Welcome to the Kenneth Spencer Research Library blog! As the special collections and archives library at the University of Kansas, Spencer is home to remarkable and diverse collections of rare and unique items. Explore the blog to learn about the work we do and the materials we collect.
Henceforth, it’s 2024, and we’re back at it again! Over the past year, the manuscripts processing team has been hard at work describing and housing one-of-a-kind collections. As a processor, you never quite know what you’ll find when you first open a box of dusty old records, but it’s always sure to delight! (most of the time…) Last year, the processing team worked through collections across Kenneth Spencer Research Library’s four collecting areas: the Kansas Collection, the Wilcox Collection, University Archives, and Special Collections. We even had an opportunity to further showcase a few of our favorite collections, including a Reuter Organ Company exhibit, a remembrance of a former colleague, and an in-depth look at the 1970 police shooting of KU student Nick Rice. This year we’re all excited to continue the process of processing new collections and additions, but first, here’s a list of new finding aids the manuscripts processing team published in the last six months of 2023:
Production notes for a Reading Rainbow episode featuring Math Curse, a children’s book written by Joe Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith. The book was featured in the first episode of season 17 and originally aired on October 5, 1998. Take Ten, Inc. Records, Call Number: RH MS Q512. Click image to enlarge.
A 1923 watercolor painting created by M.H.A. Staring (1897-1929), a Dutch artist and ornithologist. The painting depicts the courtship display of three male ruffs, or calidris pugnax, towards one female ruff. Call Number: MS Q107. Click image to enlarge.
A photograph of a 1973 production of the popular kabuki play Kanjinchōby Namiki Gohei III. Kanjinchō was adapted from Ataka, a play in the noh theater style, and would later serve as the inspiration for Akira Kurosawa’s film The Men who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail. Personal Papers of Andrew Tsubaki. Call Number: PP 650. Click image to enlarge.
A print of the We All Live in Harrisburg collage created by R. Cenedella in 1979 as a response to the Three Mile Island accident that happened outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on March 28, 1979. The collage used Andrew Wyeth’s painting Christina’s World with permission from the artist. Paul Schaefer Poster Collection. Call Number: RH WL MS R19. Click image to enlarge.
Folios from a 1150 A.H./1737 C.E. treatise containing two texts teaching and promoting the sport of archery. The texts are written in Persian in the Nasta’liq script, and the above folios feature a hand-drawn illustration of two bows with the names of various parts of the bows listed off to the side. Call Number: MS C33. Click image to enlarge.
Have you figured out how call numbers at the Spencer Research Library work yet?
Here are a couple of clues for manuscript collections; see if you can apply them when you review this listing of the front half of 2023’s new finding aids!
PP = Personal Papers, which are typically collected by the University Archives
MS = manuscript (can be found in call numbers for textual materials in both the Kansas Collection and Special Collections)
PH = photograph (you will only see this call number designation in the Kansas Collection)
WL = Wilcox (historically, the Wilcox Collection has been associated with the Kansas Collection, so you’ll typically see “RH WL” together)
It’s a bit like a mathematical formula, if you combine parts of these call numbers. For example, “RH WL MS” means it’s a Wilcox manuscript collection.
Spencer Research Library also typically houses material by size, most often by height for volume call numbers. “A” volumes will be some of the smallest (typically measuring between ten and 15 cm tall), while “H” volumes are frequently stored flat because they are so large (usually over 45 cm tall).
Spencer also uses letters to designate other sizes of materials. A “P” in a call number means that it’s so thin and/or such a small amount of material it’s stored in a single folder or small number of folders, not enough to fill a box or stand upright on a shelf by itself.
So, for another call number formula example: “MS P” means it’s a Special Collections manuscript collection in a single or small number of folders.
Armed with this information, do you think you can figure out which collections belong to which collecting areas and what kind of housing they might have from our listing of newly processed collections?
The cover of (above) and two pages in (below) a Pinckney School Parent Teacher Association (PTA) scrapbook, 1947-1948. School librarian Janet Reeder re-compiled the scrapbook at a later point, adding to it with reminiscences and other documents sent in from students who had attended Pinckney that year. Pinckney School Scrapbooks. Call Number: RH MS Q500. Click images to enlarge.
One of several binding fragments removed from some of Spencer’s earliest published volumes, in this case Giovanni Sfortunati’s sixteenth-century Nuovo lume libro de arithmetica at Summerfield C990. Call Number: MS Q103. Click image to enlarge.
One of a small number of illustrations signed “Nicky Nichols.” They were presumably sketched and painted by Mary Evelyn Nichols Lee, a former University of Kansas student who later operated the Savoy Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. Personal Papers of Mary Evelyn Nichols Lee. Call Number: PP 645. Click image to enlarge.
It was a busy back half of 2022 for the manuscripts processing team at Kenneth Spencer Research Library. We hired two new full-timestaff members, which has helped us a great deal in getting more collections processed and finding aids produced!
See below a listing for the finding aids newly produced between July and December 2022, with a selection of images from some of these newly processed collections.
An Indigenous person looks on during a protest at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., July 1976. Police attacked and arrested American Indian Movement protestors. American Indian Movement Protest Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH WL MS Q13, Box 1, Folder 7. Click image to enlarge.
Agenda from a Quindaro Town Preservation Society meeting, May 28, 1994. KU School of Architecture and Design Professor and Assistant Dean Michael Swann sketched out (the Quindaro?) town site and took notes from the meeting. Personal Papers of Michael Swann. Call Number: PP 636, Box 8, Folder 56. Click image to enlarge.
Front cover of Tom Poor’s “A High Jumper’s [Sporting] Scrapbook,” in which he kept materials related to the 1925 Kansas Relays. Poor won the high jump category in the first Kansas Relays of 1923. Thomas Woodson Poor Papers. Call Number: RH MS 1568, Box 1, Volume 1. Click image to enlarge.
Otter print created by Robert Middleton from one of Thomas Bewick’s wood blocks at the Newberry Library, Chicago. Part of a limited edition set, this print was donated by Harry Tyler, husband of D.D. Tyler, whose papers are also housed at Spencer Research Library. Thomas Bewick Wood Engravings Printed by Robert Middleton. Call Number: MS E285. Click image to enlarge.
Supply chain issues and lower staffing levels have continued to affect our ability to process new collections in the first half of 2022, but despite this we have continued to process and describe new materials. We’ve also been able to return to a project that has long languished, in which we are inventorying and describing the official records of the University of Kansas, including creating finding aids for record groups that were previously undescribed in an easily accessible, online way. Look for updates to our record group listings throughout the rest of this year and beyond!
You’ll see some newly described record groups in the list below, amongst our other newly processed collections.
A page from a scrapbook/photograph album compiled by the cast and crew of the “Follies” variety show produced by the Antioch Elementary School’s Parent Teacher Association in Overland Park, Kansas. Call Number: RH PH 563, Box 1, Volume 1. Click image to enlarge.
One of the many delightful illustrations from this English World War II-era scrapbook that describes the escapades of a group of young women, The Order of the Little Bears, living in wartime. Call Number: MS C317, Volume 1. Click image to enlarge.
Image from the May 1997 Wheat State Tour, a week-long tour organized by the University of Kansas for new faculty and staff to become acquainted with the state. Call Number: RG 41/5 Photographs. Click image to enlarge.
The global pandemic continues in myriad ways to affect our ability to process new collections and provide descriptive access to new collections online—but we are still doing what we can! And in the meantime, we have continued to enhance existing online description and provide online description for collections we’ve held for decades that previously had little to no exposure online, so that more of our researchers can find more of our holdings.
If you want to pleasantly surprise your guests, think over everything to the smallest detail: how the registration goes, who greets the participants and in what form, what kind of music plays, whether you have an interesting photo corner, how your presentations plan a large-scale event are designed and the team is dressed, what breaks are filled with. For example, during registration, you can provide participants with the opportunity to attend a short workshop, play games or watch informative videos. Try to surprise people and create a wow effect, exceed their expectations in the most ordinary things. This is what creates the atmosphere of the event.
Despite the challenges of hybrid schedules, lower staffing levels, supply chain issues affecting our ability to get archival supplies, and the many other issues we’ve been facing, we have finished processing several collections in the past 18 months. You can see the list of new finding aids below.
The front and back pages of a letter in German dated April 15, 1881, sent to Herman Fahrlander in the U.S. from his German family. Fahrländer Family Letters. Call Number: RH MS 1517, Box 1, Folder 3. Click images to enlarge.
The first page from a field survey notebook (top) and a listing of birds sighted by Stan Roth (bottom) during his 1978 summer field trips. Personal Papers of Stan Roth. Call Number: PP 622, Box 1, Folder 4. Click images to enlarge.
Corinne N. Patterson papers, 1866-2015 (RH MS 1490, RH MS-P 1490, RH MS-P 1490(f), RH MS R454, RH MS R480, RH MS S72, KC AV 112)
A page removed from a binder with brief minutes of a meeting of the Puerto Rican-American Women’s League (shortened to PRAWL in the notes) on July 22, 1976. Puerto Rican-American Women’s League Collection. Call Number: RH WL MS 62, Box 1, Folder 1. Click image to enlarge.
The front and back of a stereoview image of the Santa Fe crossing known as “Boyd’s Crossing” near Larned, Kansas, before 1925. Larned, Kansas, Stereoviews. Call Number: RH PH 560, Box 1, Folder 24. Click images to enlarge.
William F. Wu papers, approximately 1954-2018 (MS 367, MS Q94, MS Qa37, SC AV 31)
Science fiction writer William F. Wu (right) on set for the “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium” episode of the Twilight Zone, based on Wu’s original story. William F. Wu Papers. Call Number: MS 367, Box 24, Folder 24. Click image to enlarge.
