Eudora Welty Collection Mississippi Department of Archives and History

Abstract

Eudora Welty Collection Mississippi Department of Archives and History Forrest Galey The materials transferred to the Archives and Records Services Division (A&RS) from the Museum Division since March 2011, along with those transferred to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) upon the settlement of Eudora Welty's estate, continue to be incorporated into the Eudora Welty Collection. Any newly acquired collections of Welty-related material not donated to MDAH by Eudora Welty or her heirs are established as collections unto themselves, in accordance with archival rules of provenance, and not added to the Eudora Welty Collection proper. Currently, no series are closed for reprocessing but some series are undergoing substantial revisions. There are also new series being added such as Associated Correspondence and Papers (Series 29d), consisting of correspondence and other papers created or received by correspondents of Welty. These include "select" correspondents such as Mary Louise Aswell, Albert R. Erskine, Jr., Frank Lyell, Ken Millar, John Robinson, and [End Page 107] Diarmuid Russell. While the letters are directed to correspondents other than Welty, a number of them concern her, her works, and her business affairs. We suggest researchers contact MDAH, refdesk@mdah.ms.gov, to verify the availability of series that are of particular interest to them prior to visiting the archives. Readers are invited to visit the MDAH website where the home page mdah.ms.gov/ new/ features Welty information with some regularity and provides a portal to the online catalog where new series and series revisions may be posted. The A&RS division continues to use Koha, an open source system, for its online catalog. An instruction sheet, The Eudora Welty Collection: Collection Research and Access via the Online Catalog, has been prepared to aid researchers in readily locating catalog records for the Eudora Welty Collection and other Welty-related materials in the division's holdings. The document concludes with a current series list. Researchers interested in obtaining publication rights for, and/or reproductions of, material in the Eudora Welty Collection may benefit from information provided in The Eudora Welty Collection: Contacts for Use Permission and Reprographic Services. The 2019 Eudora Welty Research Fellowship co-sponsored by the Eudora Welty Foundation and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History was awarded in April. On-site research at the William F. Winter Archives and History Building, supported by the $2,000 stipend, will be conducted during the summer. The 2018 Fellow was Caroline Brandon, an MA student in English literature at Mississippi State University. Previously, she conducted research using the Eudora Welty Collection as a Ford Fellow while attending Millsaps College, where she received her BA in English literature. Forrest Galey Special Projects Officer Copyright © 2019 Department of English, Georgia State University