Special Collections Library Research Articles

Acquiring Artists’ Books at Art Book Fairs: Dynamic Collection Development Practices

Strategies for acquisitions in art and special collections libraries require multiple modes and methods. Over the past decade, art book fairs have emerged as an exciting and worthwhile venue for collecting artists’ books and other special collections materials such as zines, posters, and ephemera. Art book fairs occur internationally, and the attendance of librarians at these events continues to rise with the overall popularity of the fairs. Despite this growth, there is a lack of professional literature in the field that documents and examines how and why art librarians utilize art book fairs for collection development, especially for acquiring artists’ books. In response, the author distributed an online survey in the fall of 2020 and conducted a literature review to further this research. This article considers the inception of art book fairs and presents the findings of the online survey and literature review. To conclude, the author reflects on the useful qualities of art book fairs for collection development and community building.

Using a Standards Crosswalk to Adapt Resources for Teaching with Primary Sources Across K–12 and Higher Education

This article explores the work of archivists and special collections librarians in teaching with primary sources (TPS) for K–12 and higher education audiences and argues that the resources created for this work have largely targeted either audience, but not both. Building on a trend in the TPS literature toward skills-based instruction efforts, this article introduces a crosswalk between skills-based standards typically used in higher education (the SAA/RBMS Guidelines for Primary Source Literacy) and K–12 education (Common Core State Standards). This crosswalk demonstrations how resources created with one audience in mind can be adapted for use with other audiences. Examples of this crosswalk’s application are provided, as well as a discussion of the pitfalls of standards-based learning and the potential of a standards-based crosswalk to open up communication and collaboration around the benefits of teaching with primary sources.

Introduction to the Correspondence of Robert Duncan and Norman O. Brown

Abstract The following selections from letters exchanged between Robert Duncan and Norman O. Brown display the range and interest of their extensive correspondence. The correspondence was generative for both figures, and shows a degree of mutual affection and personal concern beyond their intellectual interests. The letters are retrieved from the special collections libraries at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of Buffalo.

Adherence to Standardized Measures and Metrics for Public Services in U.S.-Based Special Collections Libraries and Archival Institutions

This study presents the results of an online survey designed to explore methods for and barriers to implementation of the SAA-ACRL/RBMS Standardized Statistical Measures and Metrics for Public Services in Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries. While 94% of responding institutions do collect operational statistics about public services, only half use the collected data for assessment purposes, while only 24% were certain they use the Standard. This discrepancy signals the need for additional outreach to institutions to help explain and implement the Standard across a broad range of special collections libraries and archival repositories.

Sonic Ecologies

Sonic Ecologies

A Guide to Conscious Editing at Wilson Special Collections Library

A Guide to Conscious Editing at Wilson Special Collections Library

Plant and bird phenology and plant occurrence from 1851 to 2020 (non-continuous) in Thoreau's Concord, Massachusetts.

Concord, Massachusetts, USA has served as an active location for phenological observations since philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau began recording plant and animal occurrence and phenology in 1851. Since that time, numerous naturalists, scientists, and researchers have continued this tradition, creating an invaluable time series of 758 species in a single location. In total, 13,441 phenological records, spanning 118 years, now exist, with observations of many species ongoing. Relative abundance data for an additional 200 plant species is also provided. Thoreau's published journals and records in Special Collections libraries at the Concord Free Public Library, Harvard University, Peabody Essex Museum, and Morgan Library and Museum provide insight into his methods of routinely walking around Walden Pond, through natural areas, and within the town of Concord, seeking the first leaf or flower on plants, seasonal observations of migratory birds, and fruit maturation times. Several amateur naturalists, and most recently the present research group, have followed this method of regularly searching Concord for the earliest signs of seasonal events, visiting many of the same locations including Walden Pond, the site made famous by Thoreau. While Thoreau's observations were initially made out of a curious desire to document the natural world, these data have led to dozens to contemporary studies, addressing timely issues such as climate change, conservation, ecology, and invasive species. This time series of data, initiated by Thoreau and continued by others, has resulted in dozens of peer-reviewed publications, a popular science book, and numerous educational and outreach opportunities. These data grow increasingly valuable with time and as new and creative studies are undertaken with Thoreau's historic records. No copyright restrictions apply to the use of this data set other than citing this publication.

Exhibits in Archives and Special Collections Libraries. By Jessica Lacher-Feldman. [Review

In 2008, to provide continuity across the profession and acknowledge skills needed for effective stewardship of special collections materials, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) approved Competencies for Special Collections Professionals. This document explicitly contends that those responsible for special collections materials must be “committed to promoting the appreciation and use of special collections materials to a variety of audiences. . . . ” and “skilled in planning and implementing programs and publications that promote and interpret collections, such as exhibits. . . . ” Indeed, at one time or another, most archivists and special collections librarians face curating a display or exhibit. Despite this, modern resources on exhibit preparation geared to special collections are lacking, leaving staff to glean guidance from general library exhibit publications or to turn to colleagues in the museum field for the most current materials on exhibits. Jessica Lacher-Feldman’s book, Exhibits in Archives and Special Collections Libraries, attempts to fill this void in the literature.

Burch Procedure: A Historical Perspective.

The Burch procedure (1961) was considered the gold standard treatment for stress urinary incontinence (SUI) before the midurethral slings (MUSs) were introduced, in 2001. This historical perspective of the Burch's timeline can encourage urogynecological surgeons to master the Burch technique as one of the options for surgical treatment of SUI. A bibliographic search was performed in the PubMed and National Library of Medicine (NIH) databases with the terms Burch colposuspension AND history AND stress urinary incontinence in the last 20 years. The original article by Burch (1961) was included. The references were read by three authors. The exclusion criterion was studies in non-English languages. Biomedical Library Special Collections were included as historical relevant search. Some modifications of the technique have been made since the Burch procedure was first described. The interest in this technique has been increasing due to the negative publicity associated with vaginal synthetic mesh products. Twenty-nine relevant articles were included in the present review article, and numerous trials have compared Burch colposuspension with MUS. This historical perspective enables the scientific community to review a standardized technique for SUI. Burch colposuspension should be considered an appropriate surgical treatment for women with SUI, and an option in urogynecological training programs worldwide.

Review: Becoming Nisei: Japanese American Urban Lives in Prewar Tacoma, by Lisa M. Hoffman and Mary L. Hanneman

In 2004, as part of its downtown campus expansion, the University of Washington Tacoma demolished the old Tacoma Japanese Language School (TJLS) building, one of the few remaining landmarks from the pre-World War II Tacoma Japantown (Nihonmachi). Once a vibrant urban ethnic enclave, Nihonmachi was home to the city’s Japanese American families and businesses before their displacement by Executive Order 9066 in 1942 and the mass wartime incarceration that followed. When a call went out for a public history project to preserve the legacies of TJLS, Lisa M. Hoffman and Mary L. Hanneman stepped up to document a rich history of Tacoma’s prewar Japanese American community. Based on forty-two interviews with former Nisei (second-generation Japanese American) Tacoma residents combined with rigorous archival research, Becoming Nisei offers a unique translocal and transnational approach to the often-overlooked interwar period in the twentieth-century Japanese American experience.Throughout the book’s six chapters the authors bring together the interviewees’ vivid recollections of the cityscape—neighborhood streets, family-owned businesses, houses of worship, and the language school— that they had navigated as children. These “structures of memories” (pp. 11–12) help the authors reconstruct the historical landscape of prewar Tacoma Japantown through their extensive analysis of the archival records and maps at the UW Library Special Collections. Tacoma’s Japantown served as a unique space in which the young Nisei developed their sense of belonging and their understanding of race politics and power relations in American society during the era of Asian exclusion. Becoming Nisei makes an important contribution to urban history by recovering the important but often ignored role that non-white communities like Tacoma’s Japanese Americans have played in shaping the socioeconomic, cultural, and physical landscapes of American cities.Among the many cultural and socioeconomic institutions of the prewar Tacoma Japanese American community, the language school serves as the focal point of the authors’ analysis of Nisei’s multiple transnational and inter-generational positionalities (p. 107). Established by Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrant) educators, TLJS brought the cultural and social ethos of Meiji Japan into the diasporic lives of Nisei students (pp. 36–37). The nonsectarian language school allowed Nisei children across religious and prefectural affiliations to learn the linguistic, cultural, and ethical nuances of their parents’ homeland and develop close transnational ties to Japan (p. 50). In this way, the book demonstrates that the immigrant parents, who were “products of the Meiji Era” (1868–1912), had played a critical role in transplanting the institutions of modern Japan and its education system to Tacoma’s Japanese community. Future studies on the prewar Japanese American experience would benefit from further examination of how the sociopolitical and cultural dynamics of the transpacific world during the Taisho Era (1912–1926) and the prewar Showa years (1926–1941) also shaped the Nisei experience, as both Issei and Nisei were products of these volatile interwar periods as much as they were products of Meiji Japan.Overshadowed by the memory of the World War II incarceration in both the scholarship and public narrative of Japanese American history, the interwar period nevertheless has attracted the attention of a growing number of historians as a crucial formative era that shaped Nisei’s identities. Becoming Nisei is a unique and timely addition to this understudied chapter in Japanese American history. Despite the prevailing image of the Nisei before the war as dependent on their immigrant parents and too young to muster a voice of their own, the book demonstrates that Tacoma’s Nisei were “active participants in constituting their own” positionalities through their relationship to the community’s history (p. 12).

Grants and Acquisitions

Retiring congressman G. K. Butterfield has donated papers to the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s University Libraries. His personal collection of papers and photographs will become part of the Southern Historical Collection at the Wilson Special Collections Library. Throughout his life as civil rights activist, lawyer, judge and legislator, Butterfield (NC-01) has always been interested in history. He’s also a self-described “novice archivist” who has accumulated—and carefully labeled—boxes of materials from each chapter of his life. Butterfield has represented North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District for nearly two decades and is a past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. He announced that he will retire from Congress at the end of the current term.

Legal and Ethical Considerations in the Conservation of Artwork Produced During Art Therapy

ABSTRACT Works of art created by children under the care of art therapy pioneer Edith Kramer at the Wiltwyck School for Boys in the 1950s are presented as a case study to examine the practical, legal, and ethical challenges of conserving art produced in the course of therapy. The artworks, deposited in the New York University Libraries Special Collections in 2011, are five drawings and forty-two paintings on paper. Multidisciplinary research into the fields of art therapy, archival management, health care law, and the history of Wiltwyck revealed a broad spectrum of value categories associated with the artworks. A values-based decision-making process, together with information garnered through materials testing and analysis, informed conservation actions, including the retention of post-custodial interventions and redaction of private health information.

“Quick, that auction ends soon!” finding low-cost teaching materials for special collections librarians

ABSTRACT Despite curtailed budgets, academic libraries can create new or augmented instructional platforms and expand their institutional offerings with low-cost collections acquisitions obtained from commercial internet auction sites, flea markets, and retail sites. Using these low cost acquisitions, librarians can create numerous interactive, primary research exercises that result in enhanced special collections use and improved student engagement.

Front Matter

EDITORAmy Cooper Cary (2020–2023), Marquette UniversitySumayya Ahmed (2019–2023), Simmons UniversityBenjamin Goldman (2019–2023), Pennsylvania State UniversityKatharina Hering (2019–2023), German Historical InstituteEric Hung (2020–2024), Music of Asian America Research CenterShadrack Katuu (2019–2022), United Nations Mission in South SudanReviews EditorBethany Anderson (2015–2021), University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignJessican Lacher-Feldman (2020–2024), University of RochesterMark Matienzo (2021–2025), Stanford University LibrariesMarlee Newman (2021–2025), Archival ConsultantKathryn Puerini (2020–2024), Archival ConsultantSylvia Welsh (2020–2024), Harvard UniversityAmerican Archivist (ISSN 0360-9081) is published semiannually (Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter) by:The Society of American Archivists17 North State Street, Suite 1425, Chicago, IL 60602-3315 USATel 866-722-7858 or 312-606-0722 Fax 312-606-0728 www.archivists.org Except where otherwise noted, content in this issue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 United States License. Some rights reserved.The entire run of American Archivist—from 1938 to date—may be accessed at AmericanArchivist.org.Subscription rate; $289Articles and Ideas:Amy Cooper Cary, Editor, AmericanArchivist@archivists.orgReviews (books, exhibits, tools, resources):Bethany Anderson, Reviews Editor, reviewseditor@archivists.orgProduction and Advertising:Teresa M. Brinati, Director of Publishing, tbrinati@archivists.orgAbigail Christian, Editorial and Production Coordinator, achristian@archivists.orgA female figure sports a lady's riding crop and habit‐to be worn during equestrian activities‐in the pages of La Belle Assemblée, or Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine, which was published from 1806 to 1832. The outfit was designed by a “Mrs. Bell of No. 26 Charlotte Street, Bloomsbury” for the October 1815 issue. The image of the woman is a favorite of the archivists at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and has become the special collections' mascot, affectionately nicknamed “Violet.” Fashion illustrations are just one example of the many types of design records that archivists may encounter in their collections. This issue of American Archivist features a special section devoted to design records and best practices for managing them. Artwork courtesy of the Gladys Marcus Library's Special Collections and College Archives at the Fashion Institute of Technology‐SUNY.

Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack

Burning the Books: A History of Knowledge Under Attack

Study room time machine: Creating a virtual library escape game during COVID

ABSTRACT In Summer 2020, Stony Brook University Libraries had to envision an online library orientation strategy for incoming students due to COVID-19. As part of a virtual welcome program, librarians and staff collaborated across departmental lines to design and create a virtual library escape room called “Study Room Time Machine” (SRTM), a time travel narrative using Google products that incorporated different library resources and Special Collections and University Archival materials. This case study details the development of the game, the thinking behind it, and an overview of the game’s initial eight weeks. Included is an assessment of the game’s use by the targeted audience and lessons learned about implementing this type of game within a library setting.

Draft of the Guide to Conscious Editing for Wilson Special Collections Library

Draft of the Guide to Conscious Editing for Wilson Special Collections Library

Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of the UCLA Library Special Collections: The Richard and Mary Rouse Collection, by R. H. and M. A. Rouse with the assistance of Stacey Graham and Rhiannon Knoll

<i>Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts of the UCLA Library Special Collections: The Richard and Mary Rouse Collection</i>, by R. H. and M. A. Rouse with the assistance of Stacey Graham and Rhiannon Knoll

The books are alive with biological data: an introduction to the field of biocodicology and its implications for historical health sciences collections.

Recent global events have underscored the need for broad access to digitized library special collections. At the same time, a burgeoning field of scientific and historical inquiry is finding a goldmine of data in the physical old books and manuscripts stored for centuries on library shelves. This article gives an overview of some of the interesting studies employing library materials in the new field of biocodicology, which expands the field of codicology (learning about book history through studying a copy's physical attributes, sometimes referred to as “archaeology of the book”) to interrogate physical books with proteomic, genomic, and microbiomic tools. Historical health sciences collections provide rich, new research avenues for budding biocodicologists, and biocodicology and other interdisciplinary fields focused on material culture present an unforeseen justification for institutions' continued preservation and access to individual physical copies.

Reducing Barriers to Access in Archival and Special Collections Public Services

Archives and special collections libraries are not intuitive spaces for users. Barriers, both real and perceived[i], exist whenever accessing an archive or special collections library. Access to archives and rare books should be within reasonable reach of all who have an interest in historical topics. This paper examines barriers to access in archival and special collections environments, discusses the importance of recognizing barriers, and addresses steps to dismantle them at your institution. Specific examples from our experience help illustrate where barriers exist and how to increase access, inclusivity, and transparency in archival and special collections public services.[i] However, perceived barriers are very real to the individuals affected by them. At the same time, as researchers become more experienced with the procedures used to access archives and special collections, the impact of perceived barriers may be mitigated.