Special Collections Library Research Articles

Exploring the East Asian Collection at the Wangensteen Historical Library of Medicine and Biology at the University of Minnesota

Abstract The Wangensteen Historical Library of Medicine and Biology (WHL) at the University of Minnesota (UMN) is a special collections library founded in the mid-1960s. It has been continuously collecting rare East Asian items over the last fifteen years, and now constitutes more than half of the UMN rare East Asian collection. The materials in WHL were primarily acquired for their relevance to medicine and biology but may also be beneficial to other disciplines. Most of the WHL items are understudied and less well known to the public. This article will feature four items to showcase the collection’s strength and diversity.

Revaluing the Eros Collection for Australian cultural histories

ABSTRACT The Eros Collection at Flinders University is the largest collection of materials produced by the sex industry and its affiliates in Australia. Acquired in 1997 and added to over the years, the varied collection (now part of the umbrella Australian Sexuality Collection) includes restricted or censored audiovisual and print materials – in short, porn. Thus this archive – typically a site of protection and care – comprises materials that many people think don’t deserve protection, and this ambiguous status has raised many challenges in terms of how the Collection is valued, researched, and utilized. The thorny question of the Collection’s value is traced in our research through interviews with Special Collections librarians involved with the Collection over different periods and an audit of Collection contents, access, and usage, which we analyse within the broader context of international porn archives and Australian media histories. The article examines how the Collection (specifically its pornographic material) shares key challenges faced by porn archives internationally, including public perception and access, and its uneasy fit within the Australian media histories. We argue that this neglected archive holds promise for understanding porn’s place in Australia’s audiovisual and cultural history.

"Civil War Treasures"

To commemorate the recent sesquicentennial of Charles Sumner’s death, this installment of “Civil War Treasures” features transcriptions of four of his letters held in the LSU Libraries Special Collections. Although not the most detailed of missives, they all date from significant periods of his tenure in the Senate: the imbroglio over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Sumner’s assault at the hands of Preston Brooks, and his evaluation of an ever-worsening situation during the secession crisis in the winter of 1861.

Building the Black History and Visual Culture collection at Penn State University Libraries

The Penn State University Libraries recently published the Black History and Visual Culture digital collection — a curated selection of photographs, poster art, pamphlets and audiovisual materials documenting Black student life at Penn State, as well as Black political and social movements throughout the 20th century. The conception and development of the collection is highly collaborative, involving contributions from Special Collections Library curators, technical service specialists and the digital collections development team. Public programming in support of the collection and use of the collection in outreach and instruction are key parts of its ongoing stewardship. This paper analyses the initial development of the collection, the digitisation process and future plans for collection development.

Encouraging People Through the Doors: Surveying Public Perceptions of Special Collections Libraries

Several special collections libraries develop programs, marketing programs, and webpages to improve public access to collections. However, public perceptions of special collections libraries are poorly understood and library professionals instead depend on anecdotes or own experiences to identify barriers to access. University College London (UCL) Special Collections used an online survey to reach communities outside the university to understand what they think UCL Special Collections is and what interventions might encourage them to visit. Through their survey, it is easier to understand misconceptions about special collections and how it may discourage someone from learning more. Specific marketing and programming interventions applicable to special collections libraries are identified.

Anticolonial Mapping and the 1877 Nez Perce War

In 1927, historian Lucullus V. McWhorter traveled with veterans of the 1877 Nez Perce War to key sites from the conflict. Part of the research material generated from the trip included several maps co-created by Nez Perce War veterans, today housed in Washington State University’s Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections Library as part of the Lucullus V. McWhorter Collection. These maps, many drawn in the tradition of American Indian ledger art, provided spatial details of key battle sites and visual representations of specific incidents that occurred throughout the Nez Perce War. In this paper, I argue that these maps constitute examples of Indigenous anticolonial mapping and that they enabled McWhorter to communicate the veterans’ version of events that transpired throughout the war. This, in contrast to other accounts of the period which tended to disregard the white settler theft of lands that prompted Nez Perce resistance and to justify the colonial violence of the U.S. settler state.

Charles J. Hirsch, Controller, Golden Nugget Casino: Rolling the Dice on Statistical Sampling and Analysis

ABSTRACT Charles J. Hirsch was an accountant and controller for the Golden Nugget casino from 1950 to 1970. He contributed to a movement in the 1950s and 1960s to advance the use of statistical sampling and analysis in the accounting profession. This manuscript is based on analysis of Hirsch’s professional papers, held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Libraries Special Collections and Archives. Hirsch used statistical sampling and analysis at Golden Nugget when statistical techniques had not yet been widely accepted or implemented by practicing accountants and auditors. Beginning in 1959, Hirsch made numerous conference presentations describing his work. In addition, Hirsch explicitly challenged the accounting profession to follow his lead and integrate statistical sampling and analysis into existing practice. In doing so, he joined an exclusive group of individuals, including Robert Trueblood, who were early advocates for using statistical techniques to improve the practice of accounting and auditing.

The Role of Special Collections in Climate Change Movements

This presentation examines the role that special collections can play in documenting climate change literature over the course of history. We chose to focus on artist books in particular due to their unique trait as a format found almost exclusively within special collections libraries. We connect artist books to other collections within Bruce Peel Special Collections to create a narrative of climate change across cultures, time, and social movements. This narrative focuses on the past, present, and future of climate change, showcasing how special collections libraries provide new perspectives on how we should view the role we have to play in climate change. We believe the creation of this narrative shows how collecting literature and archives is an active form of combatting climate misinformation. In particular, we believe connecting this narrative through artist books is a way to challenge dominant narratives due to the role of artist books in counterculture and alternate ways of viewing knowledge.

An Unexpected Influence: Photostats in Special Collections Libraries

An Unexpected Influence: Photostats in Special Collections Libraries

Implementing Indigenous Approaches to Knowledge and Knowing at the John Hay Library: A Pueblo Reflection

Abstract: As a graduate student at Brown University and as the 2020–22 Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative (NAISI) fellow, the author was charged with the task to help the John Hay Special Collections Library implement the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials. The purpose of the Protocols is to provide best professional practices related to culturally responsive care and use of Native American archival materials primarily within non-Native institutions. This article reflects on that work applying the Protocols to the John Hay Library. This article elucidates how the charge to implement these Protocols took shape and describes the logic behind the forms to show other Native and non-Native practitioners one approach toward applying the Protocols.

Hidden Treasures: The Library Special Collections at Highland Theological College UHI

This paper details the library special collections material held at the library of Highland Theological College, University of the Highlands and Islands. Our three primary special collections are the focus of this article, The William Temple Collection, The Rutherford House Collection, and the Fort Augustus Collection. We detail here the story behind these collections entering our custody and proceed to highlight a selection of monographs of provenance and personal interest. This paper constitutes original research into the collections, building upon a foundation laid by the late college librarian, Mr. Martin Cameron, (1953-2019) who curated the collections over some twenty years. We also discuss the curation two new collections – The Liturgical Music Collection, comprising sheet music and musical sources from the Fort Augustus Collection, and the Historical Texts Collection, comprising the library’s oldest books of academic interest.

Collecting Sarah Piatt at the Ohio State University's Rare Books & Manuscripts Library

Collecting Sarah Piatt at the Ohio State University's Rare Books & Manuscripts Library

Civil War Treasures: "Louis Kossuth and the Unwinnable Dilemma of Slavery"

Hans Rasmussen uses archival material from LSU Library's special collections to examine how and why nineteenth-century-Americans celebrated Louis Kossuth, an anti-Russian-imperialism activist, and how their behavior resembles pro-Volodymyr Zelensky sentiment today.

James S. Griffith: Remembering “Big Jim” (1935–2021)

James S. Griffith: Remembering “Big Jim” (1935–2021)

The Matrix of Poetry: James Schuyler’s Diary

In his essay Mikołaj Wiśniewski presents an unpublished 1962 diary entry and two chapters from an unfinished novel found by the author when conducting research in the James Schuyler archive of the Mandeville Special Collections Library at UCSD. Wiśniewski goes on to show how Schuyler experimented with the diary form long before he started keeping a diary in the late 1960s (the published Diary of James Schuyler starts with 1967) and how the practice always served him as a starting point or “training ground” for other projects, be it a novel or the late long poems of the 1970s and 1980s. The author also comments on Schuyler’s poetics of the quotidian and the boring, contrasting it with Frank O’Hara’s focus on moments of exceptional emotional and perceptual intensity.

Engaging neglected histories: First-year students, archives, and Wikipedia

At the University of California (UC)-Merced, the General Education program recently introduced Spark seminars, a first-year experience that invites incoming undergraduate students into the knowledge-making activity of a research university with a goal of fostering students’ intellectual curiosity, feelings of inclusion, and connections to place. To cultivate these dispositions, faculty are encouraged to create contexts for student research using campus and/or community resources. In spring 2020, Catherine Koehler, continuing lecturer in the Merritt Writing Program, approached University Archivist Jerrold Shiroma about the possibility of a pair of instructional sessions that would introduce students to archives and archival research through the UC-Merced Library Special Collections, in particular the library’s digital collection of newsletters authored by Japanese Americans incarcerated in temporary detention centers in the Central Valley during World War II. Koehler also wanted students to communicate their research to audiences beyond the classroom, which involved further collaboration with Shiroma to introduce students to Omeka, produce a digital exhibit, and, recently, partnerer with librarian Sara Davidson Squibb to develop a new Wikipedia page for the Merced Assembly Center. This article provides a description of these collaborations and outlines challenges, student learning, and future directions to integrate archival collections and library instructional projects with undergraduate teaching.

Toward Ethical and Inclusive Descriptive Practices

This case study describes the context which galvanized our Collection Management unit at UCLA Library Special Collections to collectively craft a descriptive practices statement within a study group focused on an anti-oppressive approach to discovery and access. This paper discusses the planning and design of the study group, our direct engagement at meetings, collaborative iteration, and liberatory pedagogical strategies that enabled the statement’s publication, and its impact within our department, library, and beyond. This work speaks to radical descriptive change and provides a potential path for the development of ethical and inclusive descriptive practices at other institutions.

Ya. M. Lisovoy’s collection destiny: historical and library aspects

The study of the unique bibliophile heritage of writers, historians, philosophers, scientists and artists who happened to be far from Russia is important from the point of view of understanding how the best representatives of Russian emigration sought to preserve the collections that they managed to bring out of Russia and multiply over the years of living abroad. Fortunately, many collections were returned to their homeland, but many rare priceless materials remained abroad forever. The problem of book collections existence, which for one reason or another and at different times fell into the category of “prohibited”, acquired special significance at the end of 1980s – the beginning of 1990s, after the abolition of all censorship restrictions in the country, and, as a result, the opening of library special collections and archives. The purpose of the article is – on the basis of a brief source review of emigrants’ collections which entered the leading libraries of Russia from abroad, and the collection gathered by the White Guard emigrant officer and politician, historian, publicist, bibliographer Ya. M. Lisovoy – to illustrate the need to move from the analytical stage of research activity in this subject field to the synthetic one aimed at accumulating research intentions on a general cultural scale. The fate of the collection in the period from 1915 to 1992 is traced, its structure is presented, and the analysis of Ya. M. Lisovoy publishing activity is undertaken.

Uprooting Racial Health Disparities

Genealogical researchers are the largest user group of archives and library special collections. Although the pursuit of family history is a popular hobby in North America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that many patients do not collect family health history (FHH). Adequate FHH supports diagnosis and risk assessment for hereditary cancers. Referrals to genetic testing services and counseling reflect glaring racial disparities that are partially attributed to inadequate FHH. Library and information science (LIS) education may offer opportunities to introduce archives curriculum in undergraduate programs and foster synergies with community health outreach program design. Supporting the development of accurate FHH and meeting the genealogy needs of diverse communities is a critical example of the influence LIS education may wield in the reduction of racial disparities in hereditary cancer care.

Understanding Access in Academic Library Special Collections

American academic libraries have collected rare and unique non-circulating materials now referred to as special collections. These materials are handled differently than in other parts of academic library collections with specialized access policies, procedures, and staff. This research project looks at how ideas of access to special collections have changed during the period 1936 to 2019. Interviews were conducted with 21 special collections professionals. Using a grounded theory approach, a conceptual model of the aspects of access was developed. Ten aspects of access were mapped onto three overarching categories. An exploration of access through the lens of special collections is especially meaningful because of the tension between the principles of preservation and access within the special collections community. This project is also significant as the library profession as a whole explores how representation of diversity within collections and access to them impacts library users.