From the Chair: Preparing for a Productive Section Meeting! Amy Cooper Cary, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
Greetings, Everyone! When I took the position of Chair last August, we were in hot and steamy New Orleans, without a clue as to the changes that lovely city would undergo within the space of a week! As our friends and colleagues continue the process of recovery, look for the Manuscript Repositories Section to address some of the consequences of disaster in our upcoming Section meeting. I’ll provide more detail about our Section meeting in our Summer newsletter, but rest assured it’s going to be one that members won’t want to miss!
The Steering Committee has been busy since August, and our Section meeting will reflect this in many ways. First, during the August Steering Committee meeting, we discussed the addition of new language about the position of Web Liaison to our bylaws. The bylaws currently do not include a description of this very important position. To remedy that, the Committee has discussed the position and, in this newsletter, we are making recommendations to include the position of Web Liaison in the Section bylaws. Please take a few moments to familiarize yourselves with our bylaws (available at http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/mss/bylaws.asp), read the proposed new statement, and send me your comments directly. The Section membership will be voting on this important measure during our regular meeting this August.
Next, the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Archives, which holds SAA’s records, sent us a query asking us to fill in gaps in our Section records. As a result of this request, we’ve begun considering the possibility of constructing a Section history. If SAA records are correct, the Section seems to have formed in 1979, and we will soon be reaching our 30 year anniversary! What better time to start thinking of formally documenting the activities of our Section? According to Tim Ericson’s "Archivist’s First Law of Outreach," "Human beings are unable to resist celebrating any anniversary divisible by twenty-five," so we’re five years overdue! A Section history would not only be interesting for current members, but could serve as an outreach tool to SAA Members and potential Section members as well. If you have information that might pertain to a Section history, or are interested in helping to create such a document, please contact me with your thoughts and suggestions.
The Manuscript Repositories Section meeting for the 2006 SAA in Washington DC will be held on Friday, August 4, from 10:00 until 12:00. Look for a meeting description in your next newsletter. And if you have any ideas for Section activities, agenda items for the Section meeting, or concerns about the Section that you would like voiced at this meeting, please contact me directly at
or 414-229-6929. The Steering Committee works best when we know what our Section members feel are the important issues for us to address!
Manuscript Section Bylaws Change Amy Cooper Cary, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
Our Section bylaws (http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/mss/bylaws.asp) currently define several Steering Committee roles, including Steering Committee Members, Vice Chair, Chair and immediate past Chair. However, the bylaws remain mute on the increasingly important position of Web Liaison. The Web Liaison works with the Newsletter Editor and with website managers at SAA to ensure that the Section website is up to date, to regularly post our newsletters (which as you’ll recall are now only in electronic format), and to maintain lists of resources and section activities. The Web Liaison attends Steering Committee meetings, and is in regular contact with the Chair, the Vice-Chair (who edits the newsletter) and SAA.
The Steering Committee, during its meeting last August, determined that it wanted to include some language in the bylaws about the position of Web Liaison. As a committee, we have written the following position description:
"The position of Web Liaison is a three year term of service, where the position of Web Liaison includes one year as co-liaison, one year as "solo" liaison, and the final year working with the new liaison. If no one comes forward to take the position during the "solo" year, the term can be renewed until another candidate is identified."
We are now preparing to bring this addition to our bylaws to the membership for a vote. When you attend the Section meeting in August, you will be voting as usual for new leadership positions as put forward by the Nominating Committee. You will also have an additional ballot, to approve or reject the addition of the Web Liaison position to our bylaws.
Before that vote, I would like to open this matter for discussion. If you have thoughts or comments, please feel free to send them to me. I will share them with the Steering Committee, and when appropriate will share them with the membership via the Manuscript Repositories Listserv. This matter will be up for discussion in both this issue of the newsletter, as well as in the Summer issue.
I’ll welcome your feedback, and look forward to seeing you at the Section meeting in August!
Newberry Library Receives NEH Grant
Martha Briggs, Newberry Library
The NEH Division of Preservation and Access has awarded $297,000 to the Newberry Library in Chicago for its two-year processing project, "Headlines from the Heartland: Preserving and Enhancing Access to Manuscript Collections Regarding Newspaper Journalism in Chicago." This generous support will allow the library to tackle thirty-nine (780 cubic feet) of its most compelling and underused Midwest manuscript collections, many of which relate to the legendary Chicago Daily News. The collections include the papers of publishers like Victor Lawson and Melville Stone, foreign correspondents like Edward Price Bell and Paul Scott Mowrer, editors like Henry Justin Smith and Charles H. Dennis, columnists like Mike Royko and Howard Vincent O'Brien, and book and drama critics like Fanny Butcher and Claudia Cassidy. They document over 130 years of Chicago history and culture, and national and international events.
Northwest Archivists - Advocacy Workshop
Butte, Montana, May 18, 2006
Do you want to extend the reach and effectiveness of your archives program? Are you frustrated with managers, resource allocators, colleagues, and others who "just don’t get it"? Do you lack time to advocate for archives? Don’t retreat, muttering, to your processing room! Join us on May 18 for this full-day workshop that will inspire you to advocate for archival programs and give you the skills you need. You’ll learn how to effectively describe the importance of archives, identify appropriate audiences for your message, and tailor messages to those audiences. Last, you’ll learn how to fit advocacy into your busy schedule by making it a part of everything that you do. Presenters include Kathleen Roe, past president Council of State Archivists, and Rand Jimerson, past president Society of American Archivists.
The cost is $80 per participant, including lunch, with a maximum registration of 20 people. The registration deadline is April 15. For more information and registration materials, visit the Northwest Archivists 2006 conference website at http://weblib.lib.umt.edu/faculty/mccrea/nwa/nwaindex.htm
West Jersey Proprietors’ Archive Comes To Trenton Joseph R. Klett
In early December 2005, the Council of Proprietors of West New Jersey formally deposited its vast collection of land surveys, minute and account books, and maps with the State Archives. The collection, spanning three centuries of land sales and settlement in the western half of the New Jersey, was previously maintained in the Surveyor General’s Office in Burlington. However, without staff and other resources, the Proprietors were able to make the archive available to researchers on a limited basis only.
Under the depository agreement, the State Archives will now care for the manuscripts and administer public access to them. The Council retains legal ownership of the documents, although the deposit is intended to be long-term (i.e., open-ended). The agreement authorizes the State Archives staff to make professional determinations relating to the arrangement and description (i.e., cataloging and indexing) of the records, reformatting of portions of the collection (i.e., microfilming and/or imaging), and decisions as to whether the condition and level of inventory of specific documents or groups of documents will allow research use of original materials.
The collection includes eleven large parchment documents dating from 1664 to 1763; 55 bound volumes of minutes, surveys, warrants, and other records dating from 1676 to 1909; 20 cubic feet of loose papers, including survey returns from 1680 to the 1900s; and 52 boxes of rolled maps and plans dating back to the 1700s.
Chief of Archives Joseph R. Klett proposed and negotiated the depository arrangement with the West Jersey Council officers over the last two years. The collection includes the 1676 "Quintipartite Deed" dividing the colony of New Jersey into eastern and western provinces, and West Jersey’s 1677 "Concessions and Agreements of the Proprietors, Freeholders and Inhabitants." The deposit joins a large volume of related proprietary and colonial records transferred to the State Archives from the Secretary of State’s Office in the 1960s and the complete archive of the East Jersey Proprietors, which dissolved in 1998. State Archives staff and West Jersey Council members completed their inventory, packaging and relocation of the collection from the Surveyor General’s Office in Burlington to Trenton in November.
The Concessions and Agreements of the Proprietors, Freeholders and Inhabitants of the Province of West New Jersey in America, 1677.
On 14 December, the Council of Proprietors and the State Archives celebrated this historical development with a press event and exhibition unveiling selected manuscripts. The event included short addresses by West Jersey Council President Robert S. Haines, Surveyor General William H. Taylor, Clerk Daniel W. Haines, State Senator Diane B. Allen of Burlington, Karl J. Niederer, Director of the Division of Archives and Records Management, and Mr. Klett.
News notes from the University of Delaware Library L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, University of Delaware Library
On March 1, Jaime L. Margalotti joined the manuscripts unit in Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library. Ms. Margalotti has a BA in history and English from Williams College, an MA in public history from NCSU, and an MLS from UNC-CH. Ms. Margalotti was an NCSU Libraries Fellow at the NCSU Special Collections Research Center, and she has previous archival experiences at UNC-CH, the State Archives of North Carolina, and Williams College.
Ezra Pound in his Time and Beyond: the Influence of Ezra Pound on Twentieth-century Poetry, an exhibition curated by Assistant Librarian Jesse Rossa, is on display until June 16, in Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library. Ezra Pound in His Time and Beyond draws extensively from the recently acquired Ezra Pound collection of Robert A. Wilson, the noted bookseller, author, collector, publisher, and bibliographer. A printed catalog which accompanies the gallery exhibition is available; an online version is also available at http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/.
Purdue University Exhibits Manuscripts of Prominent Playwright George Ade Sammie L. Morris, Purdue University
Purdue University is exhibiting a special collection of the papers of famed 19th and 20th century writer George Ade, an alumnus who achieved great success on Broadway and in Hollywood.
The exhibit, featuring books, manuscripts, correspondence, photographs and press clippings, is open to the public and can be viewed in the Stewart Center building on campus, in room 279. An online exhibit featuring additional scanned items will be available on an ongoing basis: http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/digit/exhibits/ade.
The complete George Ade collection includes more than 5,000 items donated to Purdue Libraries after Ade's death in 1944. The Archives and Special Collections staff spent seven months processing and inventorying the collection. In the 58 boxes, staff found personal correspondence and photographs of celebrities including Mark Twain, Will Rogers, W.C. Fields, James Whitcomb Riley, Orson Welles, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, as well as fellow writer and Purdue alumnus John T. McCutcheon.
Ade first gained renown as a writer for the Chicago Record, reporting on major stories such as the explosion of the freight steamer Tioga, the Sullivan-Corbett prizefight, and the 1893 World's Columbian Exhibition. Ade gained fans nationally, including Broadway producers, with the earthy, humorous style he developed while writing his series of columns, "Stories of the Streets and the Towns." When the playwright returned from New York he settled into his northwest Indiana estate/country club where he played frequent host to politicians and Chicago-based writers and actors.
Ade, a Kentland, Indiana native who graduated from Purdue in 1887, maintained a long and generous relationship with the University. He promoted Purdue in his work and donated money for several building and renovation projects. Along with fellow alumnus David Ross, Ade purchased the land for what is still known as Ross-Ade Stadium.
"Old maids adopt cats and canaries," Ade wrote. "David Ross and I adopted Purdue." Purdue Libraries' Archives and Special Collections timed the exhibit to correspond with the Purdue production of Ade's "The College Widow," the play selected to be the inaugural performance at Purdue's new Nancy T. Hansen Theater. When the show debuted in 1904, it made Ade the first playwright ever to have three shows on Broadway simultaneously. The original manuscript for the play is one of many to feature a slightly fictionalized version of Purdue. The manuscript is part of the Ade exhibit that will remain on display Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. through March 15.
Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries Launches Archives of the New Dominion Initiative Alex Lorch, Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Libraries in Richmond, Virginia, is pleased to announce a new community outreach project to locate, collect, and make accessible materials relevant to the 20th and 21st century social and cultural history of Central Virginia. Begun with a three-year National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant, the Archives of the New Dominion initiative will initially focus on influential organizations and individuals from the region’s African-American, women’s activist, Hispanic, and gay and lesbian communities.
The voices and actions of these under-documented communities help shape our society; but the papers which contribute to and result from their work must be collected in order for future historians and researchers to properly represent their contributions. This proactive initiative reaches out into the communities to work with organizations and individuals to ensure that their important influences are well documented.
VCU Libraries has hired a Community Outreach Archivist to assist non-profit groups, social and cultural organizations, and community leaders to document their history and secure their archives. Groups and individuals who participate in this project will have their archives housed in Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library. These efforts build upon the strong collection of papers from these communities long held by VCU including the Richmond Crusade for Voters, the Richmond YWCA, Planned Parenthood, and the Parents and Families of Lesbians and Gays.
While this effort will be important to future scholars, it also will benefit the local community. By storing their history in a secure, climate-controlled environment, the leaders of today’s communities will ensure their heirs will have access to their own history and a better understanding of how the world in which they live was forged.
Among the early participants in this project are La Voz Hispana de Virginia, the Richmond Triangle Players, the Virginia Partisans Gay and Lesbian Democratic Club, the Virginia Log Cabin Republicans, Art 180, and the Fan Free Clinic. "We have been delighted to begin this archival process with VCU. The fact that Fan Free Clinic’s history will be kept as an important part of our region’s history is a real honor," said Cat Hulburt, Director of Development at the Fan Free Clinic, the oldest free clinic in the Commonwealth.
VCU Libraries would like to speak with any individual or organization that has papers that document the lives, interests, concerns and activities of their community. The project focuses on, but is not limited to, social and cultural organizations of the Central Virginia region. We also wish to speak with any persons who want to learn how to help document their own community. No organization or individual is too small or too young to begin the process of documenting their work and history.
Connecticut Historical Society Museum acquires new acquisition Barbara Austen, Connecticut Historical Society Museum
Hugh Hughes had an important message to convey to the Connecticut General Assembly in May 1775. Horses were scarce, many having been taken by men responding to the Lexington Alarm. Committees of Correspondence in Fairfield, Stratford, Milford, New Haven and Wallingford expedited Hughes’ journey with a pass asking the next town to provide him with a fresh horse. The Connecticut Historical Society Museum recently acquired that pass, along with other Revolutionary War era documents from the estate of military collector William Guthman. For more information about the Society, visit us at http://http://www.chs.org/
Mystic Seaport Completes Project Funded by NHPRC
Maria Bernier, Mystic Seaport, The Museum of America and the Sea
The Daniel S. Gregory Ships Plans Library at Mystic Seaport is pleased to announce the successful completion of a cataloging project funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. Over an eighteen month period, Beth Russell, the project cataloger, converted descriptive information from old catalog cards and worksheets into several electronic formats. This project created three new access points to 21 collections: a collection-level MARC record in the library’s online catalog, a detailed EAD-encoded finding aid on the library’s Web site, and design-level records in the Museum’s collection management system, which is shared with the artifact and photography collections. The new finding aids and catalog records describe some of the library’s most frequently used collections, including those of L. Francis Herreshoff and Philip L. Rhodes.
Outboard profile of the fishing dragger ROANN, designed by Albert Condon and built by Newbert and Wallace of Thomaston, Maine, in 1947.
A description of the project and links to the new finding aids are online at
http://www.mysticseaport.org/library/initiative/nhprc.cfm. This project helps the Ships Plans Library to pursue its mission of preserving and providing access to records documenting the history of American naval architecture from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
New Paltz Civil War exhibit now online!
Eric J. Roth, Huguenot Historical Society Library and Archive
Historic Huguenot Street, a National Historic Landmark in New Paltz, New York, is pleased to present the online exhibit, "I'm now in Rebeldom": New Paltz Soldiers in the Civil War at http://www.huguenotstreet.org. Visitors will experience a captivating collection of photographs, letters, propaganda, and other documents that describe the impact of this great American conflict on the New Paltz community. Viewers will enlist with the boys and travel with them to the exotic world of the war-torn American South, work with local women to provide soldiers necessary supplies, weep with mothers, wives, and sisters upon receiving news of the deaths of beloved sons, husbands, and brothers, and proudly march with veterans to ensure that their service would not be forgotten. In addition to the online presentation, original weaponry and accoutrements carried by local soldiers are currently on display in Historic Huguenot Street’s Grimm Gallery. Both the library and archives are open year-round by appointment. For more information contact the Society at 845-255-1660 or at
.
Wolfskill Scholarship from the Library of Congress
Jennifer Manning, Library of Congress
Last July, the Library of Congress Professional Association's Continuing Education Fund gave out a "Mary Wolfskill" staff scholarship using funds that Manuscripts Section members helped raise. (See "Obituary: Manuscript Repositories Section Honors Mary Wolfskill, Library of Congress" in the Summer, 2005 newsletter at http://www.archivists.org/saagroups/mss/summer2005.asp#3.
Since then, the Fund received several checks from SAA members and we are able to give out another small Wolfskill Memorial Scholarship again this summer. We would love to raise more money for the Wolfskill Scholarship and we can take checks through the end of June 2006.
If you would like to donate, please make your checks payable to LCPA CEF, with the name "Mary Wolfskill" in the subject line and send to the address below.
LCPA Continuing Education Fund
PO Box 15500
Washington DC
20003-0500
All contributions are tax-deductible and will be acknowledged as well as greatly appreciated.
