14 February 2006: Introducing the Special Collections Blog
In continuing effort to expand our services and increase communication with our patrons, Special Collections recently began publishing its own web log. "Blogs" are familiar features to many today, and we hope you'll find this one a helpful addition to our services. Bookmark it for news of current and upcoming events at Hill Memorial Library.
December 2005: Special Collections Aids Hurricane Recovery
...This article also appeared in the November/December 2005 issue of Archival Outlook, the newsletter of the Society of American Archivists, and the November 2005 issue of Southwestern Archivist, the newsletter of the Society of Southwest Archivists.
As the staff of Louisiana State University Libraries Special Collections returned to work a few days after Hurricane Katrina, many of us had difficulty focusing on our everyday jobs. Evacuees poured into Baton Rouge, LSU faculty and staff worked frantically with emergency officials to set up shelters and field hospitals on campus, and via website and television, we watched, horrified, as a vast human tragedy continued to develop.
To many of us, getting that new finding aid posted, that collection cataloged, or the next exhibit planned suddenly seemed irrelevant. We wanted to do something to help. Stints at the on-campus shelters sorting clothes, entertaining children, caring for pets, transporting supplies, and running errands offered one way to contribute. Indeed, many of us wished we were doctors or nurses so we could help more directly. But when evacuees of a different sort—records, books and photos from New Orleans's diverse archives and libraries—made their way to Baton Rouge and LSU Special Collections, we had the opportunity to put our skills and facilities to good use.
In anticipation of receiving collections from New Orleans, Special Collections set up a kind of “archival ER” in Hill Library's large lecture hall. 
Tables, paper towels, blotter paper, large plastic bags, Rescubes, rolls of newsprint, silicone release paper, and box fans were laid out in readiness. The first materials to arrive were approximately 20 linear feet of albums, cassettes, film, ephemera, manuscripts, photographs, sheet music, and scrapbooks from the Louisiana State Museum's Jazz Collection. Housed in the Old U.S. Mint at 400 Esplanade Ave, these materials, which represent about one percent of the total Jazz Collection, were damaged when a large portion of the building's copper roof ripped off. The Louisiana State Museum has the largest collection in the world of instruments owned and played by important figures in jazz, including Louis Armstrong's bugle and cornet, Kid Ory's trombone, and Sidney Bechet's soprano saxophone; over 10,000 photographs documenting the local music scene from about 1950 onward; more than 10,000 recordings in all formats; as well as sheet music, posters, film, and art works. Museum staff were able to survey their collection, with the assistance of a National Guard escort, and on September 2nd, they delivered the wet collections to LSU. Because they were wet with rainwater, as opposed to the contaminated floodwater, the collections were relatively clean; few items showed evidence of mold. LSU Special Collections' Conservator Don Morrison and Curator Elaine Smyth triaged the materials, and with the assistance of Special Collections staff, air-dried the bulk of the recovered collections. A sheet music collection and the Museum's own scrapbooks required freezing.
As the scale of damage in New Orleans became apparent, Associate Dean Faye Phillips received approval from university officials for Special Collections to assist in recovery efforts in any way she considered appropriate, not limiting our assistance to only other state schools or agencies.
Consequently, another institution with which Special Collections has been working closely is the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. Over 700 volumes from the book collection of Notre Dame Seminary, which is operated by the archdiocese, are presently stored at LSU for safekeeping. The seminary's holdings include rare and important versions of the Bible from foreign countries, most notably one of three copies known to exist of the Complutense Polyglot Bible (1514-1517), incunabula, other religious texts, Louisiana church parish histories, some New Orleans and Louisiana titles, and a few manuscript collections. Among the latter are Archbishop Philip Hannan's personal papers from Vatican Council II. Additionally, the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge Archives received 66 volumes of sacramental and financial records and congregational minutes from New Orleans-area and southeast Louisiana churches damaged or destroyed by Katrina. Volumes from one church were found in the middle of the street. Archives staff washed the volumes, and they were placed in Special Collections' freezer. An additional 129 volumes and four linear feet are being stored in the library's stacks.
Another group of materials requiring freezing was the newspaper archive of the Saint Bernard Parish Voice. Saint Bernard Parish was one of the hardest-hit areas, and flooding there submerged 100 volumes of issues spanning 1890 to the present. Staff from the Louisiana Press Association retrieved the newspapers and brought them to LSU.
A more active and arduous role for Special Collections staff developed a little over a month after Katrina made landfall. On the morning of September 30, Special Collections received a telephone call New Orleans photographer Donn Young, whose studio was flooded by both Katrina and Rita.
Unable to save his 35-year archive of work without help, Young donated the collection to the LSU Libraries in order that something might be saved. When Special Collections' Image Resources Curator Mark Martin arrived to survey the materials, he found a motley mix of some 80 containers in which approximately 100 cubic feet of material were stewing in a mix of contaminated water, leached photography chemicals, and muck. Despite its condition, the documentary value of the work was clear. Believing there might be some salvageable materials, Special Collections staff began an urgent search for a rental truck, much in demand in the aftermath of two hurricanes, to transport the materials to Baton Rouge.
On Sunday, October 2, Phillips, Smyth, and Martin drove to Metairie to load the truck. Some of the largest containers, too heavy to be lifted safely, were repacked into smaller boxes. After 4 hours the truck was loaded and headed back upriver. Over the following four days Special Collections staff assembled behind the Library to triage the collection.
As expected the damage was extensive, since photographic materials do not take well to being underwater for a month. Most of the 35 mm color negative and color positive film was completely destroyed, as was almost all the 120 mm black & white negative film. Some of the 4” x 5” color negative and color positive film that had been placed in Mylar sleeves survived; some of the 35 mm black & white negative film looked as if it might be salvageable.
There were also more than 1,000 CD-ROMs in the mix. The aluminum layer on many of these disks completely debonded leaving a transparent disk behind, while many others suffered some degree of damage rendering them unreadable on local MAC disk readers. Funds are being sought to outsource data recovery for these disks. A sampling of disks with no visible damage revealed 4 out of 5 were still readable without using extraordinary measures; unfortunately, these undamaged disks form a very small fraction of the whole.
The Libraries' salvage operation reduced the size of the collection from approximately 100 cubic feet to approximately 28 cubic feet, which was immediately placed in the our walk-in freezer to stabilize the materials and give the staff time to develop an action plan for the next phase of recovery. We anticipate that perhaps as little as 5 cubic feet of material will survive.
The aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita has pointed out many areas of disaster recovery practice that need to be reconsidered. Most training assumes recovery can begin within 48 hours of damage. In New Orleans, the earliest anyone could survey their collections was three days after the storm, and most archivists were not granted access until a week or more had passed. Another assumption is that the water causing the damage has come from a broken pipe, firemen's hoses, or rainwater, and is therefore clean. Katrina's floodwaters, however, contained chemicals and bacteria. Just as government at all levels reviews its response, so must the archival community learn from this unprecedented disaster.
Story Updates, January 2006:
- The LSU Libraries is currently providing freezer space and storage space for public library materials salvaged from Cameron Parish. Of four libraries in Cameron Parish, only one, in Hackberry, La., survives.
- The LSU Libraries' Special Collections is one of 19 institutions receiving emergency grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities to help defray expenses incurred in helping other institutions recover materials damaged or threatened by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Read the NEH news release at http://www.neh.gov/news/archive/20051116.html.
19 August 2005: Jennifer M. Abraham named Director of the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History
LSU Libraries Special Collections is pleased to announce that Jennifer M. Abraham has been named Director of the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History effective July 1, 2005. Jennifer has been serving for the past year as the Interim Director and has worked for the Center since 2000.
Jennifer received an MA in Anthropology in 2001 from the University of Southern Mississippi. She received her BA in History from Delta State University, Cleveland, MS. She has previously worked as a Contract Oral Historian, for the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at the University of Southern Mississippi, for the University of California at Berkeley as a Field Lab Supervisor and as a manuscripts processor at the McCain Library and Archives at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Jennifer has published in "University of Memphis, Anthropological Research Center, Occasional Papers," "Mississippi Folklife," and co-authored reports for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. She has made presentations at the annual meetings of the Oral History Association, the Society of Southwest Archivists, the Louisiana Archaelogy Society, the Southeastern Historical Archaeology Conference and the Society for Historical Archaeology.
3 August 2005: A collection of Eudora Welty Papers, donated to Special Collections early last month, have now been inventoried and made available to patrons in the Hill Memorial Library Reading Room.
13 July 2005: Panopticon Goes Live!
Over the last several months, staff in the Special Collections Image Resources unit have been adding images and cataloging to a new database powered by CONTENTdm. Although we have not yet implemented all the tools that we will provide to make these collections "user friendly," we hope that you will enjoy using the collections in the interim. Click on "Panopticon to have a look. Enjoy!
7 July 2005: The Imaginative Life of Andrei Codrescu
An Exhibition with opening reception featuring Andrei Codrescu and Friends: Friday, August 26, 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm, at Hill Memorial Library.
7 July 2005: Eudora Welty Papers Donated to LSU Special Collections
The LSU Libraries' Special Collections is proud to become the new home of the Eudora Welty papers, a collection of Welty's private letters, through a gift from Michael D. Robinson, Senior Director of Development, LSU Foundation. Mr. Robinson is the nephew of John Robinson to whom most of the letters are addressed.
The collection, which spans the years 1951-1957, is a unique and valuable resource for Welty scholars, according to Brannon Costello, Louisiana State University assistant professor of English who specializes in southern literature. “Welty's relationship with John Robinson was one of the most significant of her life,” he notes. “Not only did the two share a lifelong friendship and a shorter, complicated romance, but they also shared a devotion to the craft of writing."
It should not surprise those who view the Eudora Welty Papers that as a result of Robinson and Welty's intimacy, these letters open a window into the writer's personal and professional life. The eclectic topics touched on in the papers include the theater, the cinema, artists, writers and Welty's mother. She mentions important writers such as Robert Penn Warren, William Faulkner, Leonard Wolf, Sidonie-Gabrielle Collet, Elizabeth Spencer and Elizabeth Bowen. She does not limit her remarks to writers, but also comments on public figures and politicians, including Mississippi governor Ross Barnett and evangelist Billy Graham.
Of particular interest to Welty scholars, according to Costello, are several letters chronicling her stay in Ireland with writer Elizabeth Bowen, another longtime friend. He notes, “We think of Welty as firmly rooted in Mississippi but in fact she was greatly affected by her stay in Ireland, and in her letters she is clearly distressed at the thought of leaving.” For example, she writes, "I would have stayed in Ireland all my life —with trips—from —it not to it then." Good portions of her letters describe the landscape and atmosphere in great detail and lament the fact that she is unable to stay permanently.
Welty traveled widely and held various lecturing and teaching posts. Travel, escape and freedom are important themes in her work in the 1950's according to Costello. Through the letters, she shares with Robinson many of the feelings and first-hand experiences that she draws upon for much of the fiction collected in The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories. (1955). She also mentions her own struggles with writing and writing projects she was working on at the time. The letters also record the role she played in Robinson's literary career, critiquing his work and continuously encouraging him.
Welty was born April 13, 1909 in Jackson, Mississippi. She attended Mississippi State College for Women in Columbus from 1925- 1927. She transferred to the University of Wisconsin in 1927, where she became an English major and began studying English Literature. In 1929 she received her Bachelor of Arts degree and moved on to graduate school at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business studying advertising. She won most of the major literary prizes during her career, including the Pulitzer Prize and the French Légion d'Honneur.
"Welty's achievement is unsurpassed in American fiction: her work combines keen, often startling insights about human nature and about the social forces that shape individuals with an equally startling tenderness and compassion for even the most reprehensible of her characters," says Costello. Costello has written several pieces discussing Welty's work. His latest is "Playing Lady and Imitating Aristocrats: Race, Class and Money in Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding and The Ponder Heart," The Southern Quarterly 42.3 (2004):21-54.
The collection is currently being cataloged and will be available to researchers soon. Anyone interested in accessing the letters should contact Tara Z. Laver, Assistant Curator for Manuscripts at 225-578-6546.
The LSU Libraries Special Collections is located in Hill Memorial Library. Hours are 9a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and the library is open until 8 p.m. when school is in session. Saturday hours vary depending on holidays and campus events but usually are 9a.m. -1p.m. Please call to confirm.
7 July 2005: LSU Special Collections Receives NHPRC Grant
The National Historical Publications and Records Commission has awarded a 30-month, $196,140 grant to the LSU Libraries Special Collections for the purpose of preserving and improving intellectual and physical access to 130 years of county-level records for the state of Louisiana, dating from 1811 to 1940, by microfilming them and producing an improved finding aid.
Unlike other states, Louisiana's unit of local government is the parish rather than the county, and the governing body of the parish is the police jury. The preservation of their minutes is especially important, for, historically, Louisiana's governmental structure gives as much, if not more, power to local governments than does any other state. As Doug Harrison, Donald J. Lemieux, and Theron D. Hinton wrote in Louisiana Historical Records Assessment Project: Final Report (1986), as a general rule, any powers not specifically delegated to the state devolve to the parishes, giving the records of the parishes profound significance to the individual. The minutes of the parishes' primary governing body document the evolution of government responsibility; citizen participation in and expectations of government; settlement of the state's rural areas and changes in land ownership; and local ordinances governing slavery and local attitudes about it, as well as the changing status of African Americans after emancipation. The records shed light on topics as varied as the development of education for blacks and whites, the battle to control yellow fever, and flood control and levee-building, which was to have far-reaching effects on the Louisiana coastline. Genealogists also find the transcriptions useful in identifying ancestors' places of residence, death dates, and role in their communities.
From 1939 to 1942, the Louisiana Historical Records Survey made transcriptions of the original minutes of the police juries in each of Louisiana's 64 parishes, and they were deposited at LSU. The collection comprises approximately 206 linear feet. The poor-quality wood-pulp paper used for these transcriptions is severely embrittled, and in this state, every use of these documents is damaging. Microfilming the transcriptions is essential to preserve the important historical information in these records.
In addition to the physical access problems, intellectual access to these records is hampered by an inadequate finding aid. It lacks needed details about the organization and content of the records and is often confusing. In a small portion of the records, the order is illogical or has been scrambled and needs to be reorganized or restored. Prior to microfilming, these faults must be remedied, in order to provide the most effective intellectual access to the newly preserved materials.
Work on the project began in January with the hiring of a graduate student and student worker. Together they will prepare the records for filming, create targets, and create a new finding aid. The filming itself will be outsourced. Upon completion of the project, the microfilm will be available at LSU, through interlibrary loan, or for purchase.
