Library and Information Science Commons^™

Managing Special Collections In A Small Academic Library: A Case Study Of Preservation And Access To The Sailors’ Snug Harbor Collection, Shafeek Fazal, Gregory Murphy

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This article presents a case study of how a small academic library managed one of its special collections that has rich significance to the history of New York City and the maritime industry. With the acquisition of the valuable Sailors’ Snug Harbor research collection and faced with limited financial and personnel resources, the librarians at SUNY Maritime College set forth to aggressively pursue external funding, creatively generate personnel resources, and developed in-house expertise to successfully preserve, promote, and enhance access. Digitization and creating open access technology tools were key components of improving access to the collection. As a result, there …

"Let Us Cross Over The River And Rest Under The Shade Of The Trees,": My Final Post For The Summer, Steven J. Semmel

Blogging the Library

As the summer comes to a close, the more I think about my experiences here at Special Collections. This internship was completely different compared to my past internships, going from giving tours to creating finding aids for collections. I lived a Civil War Era Studies student’s dream, being able to handle a wide range of artifacts and documents while helping preserve them at the same time. The Hosford Collection has portions of it digitized on GettDigital and I am currently working on reorganizing and editing the Civil War Vertical File Manuscript. The Hosford Collection helped me establish my understanding of …

Faces Of The Civil War, Steven J. Semmel

Blogging the Library

As the internship enters its final month of the summer, I’ve been processing and looking at various Civil War collections. This era in history is well known for the bloody conflicts that separated the nation. However, not much is known about most individuals that fought in different regiments across the country, or even what they looked like. Special Collections is home to a few faces that at Gettysburg, out West, prisoners at Andersonville, or stationed in places like Florida. The collections I have recently processed included photos of those soldiers at different stages in their life. [excerpt]

Review Of Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills In History And The Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Approach By Kathleen W. Craver, Victor J. Ricchezza, H L. Vacher

Numeracy

Kathleen W. Craver. Developing Quantitative Literacy Skills in History and Social Sciences: A Web-Based Common Core Standards Approach (Lantham MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc., 2014). 191 pp.
ISBN 978-1-4758-1050-9 (cloth); ISBN …-1051-6 (pbk); ISBN…-1052-3 (electronic).

This book could be a breakthrough for teachers in the trenches who are interested in or need to know about quantitative literacy (QL). It is a resource providing 85 topical pieces, averaging 1.5 pages, in which a featured Web site is presented, described, and accompanied by 2-4 critical-thinking questions purposefully drawing on data from the Web site. The featured Web sites range from …

Greetings From The Civil War Intern!, Steven J. Semmel

Blogging the Library

Hello everyone! I would like to welcome you to Musselman Library’s intern blog. I’m Steven Semmel (the big goofy guy at the bottom of the current intern’s section) and I am the Brian C. Pohanka Civil War Institute intern at Special Collections for the summer of 2015. I will primarily be working with anything that deals with the Civil War in Special Collections. This includes diary transcriptions, digitizing, cataloging, creating displays, you name it! I am having a wonderful time so far this summer and currently working on transcribing three years’ worth of diary entries from Hoadley G. Hosford. Hosford …

Documenting Ferguson: Capturing History As It Happens, Sonya Rooney, Jennifer Kirmer

WashU Libraries Presentations

This poster chronicles a novel archive project—the Documenting Ferguson Project at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL). Our poster highlighted our steps in the documentation and preservation of materials created in the course of and surrounding events in Ferguson, Missouri following the shooting death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014. WUSTL created a committee, consisting of University Archives and other library staff, faculty, and additional university staff, to coordinate the efforts to capture the history as it happened. The Documenting Ferguson Project Team was called together in August 2014, soon after the death of Michael Brown and the first …

Friends Of Musselman Library Newsletter Spring 2015, Musselman Library

Friends of Musselman Library Newsletter

From the Director: Open Access (Robin Wagner)

Global Perspective: Library Participation in College’s Internationalization Efforts (Lucy Marinova ’12, Munya Choga ’12)

Remembering Gale Baker

Library wins 2014 Best in Show

Summer Reads 2015 Launches

Eisenhower Exhibit

Birds of a Feather: Photography Exhibit (Sandra Blair)

Heads Will Turn: Student Exhibit (Mark Warwick)

Edible Books

Audubon Print - Carolina Parrot (Geoffrey Jackson ’91)

Life in Photos: William H. Tipton exhibit

50^th reunion Gift of First Editions (John E. Rogers, Jr. ’65)

Sharing the Past: Alumni Memorabilia (Jessica Casale ’18, Julia Hendon, Clara A. Baker ’30, Gary T. Hawbaker ’66)

19^{th …}

Artifacts As Ambassadors: Sharing Special Collections Through Collaboration With Student Curators, Carolyn Sautter

All Musselman Library Staff Works

Special Collections and College Archives at Musselman Library, Gettysburg College, regularly collaborates with various academic departments to conduct class visits utilizing the primary sources in Special Collections Reading Room. In the last two years, some of these opportunity have grown into semester long student curation experiences both inside Special Collections and in collaboration with Schmucker Art Gallery at Gettysburg College.

The exhibits discussed included:

Slaves, Soldiers, Citizens: African American Artifacts of the Civil War Era

Slow to Heal: The Evolution of Medicine from the Civil War Era to WWI

Owl & Nightingale Players, 1914-2014: One Hundred Years of Drama

Art …

Crowdsourcing Digital Public History, Jason A. Heppler, Gabriel K. Wolfenstein

Criss Library Faculty Publications

The generation of communal knowledge is not a new phenomenon. In the late nineteenth century, the Oxford English Dictionary solicited volunteers to submit words and their usage for inclusion in the dictionary ( 1 ). Carl Becker, writing in 1932 on what was already an old discussion in the historical profession, noted that "if the essence of history is the memory of things said and done, then it is obvious that every normal person, Mr. Everyman, knows some history" (2). The historian Jo Guldi's work on participatory mapping shows that urban planners in the middle of the twentieth century attempted …

An Annotated Bibliography Of Materials Recommended For Middle School Classrooms Regarding The Multiple Perspectives On The Causes Of The American Civil War, Emma Folland

Graduate Research Papers

The Civil War is a topic that is taught at the middle school level. However, teachers are not necessarily teaching from both the Northern and Southern perspectives. They are also not always looking at the causes of the Civil War beyond slavery. The purpose of this project was to create a selective annotated bibliography of recommended resources for middle school teachers to use when teaching about the causes of the Civil War from both the Northern and Southern perspectives. The researcher considered what resources were available for teaching middle school students about the different causes of the Civil War from …

Friends Of Musselman Library Newsletter Fall 2014, Musselman Library

Friends of Musselman Library Newsletter

Table of Contents: From the Director: Gettysburgreat: The Campaign for Our College (Robin Wagner); Popular Middle East Series Continues; Letter from Edgar Rice Burroughs Explains Origin of Tarzan's Name; Library Celebration Owl & Nightingale's 100th Anniversary (Chelsea Bucklin '10, Chris Kauffman '92, Elyse Bennett '10); Encore! Owl & Nightingale Players Take Center Stage at Homecoming (Paul Di Salvo '13, Chelsea Bucklin '10, Aliena J. (Fischer) Garnard '93, Kelsey Lamagdeleine '09, Sean Valentine '05); Research Reflections: Shakespeare Folio (Chris Kauffman '92); GettDigital- The Story Continues: Professor Visits Italy and Recreates WWII Photos (Alan Perry, Catherine Perry); Don't Be Antisocial; Obama Awards …

University Archives And Community Organizations: Ensuring Access Through Collaboration, Jessica R. Holden, Andrew Elder, Joanne Riley

Joseph P. Healey Library Publications

How can a university archives establish a successful ongoing relationship with a community organization? What are the benefits and challenges of such a collaboration? University of Massachusetts Boston’s Archives and Special Collections (UASC) explored these questions while working with The Irish Ancestral Research Association (TIARA) to preserve and provide access to 79,000 mortuary records from the Massachusetts Catholic Order of Foresters. Elements of the collaboration included shifting stewardship of the records from the Foresters to TIARA to UMass Boston, integrating TIARA’s efforts in processing and indexing the records into the Archives’ workflow, providing in-person and electronic access to the records, …

A Foray Into Library Digital Publishing: The British Virginia Project At Virginia Commonwealth University, Kevin Farley

Charleston Library Conference

The British Virginia project involves a collaboration between Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Libraries and faculty members in the departments of English and History at VCU, with the project led by Dr. Joshua Eckhardt (English). As of April 25, 2013, the project has published its first title: an online edition of a sermon preached to the Virginia Company by William Symonds. To ensure the success of this project, a number of details required careful planning, including library outreach, IT involvement, and digital publishing protocols. Our example has deepened a move toward a dynamic and creative digital environment for researchers across campus. …

First Class: Pioneering Students At San José State University’S School Of Library And Information Science, 1928-1940, Debra L. Hansen

School of Information Student Research Journal

This article examines the backgrounds, education, and careers of the first group of students in San José State University’s School of Library and Information Science. It finds that the 1928-1929 cohort were typical of the students attending teacher’s colleges in the early 1900s and represented the first generation of women pursuing higher education and professional careers following the passage of the 19^th amendment in 1920. The study also explores the challenges working women faced during the 1930s, particularly the Great Depression’s impact California librarians.

The Myth Of Freedom Of Information., John Chenault

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The article discusses the myths surrounding the founding of the U.S. and the freedoms of information supposedly conferred by its founders in the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Particular focus is given to the efforts of libraries in defending the public's right to know and their attempts to inform and instruct the public on the significance of openness in government. The misuse of a quote by former U.S. President James Madison about freedom of information is explored.

Grauman, Edna Jeanette, 1892-1979 (Sc 1294), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text of letter (Click on additional files) for Manuscripts Small Collection 1294. Letter, 11 February 1937, written by Edna J. Grauman, Louisville, Kentucky, to Margie Helm, Western Kentucky University librarian, Bowling Green, Kentucky, describing the Ohio River flood in Louisville and especially its effect on the Louisville Public Library, where she was employed.

"Smith County Socialists, 1900-1918." Chronicles Of Smith County, Texas 45 (2014): 1-18., Vicki Betts

Presentations and Publications

A study of socialists in Smith County, Texas, between 1900 and 1918.

“An Ever-Ready Source Of Inspiration And Information”: Ruth Blair And The Bicentennial County Historians, David B. Parker

Provenance, Journal of the Society of Georgia Archivists

In 1929, the Georgia General Assembly approved a resolution calling on each county to appoint a historian to compile the county’s history for the state’s bicentennial (1732-1932). Ruth Blair, director of the state’s Department of Archives and History, worked closely with the county historians. Their correspondence tells us much about the project and about Blair’s role in the project’s success.

A Foray Into Library Digital Publishing: The British Virginia Project At Virginia Commonwealth University, Kevin Farley

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

The British Virginia project involves a collaboration between Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Libraries and faculty members in the departments of English and History at VCU, with the project led by Dr. Joshua Eckhardt (English). As of April 25, 2013, the project has published its first title: an online edition of a sermon preached to the Virginia Company by William Symonds. To ensure the success of this project, a number of details required careful planning, including library outreach, IT involvement, and digital publishing protocols. Our example has deepened a move toward a dynamic and creative digital environment for researchers across campus. …

The Dangers Of Unlimited Access: Fiction, The Internet And The Social Construction Of Childhood., Suzanne Marie Stauffer

Faculty Publications

At the beginning of the twentieth century, librarians, teachers, and parentswrote about the dangers to children of unlimited access towhatwas termed “sensational literature.” At the beginning of the next century, they struggled to deal with the dangers to children of unlimited access to the Internet. Although separated by a hundred years, they appear to be makingmuch the same argument about themuch the same issue, that of the public library providing unlimited access tominors towhat some viewas inappropriate or dangerousmaterials. However, a closer analysis of the discourse in the professional media regarding these two controversies, one that investigates the mechanisms underlying …

Whitfield, Jon A. (Sc 1219), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 1219. Letter written by Jon A. Whitfield, Brandenburg, Kentucky, to Connie Foster, Bowling Green, Kentucky, in reaction to an article she prepared for Kentucky Libraries. He related his experiences as a librarian at the American Community School in Cobham, Surrey, England, in 1984.

Toeing The Line Between Offense And Education, Natalie S. Sherif

Blogging the Library

Medical history can be gruesome. People shy away from blood and guts and images of death perhaps because it makes us question our own mortality or perhaps because it reminds us a bit too much about the origins of that hamburger we ate for lunch. Whatever the reason, a lot of humans cannot stomach the truly heinous. [excerpt]

Do You Doodle?, Natalie S. Sherif

Blogging the Library

If you were, are, or will become a student, then you have probably thought about doodling during class. Fear not! We are not the only generation to draw in the midst of a lecture. Today’s research escapade led me to investigate George Currier’s notes from his time as a student at the Medical Department of Pennsylvania College. [excerpt]

North And South: Archivists Document Gettysburg’S 150th, Robin Wagner

All Musselman Library Staff Works

Sometimes the best special collections are right in your own backyard. Not the ones that come to you from a retiring professor, local collector, or estate settlement, but the ones that you put together yourself. Rather than sit by and wait for memorabilia related to the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg to come to them, archivists at Gettysburg College took an active role, becoming part of the history they would normally just accept from donors. [excerpt]

Documenting Women’S Civil War Experiences In The Ohio Valley At The Filson, Eric Willey

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

This collections essay describes archival collections of the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. These collections document women and their experiences in the American Civil War.

A Hypochondriac Investigates The Evolution Of Medicine, Natalie S. Sherif

Blogging the Library

This exhibit will open to the public in February 2014, but until then I have my work cut out for me. I am currently researching various aspects of medical history spanning from the mid-1800s, through the Civil War, to WWI. Thus far I have read accounts of women volunteers during the American Civil War, important changes that went into effect during WWI, and an overly detailed description on how to perform tooth extractions according to the latest science of the 1860s. [excerpt]

Documenting 'Herstories' In The Ohio Valley At The Filson, Eric Willey

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

This collection essay describes archival collections held by the Filson Historical Society of Louisville, Kentucky. The collections described document women’s contributions to the region’s history, their struggles and triumphs, and the contours of their daily lives, including interactions with family, peers, neighbors, and business associates.

Mass. Memories Road Show: Your Place In Massachusetts History, Andrew Elder, Carolyn M. Goldstein, Joanne Riley, University Archives & Special Collections, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Mass. Memories Road Show is an event-based public history project that digitizes family photographs and stories shared by the people of Massachusetts. We work with local communities to organize free public events where everyone is invited to bring photographs to be scanned and included in the archives at UMass Boston.

To date, the Mass. Memories Road Show has digitized more than 5,000 photographs and stories from across the state, creating an educational resource of primary sources for future generations. Over time, we plan to visit each of the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.

Clark, Thomas Dionysius, 1903-2005 (Sc 891), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 891. Letter, 30 September 1985, written by Thomas Dionysius Clark, Lexington, Kentucky, to Connie Mills, Bowling Green Kentucky, regarding his association with the Historical Records Survey Project in Kentucky, 1935-1936.

Jeffrey, Jonathan David, B. 1960 (Sc 882), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 882. Page proof of Growing with Bowling Green: A History of the Bowling Green Public Library, 1938-1988, c.1991 and written by Jonathan Jeffrey.