Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Check the blog each Friday for a new “That’s Distinctive!” post. I created the series because I genuinely believe there is something in our collections for everyone, whether you’re writing a paper or just want to have a look. “That’s Distinctive!” will provide a more lighthearted glimpse into the diverse and unique materials at Spencer – including items that many people may not realize the library holds. If you have suggested topics for a future item feature or questions about the collections, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.

This week on That’s Distinctive! we are mixing it up a little. Having posted every Friday (except for one) since January 20th (or 38 weeks), I thought it might be fun to share a little about me and how That’s Distinctive! works.

Some background about me.

I grew up in Lawrence and went to KU for my undergraduate studies in anthropology and religious studies. I am currently pursuing my master’s in museum studies online via the University of Oklahoma in hopes of some day working at the KU Natural History Museum. When I’m not at work at Spencer, I am likely at home in Meriden cuddling with my five cats or hanging out with family. We moved away from Lawrence in 2022 to an old farmhouse in Meriden, which is about a 40-minute drive from Lawrence. You can also find out more about my position in my Meet the Staff post from 2022.

How did you come up with the idea for That’s Distinctive!?

I came up with the idea for the blog not too long after I first started working at the library. I had started sharing cool items I found with my family on Facebook under the name “fun find Fridays.” After some thought, I felt it would be better to share these materials more broadly. It seems a large portion of the public, or even the student body, does not know that the library is here and open to everyone so I thought the blog posts would help raise awareness. I didn’t know the library was here when I was studying at KU, and it is really a unique resource with something for everyone. While the library’s primary use is for research (as noted in the name), its collections are vast and cover a wide range of topic areas. I have yet to meet someone that I wasn’t able to find an item of interest for.

What does your process for picking items look like?

I honestly do not have a very rigid process. For most of this year I chose holidays or anniversaries of things for the weeks I wasn’t sure what to share. Other weeks I just chose whatever topic came to mind and did some quick researching. Once I have a topic in mind I go through our online catalog and finding aids to find collections and materials I think might fit. I then pull everything I found to view in the Reading Room and narrow down to a single item or collection. Sometimes items are not at all what I was expecting; other times I find multiple things I like, which can make it hard to choose. Then with other topics I walk away empty-handed and start all over. Once I have an item chosen, I scan it on our Bookeye and then I sit to write the post. Some posts come more easily than others as you can see by the varying length of posts (some are really long, while others are super short).

I try to keep a hefty backlog of posts, so I’m not writing them every week. I will stock up five or six weeks’ worth then when that runs down, I’ll start writing again. Sometimes when I sit to write a post, and nothing comes to mind, I simply start my process all over. Quite a few topics have been pushed aside due to lack of inspiration. Fear not, though; I keep a running list of items I like but don’t write about to be visited later.

I should also add that finding items does not always require such an in-depth process. As I spend more time in the stacks, I frequently find items of interest just by walking around. I have also highlighted items that I have shared with classes and family members on special visits.

What does the future of That’s Distinctive! look like?

I am hoping to continue That’s Distinctive! into 2024. I intend to switch it up a little and attempt to avoid holidays and anniversaries and instead just focus on random topics and finds. I also hope to collaborate with staff and students around the building to highlight some items they have interest in as well.

What are some of your favorite finds for That’s Distinctive!?

Honestly, everything on the blog is of some interest to me. Obviously, some items intrigue me more than others but I wouldn’t highlight something I didn’t think people would like. I have a hard time picking a favorite, but I have narrowed it down to three posts that I really enjoyed writing.

Kansas farmer’s diary: I found this post super fun to write because you can’t go anywhere in Kansas without driving past a field of corn, seeing cows, or running into a tractor driving down the highway. Being able to look back and see what farming was like in the 1890s is just fun. It might seem mundane and redundant but what would Kansas be without farmers?

Flood of 1951: This post was interesting to me because the flood of 1951 was something I had heard about but didn’t really grasp the severity of until I saw the photographs. The process of writing this post also sent me on a little side quest. I shared one of the photos with some friends and my friend Chris recognized a grocery store in the photo that used to belong to his family. This led me to search to see what else we had related to his family, and we actually had a collection with old family photos from when his dad was a child. I thought that was super neat.

Mexican recipes: Other than looking at all the old diaries we have in our holdings, this collection is probably my all-time favorite. Handwritten in the early nineteenth century, the recipes in the collection give a peek into what life was like back then. The process of having them translated was fun too because it was a collaboration of staff in the libraries. I think it would be neat to have the whole collection translated to be able to make the dishes in the present.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

This is the latest installment in a series of posts introducing readers to student employees who make important contributions to the work of Spencer Research Library. Today’s profile features Public Services student assistant Claire Cox, who answered a few questions about the projects she works on at Spencer.

Please provide some brief biographical information about yourself.

I am an Accelerated M.A. student in the history department. This is my third year at KU, but my first year as a graduate student. As an undergraduate, I spent my first two years at Johnson County Community College before transferring to KU and earning my B.A. in May 2023. I majored in history with a minor in global and international studies. I started working at Spencer Research Library in August 2022.

What does your job at Spencer entail?

I am a public services employee. My job tasks include retrieving and re-shelving materials from the stacks, sitting at the reception and reference desks, and assisting researchers in the Reading Room. Occasionally I work on a shifting project in the stacks. I also get the opportunity to curate temporary exhibits located in our North Gallery.

What part of your job do you like best?

I really enjoy working in the stacks. Whether retrieving or re-shelving materials, I am usually handling new items that I have never seen before. Not only does this help me get to know the collections better, but it is also really fun and interesting. The Kansas Collection is my favorite part of Spencer. I am constantly looking at old books related to the Kansas environment from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I also like working with the patrons that come into the Reading Room, and I love hearing about their research interests/projects.

What are you studying, and what do you hope to do in your future career? Has your work in at Spencer changed how you look at your studies or your future career plans in any way?

I study environmental history of the Great Plains in the twentieth century. I look forward to continuing my research on the relationship between Indigenous peoples, rural communities, and the environment by further examining the process of artificial lake-building in the region. As an undergraduate, I studied the construction of Clinton Lake near Lawrence. I plan to build upon this research throughout the upcoming year. As an employee at Spencer Research Library, I have learned a lot about how a special collections library works from behind the scenes. This knowledge informs how I conduct my own research, and I feel more confident when visiting other research institutions or archives. I have also found a lot of very useful material in the Kansas Collection about Clinton Lake, which I used for my undergraduate thesis project.

What advice would you offer other students thinking about working at Spencer Research Library?

I highly recommend working at Spencer. There are so many different opportunities for students to find a position that suits their own interests. Contrary to the stereotypical library job, working at Spencer never gets boring! Every day comes with new and exciting challenges.

Claire Cox
Public Services student assistant

This is the latest installment in a recurring series of posts introducing readers to the staff of Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Today’s profile features Eve Wolynes, who joined Spencer Research Library in June 2023 as an Assistant Librarian and a Special Collections Curator.

Eve Wolynes, Special Collections Curator, in Spencer Research Library’s reading room with MS E256. Click image to enlarge.

Where are you from?

I’ve hopped around a fair amount. I was born in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, and moved to San Diego when I was ten. As an adult, I’ve lived in Berkeley, Houston, South Bend (Indiana), and Dayton (Ohio) before finally making my way here.

What does your job at Spencer entail?

I’m a Special Collections Curator. While other curators and archivists at Spencer tend to have specific subjects, regions or materials they work with, Elspeth Healey and I cover everything in the Special Collections, which includes a huge range of materials — from Roman funerary stones, to medieval manuscripts, to modern poetry, science fiction and artists books, and spans the entire globe, from Guatemala to Italy to Japan. My responsibilities include collection development – helping to build the collection through purchasing new items and coordinating donations – as well as instruction with undergraduates, answering reference questions and supporting use of the items by researchers and users, and engaging with outreach through things like exhibit design and public events.

How did you come to work in libraries/archives/special collections?

As with so many stories, it began with a very sickly dog. While I was in grad school, working on my Ph.D. in medieval history, my dog had a health emergency and needed surgery, but I couldn’t afford to pay the vet bill on my graduate student stipend. To pay off the debt, I took on a job at my university’s library, and eventually moved into their Special Collections department when a position opened. Eventually I paid off the vet bill but realized I still wanted to work at the library; I felt like I had found a sense of community, that the work was a fun series of puzzles, challenges and mysteries, something different to learn every day. I started considering it seriously as a potential career direction. After I defended my dissertation straight into the pandemic, I took the shutdowns as a moment of contemplation to evaluate what I wanted to do; I decided to get my MLIS and to commit to Special Collections – and the minute I got back into a library I knew it was the right choice; I was at home again.

What is one of the most interesting items you’ve come across in Spencer’s collections?

Lately I’ve been enamored with MS E256, Hippiatria by Giordano Ruffo; it’s a veterinary text on medicine, anatomy and training for horses dating to the 13^th century. The manuscript gives you a sense of the relationship people had with their animals over seven-hundred years ago, and how our relationships with horses have transformed over time. Plus, it has a very cute little sketch of a pony on the first page. Which is the best part, really.

I also just love all the medieval manuscripts; there’s a special kind of love, work and dedication that goes into producing an entire text by hand, visible in the meticulous (and sometimes not so meticulous) handwriting, in the very pages themselves. They’re so human, from the shape of their letters to the scratches and scribbles in the margins, as every word embodies the person who took pen to page.

A manuscript copy of Giordano Ruffo’s Hippiatria open to a leaf containing
a sketch of a pony. Italy, approximately 1290-1310. Call Number: MS E256. Click image to enlarge.

What part of your job do you like best?

I always love the strange and unique reference questions that lead me to fall down rabbit holes trying to hunt down an answer and make unexpected discoveries about materials in the collection; I love, too, when researchers and patrons can teach me something new in turn, or when I can help or watch them make a connection with the past – with their communities, cultures, experiences and memories, as embodied in the materials from our collections.

What are some of your favorite pastimes outside of work?

When I’m not living up the librarian life in the real world, I dabble in playing as a lore librarian in fantasy settings and video games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, along with smaller indie games like Scarlet Hollow, Pentiment (a game practically made for medievalists and librarians), and The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow.

What piece of advice would you offer a researcher walking into Spencer Research Library for the first time?

If you’re worried about looking like you don’t know what you’re doing, or what you’re talking about – we’ve all been there, even the librarians! My first time in a special collections library was terrifying and confusing, too. The only reason librarians make everything look old hat and obvious is because we’ve had years or even decades to learn the often-labyrinthine logic and secrets from behind the scenes. But because we know all the twists and turns of our library and collection, we’re the best people to help guide you through it!

Eve Wolynes
Special Collections Curator

Visitors who have used collection materials in person at Spencer are familiar with the process: you create an Aeon account, check in at the reception desk, come into the Reading Room and check in with the librarian, and grab a table. Once that process has been completed, a student assistant (sometimes a staff member) goes into the stacks to retrieve your items and brings them to you.

While this seems like a simple process, many people outside of the library don’t really know what goes on behind the scenes. In fact, there are many internal processes in place to track each item’s every movement in the building and to ensure it is put back in the correct spot.

In today’s blog post we will discuss two related behind-the-scenes processes: paging and shelving. In short, paging refers to retrieving items from the stacks and shelving (sometimes referred to as re-shelving) deals with returning items to their appropriate place in the stacks. A majority of this work is done by our student workers, though staff contribute as well. Why don’t we have researchers page and shelve the materials they use? Well, with materials as distinct as ours, you can never be too careful. Spencer is a closed stacks library, which means that only staff members and student assistants are allowed to access secure collection storage areas known as the stacks. There are five levels of stacks throughout the building to house our materials. Additionally, as you may have seen in Marcella Huggard’s blog post from July 3rd, we use our own unique call number system within the stacks, and items are frequently shelved by size.

Paging

To begin paging, a call slip must first be printed. Once the call slip is printed and the item is marked as “being paged” in Aeon, the student uses our stacks locator guide to determine what room the item is in. The stacks locator guide is the document we use to indicate where every item in the collection is located. This detailed inventory, which is updated and revised frequently, helps staff keep track of where items are and when they have moved.

Once in the stacks, the student grabs a book truck and a charge-out flag. The student then goes through the stacks to the location of the item for retrieval. As the item is pulled off of the shelf, the charge-out flag containing one half of the call slip goes in its place on the shelf. You will notice in the photo below that the most essential parts of the call slip are the item name (title) and the call number. The other half of the call slip stays with the item. The item is then brought back to the Reading Room, marked as “checked out” in Aeon, and given to the patron.

Spencer staff members do not monitor Aeon requests as they come in; all paging is done when the patron arrives. Depending on the location and quantity of requests, paging can take anywhere from five to ten minutes.

Shelving

When a patron is done with an item, it is marked as “to be re-shelved” in Aeon and taken back to the stacks. Shelving is not done immediately. We have an area in the third-floor stacks where we place items to be re-shelved, and students work on it as they have down time.

When a student goes to shelve an item, they hope the student who paged it wrote the item location on that half of the call slip. If not, the student who is shelving must also use the stacks locator guide to determine where the item belongs. Once the location is determined, the student takes the item back to that spot. Before placing the item in the proper location, the student confirms that the two halves of the call slip – the one that remained on the shelf and the other that traveled with the item – match identically. If this is the case, the student puts the item back on the shelf and adds the second half of the call slip to the charge-out flag along with the student’s re-shelving flag. Each student’s re-shelving flag is a different color so staff can determine who shelved an item if something is done incorrectly.

After items are shelved, Spencer Operations Manager Meredith Phares goes through the aisles of the stacks and “revises” to double check that items are in the correct space. This is a whole other process that could use its own blog post.

Hopefully, this post helps patrons better understand the processes that happen behind the scenes when using the library. Everything that happens in the library has its own process that goes with it.

Tiffany McIntosh
Public Services

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
• RH = Regional History (the Kansas Collection’s name has gone back and forth over the years)
• 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?

Oak Ridge Birthday Club collection, 1923-2006 (RH MS 1577)

Winfield Lodge No. 101 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows record book, June 11, 1891-March 31, 1898 (RH MS G89)

“The Kansas Primer,” 1889 (RH MS B79)

George W. Johnson letter, May 3, 1891; postmarked May 24, 1891 (RH MS P999)

Henry Schilb land grant, February 1, 1848 (RH MS Q499)

Kansas glass plate negatives, approximately 1890-1932 (RH PH 568)

Mike Rundle papers, 1981-2010 (RH MS 1571, RH MS Q496, RH MS R512, RH MS R514, RH MS S79, KC AV 127)

Pinckney School scrapbooks, 1947-2014 (bulk 1990-2014) (RH MS Q500)

Elizabeth Szabronski-Carrie A. Hall quilt block research, approximately 1920s-1974 (RH MS 1578)

Personal papers of Mary K. Zimmerman, October 1976-April 2021 (PP 641)

Larry K. Laird papers, 1935-2006 (bulk 1980s-2000s) (RH MS 1579, RH MS Q502, RH MS R517)

Judge Earl E. O’Connor papers, 1941-1998 (RH MS 1581, RH MS Q504, RH MS R519, KC AV 128)

Penny L. Clark papers, 1971-2022 (RH MS 1553, RH MS Q487, KC AV 116)

Personal papers of Don and Del Fambrough, July 4, 1933-September 4, 2011 (PP 644)

Personal papers of Charles Himmelberg, 1895-2005 (bulk 1965-2005) (PP 643)

Personal papers of Harry Nicholas Rice, January 22, 1970-March 4, 2009 (bulk July 1970) (PP 647)

Green Thumb Garden Club records, 1961-2009 (RH MS 1585, RH MS Q506, RH MS R523)

Spencer Chemical Company photographs, 1940s-1950s; 2012 (RH PH 570)

S.D. Jeffers letter, approximately 1860s (RH MS P1000)

William L. Scheirman papers, approximately 1880s-1930s; 1991 (RH MS P1001)

Rolling Prairie Grange No. 1628 photographs, approximately 1916-1919; 2020 (RH PH P2948)

Arthur Moore collection, 1503-1857 not inclusive (bulk 1680s-1730s) (MS 143, MS Q32, MS Q96, MS C245, MS Qa39, MS R30)

Manuscript fragments removed from book bindings, approximately 12th-16th, 19th centuries (MS 20, MS Q103)

Personal papers of Stuart Levine, 1932-2016 (bulk 1958-1986) (PP 646)

Personal papers of Mary Evelyn Nichols Lee, 1949-July 29, 1967 (PP 645)

Eustace Mullins, 1962-1990 (RH WL MS P2)

Robinson-Cofield Commission Company letter, May 9, 1911 (RH MS P1002)

Kansas historical clippings, 1946-1950 (RH MS Q507)

Historical Geography of Lawrence Area tour records, fall 1998 (RH MS P1003)

Charles A. Smith glass plate negatives, approximately 1888-1904 (RH PH 569)

Evan Wright family, 1875-2003, 2022 (bulk 1940-1999) (RH MS 1587, RH MS Q508, RH MS R524, RH MS S82)

Melvin and Maxine Patterson family, March 21, 1952-January 31, 2016 (bulk 1985-2008) (RH MS 1588, RH MS R526, RH MS S82)

Ernst Moritz Arndt collection, 1843-1913; 1948-1961; 2002-2005 (MS 378, MS Q102)

Leslie Carson Wolfe collection, 1937-2023 (RH MS 1590, RH MS R527)

Kansas postcards collection, 1903-2001 not inclusive, mostly undated (RH PH 571)

Judge Julie A. Robinson papers, 1992-2014 (RH MS 1557)

“The Migrations of John B. Kelso,” September 1853-October 1877 (transcribed 2003) (RH MS P1004)

Leslie W. Nesmith scrapbook, 1957-1999 (RH MS 1589)

Kay Jay Laessig photographs, 1941-1945 (RH PH P2849)

A.C. Edwards’ Irish literary correspondence, 1928-1936, 1959-1972 (MS 379, MS Qa48)

Tom Clarke biographies by Seán McGarry, approximately 1943 and 1950 (MS P764)

James A. Healy collection of Irish-related printed materials, approximately 1895-1960s (bulk 1960s) 9MS 380, MS Qa49, MS R31)

George Watters papers, 1922-1924 (MS P765, MS A64)

Personal papers of William (Bill) Mitchell, 1919-2013 (PP 649)

Personal papers of Sandy Mason, 1931-2007 (PP 640)

Marcella Huggard
Manuscripts Processing Coordinator