Kenneth Spencer Research Library

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.

Sergeant William J. Leggett correspondence with students of Oil Hill Elementary School, El Dorado, Kansas, 2007-2008 (RH MS 1525, KC AV 95)

Great Spirit Springs Company records, 1870s-1890 (RH MS 1521, RH MS Q474)

Adna G. Clarke letters, 1898-1953 (bulk 1898-1899) (RH MS 1520)

Northeast Kansas Girl Scouts related records, 1923-2014 (RH MS 1505, RH MS Q466, RH MS R462, RH MS R463, RH MS S67, KC AV 88)

Kansas 1860s diary, approximately April 1863-1867 (RH MS B78)

Weatherby family collection, 1896-1976 (bulk 1904-1905) (RH MS 1466, RH MS Q445)

Henry D. and Mariana Lohrenz Remple papers, 1907-2010 (RH MS 1509, RH MS-P 1509, RH MS Q469, RH MS R466, RH MS R467, RH MS S69)

Paul Vinogradoff collection, 1901-1902 (MS P418, MS D215)

Mary Rosenblum papers, 1990-2008 (MS 362, MS Qa34)

Kansas City Power & Light District Plans collection, 1996-2000 (RH MS 1512, RH MS Q471, RH MS R470)

Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods records, 1989-2014 (RH MS 1515, RH MS S70, KC AV 94)

Fahrländer family letters, 1881-1959 (RH MS 1517)

Thomas Bradford Mayhew papers, 1982-2018 (RH MS 1516)

A.C. Junior College student photographs, 1948-1950 and 1955 (RH PH 548)

F.B. Silkman letter, September 5, 1855 (RH MS P969)

Mary Isabel Cobb Payne diary, 1953 (RH MS C92, RH MS P970)

Harrell-Willey family papers, 1803-2012 (RH MS 1522, RH MS Q475, RH MS R472)

Frank Kersnowski papers, 1965-2003 (MS 340, SC AV 23)

Personal papers of Mary Davidson, 1949-2008 (PP 621)

Personal papers of Stan Roth, 1957-2014 (PP 622)

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)

Little Brown Koko scrapbook, approximately 1940s-1950s (RH MS Q477)

Richard Olmstead matchbook collection, 1920s-[not after 1947] (RH MS D301)

William H. Fant ledgers, 1936-1967 (RH MS E212, RH MS P971)

Mary Hudson Vandegrift Mardi Gras albums, 1965 (RH PH 557)

Personal papers of Paul Willhite, 1960-2019 (PP 618)

Don Imus photograph, 2004 (RH WL PH 6)

Leonard Magruder collection, 2002-2019, mostly undated by probably from the 1960s-1970s (RH WL MS 61)

Puerto Rican-American Women’s League collection, 1976-1981 (RH WL MS 62)

Campaign for Economic Democracy photographs, 1979-1980 (RH WL PH 7)

New York City rabbis protesting abortions photograph, July 1989 (RH WL PH 8)

Personal papers of Kent Spreckelmeyer, 1964-2018 (PP 617)

Justin McCarthy correspondence, October 4, 1867 (MS P754)

Edward J. Van Liere correspondence, 1963-1972 (MS P753)

Blueprints received by James H. Stewart, 1928 (MS P755)

J.D. Ferguson Davie correspondence, 1862-1876 and 2004 (MS 364)

“We all die” treatise by Les Hannon, January 5, 2014 (MS P756)

Alice Walker party invitation, May 23, 1981 (MS P752)

Wilbur D. Hess collection, majority of material found within 1880-1999, 1940-1985 (RH MS 1526, RH MS Q476, RH MS R475, RH VLT MS 1526)

Carl Sherrell papers, approximately 1960-1990 (MS 365, MS Q92)

Personal papers of Ann Schofield, 1976-2019 (PP 624)

Personal papers of Edmund Paul Russell III, approximately 1978-2012 (PP 623)

Personal papers of R.G. Anderson, 1930s, 1940s, late 1980s-early 1990s, 2006 (PP 626, UA AV 17)

Personal papers of Allan Wicker, 1962-2014 (PP 625)

Personal papers of Robert E. Foster, 1969-2014 (PP 627, UA AV 18)

Personal papers of Janice Kozma, 1927-2018 (PP 628)

Young Communist League of the United States collection, 1933-1967 (RH WL MS 63)

Albert and Angela Feldstein political ephemera collection, 1990-2019 (RH WL MS 64, RH WL MS R14, RH WL MS R15)

Kansas Citizens for Science collection, 1982-2007 (RH MS 1529, KC AV 98)

William Boerum Wetmore correspondence, 1890-1895, 1921 (RH MS 1531)

Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 1754 collection, 2014-2019 (RH MS 1532, RH MS R476, RH MS R477)

Arthur Weaver Robinson collection, 1921-2015 (RH MS 1533, RH MS Q479, RH PH 2841(ff), KC AV 97)

Karl Allen collection, 1957-1982 (RH WL MS 60, RH WL MS R13)

Bernard Davids collection, 1970-2013 (RH WL MS 59, RH WL MS Q12, RH WL MS R16)

John Elsberg papers, approximately 1978-2012 (MS 366, MS Q93)

Personal papers of Virginia (Lucas) Rogers, 1908-1919 (PP 629)

#BlackatKU Twitter archive, 2020-2021 (RG Internet 2)

Larned, Kansas stereoviews, approximately 1865-1880s (RH PH 560)

Don Lambert collection of Elizabeth Layton papers, 1987-2016 (bulk 1987-1995) (RH MS 1538, RH MS R482, KC AV 102)

Lynn Bretz collection of Asa Converse and Elizabeth Layton materials, late 1880s-1984 (RH MS 1541, RH MS Q482)

Robert Shortridge papers, 1937-2005 (RH MS 1534)

Roark family papers, 1790-2013 (bulk 1993-2013) (RH MS 1539)

Henry C. and Indiana Gale papers, 1859-1870s (bulk 1862-1865) (RH MS P975)

Dodge and Miller family letters, 1832-1884 (RH MS P974)

Civil War muster sheets, 1862-1863 (RH MS R487)

Surgeon Numan N. Horton letter, March 11, 1867 (RH MS P973)

Kansas City jazz clubs information, 1982, undated (RH MS P972)

William F. Wu papers, approximately 1954-2018 (MS 367, MS Q94, MS Qa37, SC AV 31)

Franklyn D. Ott and Aleta Jo Petrik-Ott papers, 1882-1994 (bulk 1960s-1990) (MS 368, MS C316, MS D216, MS E281, MS G56)

Osey Gail Peterson collection on Albert T. Reid, approximately 1890s-1910s, 1944 (RH MS 1544, RH MS Q484, RH MS R490, RH MS R491)

Loanda Augustina Lake Warren diaries, 1879-1880, 1884, 1893-1895 (RH MS 1545)

Arthur Jellison photograph collection, 1927-1964 (RH PH 559)

Marcella Huggard
Archives and Manuscripts Processing Coordinator

In October, thanks to the efforts of Mellon Initiative conservator Jacinta Johnson, we realized a long-held dream of hosting a visiting conservator in our lab. Since we moved into this space three and a half years ago, we have been excited about the possibilities our new facility affords – from holding workshops to accommodating researchers, and much more. Of course, we’d barely gotten settled when the pandemic emerged and put these plans on hold. After a period of remote work, followed by returning to work full-time in the lab and getting accustomed to working within covid restrictions, we were ready to take the step of inviting an outside colleague to work with us for a week.

Tag ikke cialis til personer med høj eksuel aktivitet. For eksempel rigelige måltider eller var over ejakulation og styrkelse af de følelsesmæssige og fysiske fornemmelser af orgasme.

The grant that supports Jacinta’s work here at Spencer Research Library (SRL) and across Marvin Grove at the Spencer Museum of Art (SMA) includes funding to bring in visiting conservators to work on collections that have been identified as needing special attention. Jacinta arranged for Minah Song, a conservator working in private practice in the Washington, D.C. area, to spend a whole week in the lab. Much of Minah’s time here was spent working with Jacinta to examine, document, and explore treatment options for a rare Korean sutra housed in our special collections (MS D23). Minah also delivered a public lecture on the history and technology of Asian papermaking and its uses for conservation and held an information session on care and handling of Asian materials for SRL and SMA staff. In addition, Minah generously agreed to teach three mini-workshops for conservation lab staff and student employees. After such a long period of isolation and distancing, it was wonderful to interact with another conservator, step away from our routines, and learn something new.

For the first mini-workshop, Minah demonstrated friction drying, a method for flattening papers that may be sensitive to moisture or otherwise difficult to flatten, such as tracing paper. Jacinta has been treating drawings on tracing paper from the Mary Huntoon collections at both the SMA and SRL; she and Minah used two of these works to show how friction drying works. The drawings were first humidified in a Gore-Tex® stack, which allows water vapor to gently humidify the objects without direct contact with liquid water. Next the drawings were sandwiched between two sheets of lightly dampened mulberry paper and dried in a blotter stack under pressure for about a week. The process may need to be repeated for very stubborn creases. This method is a great, low-impact option for flattening notoriously fickle tracing paper.

In the next mini-workshop we learned how to do a double-sided lining for very brittle paper items, a technique that Minah perfected when she treated a large collection of fire-damaged documents. While this method should be considered a last option due the difficulty of fully reversing it, it can provide surprising stability for severely weakened papers while still allowing the text or images to be seen. (We used discarded newspaper clippings to practice on.) In this method, very thin kozo tissue is adhered to both sides of the item by applying very dilute wheat starch paste through a layer of Hollytex®, a nonwoven polyester material. The lined object is partially air-dried with the Hollytex® still attached, then dried in a stack overnight, at which point the Hollytex® is removed, and the object returned to the stack to fully dry. We were all surprised by the relative simplicity of the process, considering the fragility of the materials involved, and the results were impressive.

For our final mini-workshop, we had the chance to experiment with several types of pre-coated, solvent-set repair tissues. Pre-coated repair tissues usually consist of a thin kozo paper to which a layer of adhesive has been applied and allowed to dry. The coated paper can then be cut to size, reactivated with some type of solvent (usually water or ethanol), and applied to a tear to create a mend. We already use a pre-coated repair tissue prepared with a mixture of wheat starch paste and methycellulose, which is reactivated with water and serves as a good all-purpose repair material. But Minah demonstrated other types of pre-coated papers that offer other possible applications: tissue coated in Klucel™ M and reactivated with ethanol is a good option for documents containing iron gall inks or other water-sensitive media, and tissue coated with Aquazol®, reactivated with water, and set with a heated tacking iron can be an efficient choice for projects with a high volume of needed repairs, tight time constraints, or both.

We all greatly enjoyed our week working with and alongside Minah, getting to know her, and benefitting from her willingness to share her time and expertise with us. We now have a new conservation friend, and a wealth of new knowledge to bring to our work on KU’s collections.