Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Our listing of new finding aids for the first six months of 2020 might look a little sparse compared to previous lists. As my colleague Lynn Ward wrote about last month, since mid-March processing staff have had limited or no access to our unprocessed collections and so did not have much opportunity during the last few months to process new collections.

As we prepare to reopen Spencer for researchers, starting in a limited fashion, we are also starting to return to processing new collections. In the meantime, our finding aids are available online twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week so you can begin your investigations from home.

Some collections we completed processing before the pandemic include this visually interesting collection of postcards of Lithuanian towns and the countryside:

For researchers interested in researching 20th-century right-wing conservative movements, the Willis Carto collection may have some interest:

Oscar Stark collected several late 19th- and early 20th-century photographic prints of African Americans, many of whom were photographed in Kansas and Missouri:

Burton Marvin served as dean of the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas from 1948 to 1965, and his papers at Spencer include a variety of materials related to his work with KU and to his personal life in the Lawrence community:

Please read further to see what other new and legacy collections we finished creating online finding aids for before March 2020!

Douglas County records, 1855-1989 (RH MS 261, RH MS 451, RH MF 196, DCR, 1990-1995 accessions, 1997-1998 accessions, 2000-2001 accessions)

Oscar Stark collection of photographs of African Americans, approximately 1870s-1920s (RH PH 549)

Charles Luksis photographic postcard collection, 1921-1935 (MS 361)

Barbara Ballard papers, 1982-2009 (RH MS 1507, RH MS-P 1507, RH MS R464)

Eliot S. Berkley collection, 1994-2007 (SC AV 27, MS P749)

Letter from Annie Besant to “Dear Sir,” September 24, 1885 (MS P751)

“Historia Flagellantium de recto et perverso flagrorum usu apud Christianos” manuscript, December 1691 (MS E279)

George F. Jenks map research projects collection, 1933, 1947, 1951-1980s (bulk 1950s-1970s) (MS 347, MS Q78, MS Qa25, MS R21, MS S9)

Letter from Frances Parkinson Keyes to Alice H. Dains, June 29, 1938 (MS P750)

Donald Moffitt papers, 1946-2015 (MS 360, MS Q90, MS Qa32, MS R25)

Letter from Erich Maria Remarque, November 26, 1937 (MS P745)

John Edgar Tidwell collection on Frank Marshall Davis, 1924-2015 (MS 353, SC AV 22, MS Q83, MS Qa28)

Personal papers of Burton Marvin, 1935-2002 (PP 620)

David Ewing papers, 1972-1988 (RH WL MS 57)

Left Curve collection, 1976-1990 (RH WL MS 58)

Kurt Thurmaier poster collection, 1975-1984 (RH WL MS R11, RH WL MS R12, RH WL MS S2)

Papers of Willis A. Carto, 1945-2013 (RH WL MS 51, RH WL MS Q51)

Peter Argersinger papers, 1965-2018 (RH MS 1502)

James and Fern Nelson-Coffin collection, 1942-1945 (RH MS 1501)

McGinnis/Perstein family papers, 1649-2009 (bulk 1860s-1970s) (RH MS 1498, RH MS Q463)

Ruben Menendez papers, majority of material found within 1884-1938 (RH MS Q468)

Anna Jane Michener, 1892-1982 (RH MS 1508, RH MS E211)

Simons family papers, approximately 1791-1960 (bulk 1920s-1952) (RH MS 1503, RH MS R458, RH MS R459)

Marcella Huggard
Archives and Manuscripts Processing Coordinator

During Covid-19 isolation, our team in the cataloging and processing department at Kenneth Spencer Research Library has been busy working from home. Instead of working hands-on with the rare books and manuscripts, like we normally do, we have been working on our databases and other online sources to ensure that our all of our material is easily searchable and discoverable for researchers and scholars, not only here in Kansas, but worldwide. This work is important to the mission of the library.

Five professionals from the cataloging and processing department share their working-from-home experience.

Marcella Huggard, Manuscripts Coordinator

What are you working on?

I am continuing to coordinate my team’s projects of data cleanup or data creation for legacy collections that never had online finding aids; I’m also coordinating other folks’ work on legacy data projects. One of my own cleanup projects—consolidating finding aids that had been separated when they were first put online, due to descriptive decisions made at the time that no longer hold true—is something I’ve been wanting to focus on for a couple years now. I have also been working on a research project to document the history of the Menninger Foundation’s archives.

Why is this work important to the library?

The projects that I’m coordinating and working on myself continue to enhance access to our manuscript collections, so that when researchers request materials they’ll have a better sense of what we have available, and they’ll be able to find that information that much more easily in an era where expectations are that information will be discoverable online.

What will you miss from home when we go back to work in the Spencer building?

Sleeping in an extra hour! I will also miss the scheduling flexibility.

Mike Readinger, Special Collections and Manuscript Cataloger

What are you working on?

I am working on ArchivesSpace database clean-up and creating bibliographic records for the legacy finding aids. In the early 2000s, we switched from using card files. Thousands of records in Voyager (the old, though still in use, KU Libraries online catalog) were created using these bibliographic cards. Those records were brief, so now I am using this time to create more complete records.

Why is this work important to the library?

These completed records will be put on OCLC WorldCat. The work done in cataloging and processing is the first step in letting the whole world know what we have. We make the information known, then our great reference staff can serve the scholars and researchers.

What will you miss from home when we go back to work in the Spencer building?

Right now, I have my home office set up in our basement. I can run upstairs to get dinner started, then come back down and keep working. I like the ease of doing those kinds of things.

Jennifer Johnson, Manager of the Non-Manuscript and Inventory Unit

What are you working on?

I am editing and creating personal name authorities and name/subject headings for the library catalog. Plus, I have been removing duplicate records from the catalog.

Why is this important to the library?

Authority control is important because it creates organization and structure of information resources, making the materials more accessible, allowing better researching for the users.

What will you miss from home when we go back to work in the Spencer building?

I love working from home! I really enjoy being able to go grab something to eat or drink. I work by a window that I can open. I’ll also miss being able to switch tasks, for example, I can do the dishes at lunchtime. And I love getting to see my son more often!

Mary Ann Baker, Special Collections and Manuscript Processor

What are you working on?

I have been working on the Access database listing of The Miscellany part of the English Historical Documents Collection. Almost all the manuscripts in this collection were acquired in the late 1960s. Over all the decades that these collections have been worked on, data transference from one program to another has resulted in some data corruption. For example, the pound symbol (£) turned into an umlauted u (ü). So, I have been cleaning up the errors and expanding abbreviations to prepare the database for publication as part of the finding aid for the Miscellany Collection. 

Why is this important to the library?

Working on this collection contributes to making Spencer Library’s holdings known globally and accessible to all, one of the goals of the KU Libraries.

What will you miss from home when we go back to work in the Spencer building?  

Naps at their will. I will not miss Zoom meetings.

 

Lynn Ward, Manuscripts Processing

What are you working on?

I have been working on projects to clean-up and refine the information in our archives database, ArchivesSpace. I added “containers” to hundreds of the earlier resources that lacked box or volume information. I also have been adding collection inventory information directly to the ArchivesSpace resource; this information had previously only been available via a link to a separate scanned PDF document.

Why is this important to the library?

Adding “containers” makes it possible for researchers to request the material, which helps our reference staff to connect researchers with what they need. Adding the inventory information from the PDF to the resource makes the information more discoverable for researchers and scholars when they search online.

What will you miss from home when we go back to work in the Spencer building?

I have really been enjoying the extra time with my family, so I will miss that when I go back to working in the building.

The work described above is important to the library’s mission.

All of the faculty and staff working at the Spencer Research Library share one mission: to connect scholars in varied disciplines with the information that is critical to their research, while providing excellent services in a welcoming and comfortable environment.

The work in the cataloging and processing department is an important step to that mission. Even while we are enjoying different aspects about working from home during Covid-19, we are continuing to work hard to make sure scholars and researchers can search, find, and connect with the information contained in Spencer Research Library’s collections.

Lynn Ward
Processing Archivist

If you’ve done any research at Spencer Research Library in the past several years in our manuscript collections or records from the University Archives, then you’ve probably used our finding aids interface. This search screen might appear familiar:

This interface is formed from encoded text documents created by manuscripts processing staff. This coding might also look familiar if you’ve ever worked with HTML:

This interface is operating on outdated technology that isn’t being updated. We also find the interface a little dated and a little static; you might find your wrist cramping from having to scroll through a really long finding aid to get to the box and folder you’re looking for. For these and many other reasons, KU Libraries are in the process of moving from our old interface to a new one:

The data is the same, but the views are very different! This new interface has more refined searching capability (including by dates!), the ability to filter search results – including by subject headings and names of individuals or entities that might be involved in the collection you’re looking for – and different views once you’ve started looking through a specific finding aid for a specific collection.

Another exciting aspect of the new interface is the capability to request collection items directly from this interface and send it to Aeon, the system patrons use to check items out at Spencer. Currently, users have to open a new browser tab or window, log in to Aeon, open a New Reading Room Request form, and type (or copy and paste) the information about the archival collection they want to see.

You can also see some of our digital objects in context within our finding aids, or browse and search them separately through this interface:

Please note that what is included here are only digitized manuscripts from our collections, a subset of what is available at KU’s Digital Collections website.

This new system is available for you to use right now! You can get to it from this link: https://archives.lib.ku.edu/ or, if you’re on the old interface, you’ll see a link to “Visit the preview of our new Finding Aids tool” at the top of the home search screen.

We need your help, in fact. We want people to start testing the system so we know what is working well, what doesn’t function the way it should, if you’re having issues with a particular component of the interface, or if something just doesn’t work the way you expect it to. Here are some questions you can think about to get you started: Are you not getting the search results you expected? Does the collection inventory look incomplete or like some information is missing? Does something just look weird? Let us know! At the bottom of every screen, in the right-hand corner, there is a link to “Send Feedback or Report a Problem.” Click on that and fill out the simple form that opens up with as much information as you can provide. We want to test the new interface as much as possible in the next few months before we transition to it fully and shut down the old finding aids interface.

Happy searching!

Marcella Huggard
Archives and Manuscripts Processing Coordinator

Archival collections do not always have a great deal of visual appeal—correspondence, diaries, reports, completed forms, memos, and other related record types may or may not include sketches, images, and other detritus that catches the eye when first opening a volume or folder.

But archival collections frequently contain photographs, ephemera, objects, and other items that do have visual appeal. In the last six months of 2019, Spencer Research Library staff completed processing a wide variety of archival collections, many of which have something to catch the eye as well as a great deal to research.

For example, Robert S. Lemon’s collection of photographs includes some lovely snapshots of Helen Spencer—funder of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library among many other projects on KU and elsewhere—and her husband Kenneth.

The United Farm Workers collection, part of the Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements, includes this wooden pickers’ crate proudly displaying the Farm Workers’ stamp:

Edith Krull, a freelance art critic and journalist, reviewed and saw a wide variety of art exhibits in East Germany during the latter half of the twentieth century, presumably including this showing of Budapest-born artist Gabriella Billege:

Harold Orel’s 1941 “Books I Have Read” journal may not at first glance appear visually appealing, but his witty writing style makes for entertaining reading.

Please feel free to perform research in any of the newly processed collections listed below and see what catches your eye!

Banks family papers, 1921-2017 (RH MS 1488, RH MS-P 1488, RH MS R453)

Clyde Bysom collection, 1925-2015 (RH MS 1493, RH MS-P 1493, RH MS Q459)

Brent Campney research on racist violence against African Americans, 1863-2001 (bulk 1863-1920s) (RH MS 1492, RH MS Q458)

James B. English letters, 1968-1969 (RH MS 664)

Gilbert H. Finlay Order of Eastern Star scrapbook material, 1966-1989 (RH MS 1491)

Gerladine Mowbray-Arnett collection, 1908-2000 (RH MS 1489)

Hiat-Hett family genealogy collection, 1879 (RH MS P966)

Emmanuel Jones scrapbook, 1891-1947 (RH MS E210)

Henry C. Kollings photographs, 1906-1968 (RH PH 546, RH PH 546(f))

Robert S. Lemon photographs, 1920s-approximately 1944 (RH PH P2837)

Margaret Verhage collection, 1892-1951 (RH MS P967)

Mike Kautsch collection of William Allen White materials, majority of material found within 1929-1986 (RH MS 1494)

Ernesto Alvarado Garcia, 1939-1966 (MS 64, MS Qa26)

Jack E. Lorts collection of Larry Eigner correspondence and manuscripts, January 1960-February 26, 1962 (MS 352)

Bolton Company letters, 1695-1711 (MS 84)

Edith Krull collection, 1952-1990 (MS 345, MS Q77, MS Qa24, MS R20, MS S8)

Personal papers of Richard F. Johnston, 1962-1986 (PP 612)

Personal papers of Kala Stroup, 1959-2018 (PP 613)

Personal papers of Alton Thomas, 1948-1987 (PP 614)

Personal papers of John Walter Pozdro, 1940s-2000s (PP 616)

Personal papers of Harold Orel, 1941-2012 (PP 615)

Backus family newspapers collection, 1795-1870, 1889 (MS R24, MS Q85, MS Qa30, MS S12, MS P748)

A. Doyle Moore collection, 1967-1988 (MS 357, MS Q87)

Linda Kay Davis collection of Ed Sanders materials, 1967-2011 (MS 356, MS Q86)

Records of the Emily Taylor Center for Women & Gender Equity, 1966-2019 (RG 76/3, several CT call numbers)

John Coelln papers, 1961-1975 (RH WL MS 54)

United Farm Workers collection, 1966-1979 (RH WL MS 53, RH WL MS Q8)

Michael Zweig papers, 1964-1971 and undated (RH WL MS 55, RH WL MS Q9)

Sharon Feldman papers, 1963-1993 (RH WL MS 56, RH WL MS Q10)

George Cruse autograph album, 1901 (RH MS P968)

Hutchinson, KS Cyrus Cauldron souvenir photo book, approximately 1920s (RH PH P2838)

Dwight Eisenhower speaking at Abilene, June 22, 1945 (KC AV 90)

R.H. Gandiven and R. Hugoboom photographs, 1883-1884 (RH PH 547(f))

Barbara Hays Duke papers, 1909-2006, 2016 (RH MS 1495, RH MS-P 1495(f), RH MS Q462)

Peace Mennonite Church records, 1978-2018 (RH MS 1496)

Fred Six papers, 1929-2011 (RH MS 1506, RH MS Q467)

John Kessel papers, 1969-2019 (MS 358, MS Q88, MS Qa31, SC AV 25)

Personal papers of David Frayer, 1972-2012 (PP 619)

Marcella Huggard
Archives and Manuscripts Processing Coordinator

The Berlin Wall stood in the center of Berlin, Germany, from 1961 to 1989. It acted as a physical symbol of the divide between East and West, not just in Germany, but between Western European democracy and Eastern European communism after the end of World War II. It was a literal “Iron Curtain,” in Winston Churchill’s words, and its fall in the late 1980s coincided with the end of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism.

Materials related to the Berlin Wall at Spencer Research Library focus on its meaning soon after it was built in the early 1960s and its obliteration in the late 1980s and early 1990s. To commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall thirty years ago this month (November 9, 1989), we thought we would share some of the more interesting pieces we have at Spencer Research Library related to this topic.

Holland Roberts, then director of the American Russian institute in San Francisco, wrote about the wall soon after it was built, in 1962. He argued that it was to protect East Berlin and East Germans from the militarism rising in West Germany, led by former Nazi officers. “The Wall will come down when the two Germanys disarm and form the core of a neutral peaceful zone in the heart of Europe,” Roberts wrote.

American journalists Margrit and John Pittman also wrote about the Berlin Wall soon after its construction. They too focused on West German propaganda against East Germany, as well as German perceptions of Americans visiting or stationed in their divided country.

The items in Spencer’s collections from when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 seem more hopeful than these earlier written works. For example, Bob Swan’s Citizen Diplomacy Archives collection focuses mostly on the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union rather than the relationship between the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany) and the U. S. However, Mr. Swan donated a chunk of the Berlin Wall as part of his collection. Throughout the 1980s, East Germans increasingly filed requests to immigrate to West Germany; with the (false) announcement of a new emigration policy on November 9, 1989, thousands rushed the Wall. Thereafter, individuals began picking off pieces such as this one to keep as souvenirs until the wall was finally dismantled systematically in the summer of 1990.

Professional photographer Gary Mark Smith spent some time in Europe in 1990 and took pictures of the streets in Berlin before the wall was entirely dismantled. He also took pictures of proud Germans waving a reunited German flag in Cologne.

The fall of the Berlin Wall is one of those globally historic moments, the kind that has people asking each other “Where were you when….?” Were you alive when the Berlin Wall fell? Do you remember what you were doing that day in November 1989 when you heard the news?

Marcella Huggard
Archives and Manuscripts Processing Coordinator