling
Memorial Library Sahr Conway-Lanz, Yale University Library
An extensive collection of the papers of the foreign correspondent and writer
Louise Bryant is now processed and open to researchers in the department of
Manuscripts and Archives in the Yale University Library. The 36 boxes of correspondence,
journals, writings, photographs, and other material document the remarkable
life and work of Bryant, including her journalism on the Russian Revolution
of 1917 that made her a star reporter. Her biographers had assumed these papers
were lost, but they unexpectedly came to Yale with the William C. Bullitt Papers
as part of a deposit by Anne Moen Bullitt, the daughter of Bryant and Bullitt.
Louise Bryant was born on December 5, 1885, in San Francisco, California. She
began her career in journalism as an illustrator, and later the society editor,
for the Spectator newspaper in Portland, Oregon. In 1916, Bryant moved to New
York City and married the journalist John Reed. After reporting on the war in
France for the Bell Syndicate in 1917, Bryant traveled with Reed to Russia and
witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution. Her articles on Russia appeared in hundreds
of American newspapers and later were published as the book Six Red Months in
Russia. This reporting made Bryant, for a brief period, one of the leading authorities
in the United States on the new Soviet government, and in 1919 she made a speaking
tour around the United States to present her views of the situation in Russia.
From 1920 to 1923, she worked for the International News Service and King Features
Syndicate reporting mainly on Russia and Turkey but also on events elsewhere
in Europe and Asia. Another series of articles about the Soviet Union and its
leaders, which Bryant wrote during this period, was published as Mirrors of
Moscow in 1923. That same year, Bryant married the writer, and later American
ambassador to the Soviet Union and France, William C. Bullitt.
The collection is a rich source on Bryant's career as a foreign correspondent
writing for various American newspapers and the International News Service.
Materials on her time reporting on the Russian Revolution and Civil War and
on Turkey in the 1920's are well represented. The papers also document her literary
and artistic endeavors. A substantial quantity of material concerns Bryant's
social and family life, and a small amount of material relates to the life of
John Reed. The finding aid is available electronically at http://mssa.library.yale.edu/findaids/stream.php?xmlfile=mssa.ms.1840.xml.
The Bancroft Library is Moving! Jessica Lemieux, The Bancroft Library
In 2005, The Bancroft Library will relocate to temporary quarters during a California
state-mandated seismic retrofitting of its building, and, thanks to many donors,
a much-needed upgrading of its facilities. The Library will be closed for approximately
three months during its move, and then will reopen in a temporary location where
it will operate for at least two years. The Bancroft Library has been in its current
location, the Doe Library Annex, since the 1950s.
Bancroft's open hours will be reduced this spring as we prepare to move. For
current information regarding our open hours, please see our website at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info/hours.html,
or call (510) 642-3781.
On June 1, 2005 Bancroft will close to the public in order to move its collections.
A temporary reading room will tentatively reopen in October at 2121 Allston
Way in Berkeley. While in the temporary space, not all materials will be available
and there may be a delay in paging materials, as most items will be housed off-site.
Other Bancroft Library programs affected by the move include the Mark Twain
Papers and Project, the Regional Oral History Office, the Center for Tebtunis
Papyri, and the University Archives. The Mark Twain Project has already moved
to temporary quarters at 2195 Hearst Avenue in Berkeley. The Regional Oral History
Office (ROHO) will be moving to Evans Hall on the Berkeley Campus in spring
2005. The Center for Tebtunis Papyri and University Archives will be moving
with Bancroft to its temporary location. For more information and updates about
the move, please visit the Bancroft website at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info/move/
or call (510) 642-3781.
Georgia State University Receives NHPRC Grant Pam Hackbart-Dean, Georgia State University
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission recently awarded $82,000
to the Georgia State University Library Special Collections Department for the
processing of the most extensive collection of Southern nursing association records
in the nation. The project begins a groundbreaking collaborative effort between
two Atlanta repositories: the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African-American
Culture and History and project sponsor Georgia State University.
"We are delighted to be partnering with the Avenue Research Library on
African-American Culture and History, and hope it will be the first of many
similar collaborations," said Charlene S. Hurt, university librarian at
Georgia State University. "We are especially pleased to bring together
two important areas of our special collections in this project-labor history
and women's history."
More than 250 linear feet of papers from the Georgia State Nurses Association,
the South Carolina Nurses Association, the Maryland Nurses Association, the
Kentucky Nurses Association and the Grady Nurses' Conclave dating from 1907
to 1991 will be preserved during the 18-month enterprise. Archives staff will
arrange, describe and make publicly accessible the nurses association manuscript
collections held at the two institutions. In addition, bibliographic records
will be created in a national database and finding aids will be made available
on the Web.
"These collections will give researchers, scholars, and others who are
interested a panoramic view of what the nursing world was like during those
years," said Francine I. Henderson, research library administrator for
the Auburn Avenue Research Library. "The Grady Nurses' Conclave collection
especially helps paint a more complete picture of the African-American experience
during segregation and attempts to integrate nursing."
The Robert A. and Ruth B. Olson Special Collections Fund
at the University of Iowa Libraries Amy Cooper Cary, University of Iowa Libraries
As a part of a more than $5 million gift made to the University of Iowa by
the estate of Robert A. Olson, the University of Iowa Libraries will receive
$1.4 million towards the Robert A. and Ruth B. Olson Special Collections Fund.
Mr. Olson was a native of Lansing, Iowa. A University of Iowa graduate with
degrees in business and law, he worked as a student employee of the libraries
in the 1930's. Mr. Olson made his career in the public utility industry and
he was past President and Chairman of the Board of the Kansas City Power and
Light Company. He was awarded a University of Iowa Distinguished Alumni Award
in 1982. University Librarian Nancy Baker noted that "The most wonderful
thing about Mr. Olson's extraordinary generosity is that it gives the UI Libraries
the flexibility to respond to unanticipated opportunities to enrich its special
collections and services."
Nominations Sought For Section Leadership Pam Hackbart-Dean, Chair of Nominations
Elections for Vice Chair/Chair Elect and three Steering Committee members will
be held during the section meeting in New Orleans. The Nominations and Election
Committee-- Pam Hackbart-Dean (Chair), Jill Severn, Maria R. Estorino and Fernanda
Perrone-- currently seeks candidates to consider for these positions. Candidates
must be members of SAA and the Manuscript Repositories Section. In forming the
slate, the committee will strive to represent the wide range of repository types
found in the section as well as different geographic areas. Duties of the offices
are as follows:
Vice Chair/Chair Elect: Serves as the Vice Chair from the conclusion of the
2005 meeting through the 2006 meeting, at which time (s)he assumes the office
of Chair for one year. Presides over the 2006 meeting. Also serves as newsletter
editor while Vice Chair.
Steering Committee members: Serve for two years from the end of the 2005
meeting through the 2007 meeting. The three committee members elected in 2005
will serve on the Nominations and Election Committee and perform other section
duties.
We should identify two candidates for each opening. Please take time to send
suggestions to Pam Hackbart-Dean at
or by phone 404-651-2477.
The deadline for nominations is April 22, 2005. Thanks for participating!
