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Inside Spencer: The KSRL Blog

Books on a shelf

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.

Spencer Rare Materials Cataloging Unit Highlights, January–June 2024

August 21st, 2024

The Rare Materials Cataloging Unit at Spencer Research Library describes primary source material across all of the Library’s collecting areas and makes them accessible via the KU Libraries online catalog. We work on a variety of materials from incunabula (books printed in Europe before 1501) to recently produced zines, and a whole lot in between! 

The Rare Materials Cataloging Unit documents work in a variety of ways. One way is through the measurement of linear feet, which is one foot or twelve inches. This measurement is used because books – and boxes of archival material – vary in size. Calculating linear feet often means measuring the width of the materials (in inches) as they take up physical space on shelves and then dividing by twelve. We use the “Guidelines for Standardized Holdings Counts and Measures for Archival Repositories and Special Collections Libraries” (PDF) – a professional standard from the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the American Library Association and the Society of American Archivists – as guidance for managing these counts.

Below are the linear feet equivalents of materials we have completed working on for each Spencer Research Library collecting area from roughly January 1, 2024 through June 30, 2024.

We’ve handled 2428 items during that time, amounting to a little over 176 linear feet (2112.65/12). You can picture this as a line of books stretching almost sixty yards down a football field. See the breakdown below:

Collecting AreaNumber of ItemsSize (inches)
University Archives6298.6
Kansas Collection614446.3
Special Collections11981355.85
Wilcox Collection554211.9
TOTALS24282112.65

Of the backlogged materials (anything arriving prior to June 2022) cataloged in the first six months of 2024, the two longest-waiting items were El Hallazgo, purchased from Otero Muñoz in 1972 (Call Number: Griffith Q116), and Blätter der Rilke-Gesellschaft, no.1, 1972, purchased from the Schweizerisches Rilke-Archiv in 1973 (Call Number: Rilke Y1113).

The heaviest item we’ve cataloged since June 2022 is the fine press photo book Antarctica, which was created by Pat and Rosemarie Keough to save the albatross (Call Number: H480).

This image has text.
The title page of Antarctica by Pat and Rosemarie Keough, 2002. Call Number: H480. Click image to enlarge.

Highlights for each collecting area include the following:

  • For Special Collections: Carta executoria de hidalguía de Lazaro de Adarve, 1570 (Call Number: MS E289), an early modern manuscript that arrived with a detached lead seal.
  • For University Archives: The Jayhawk: The Story of the University of Kansas’s Beloved Mascot, the 2023 book publication by our much-loved prior University Archivist, Becky Schulte (Call Number: GV691.U542 S35 2023).
  • For the Kansas Collection: American Winds: Chicago’s Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Sky (2024) by Sherri L. Smith, Spencer Research Library’s 2020 Alyce Hunley Wayne travel awardee (Call Number: RH C12791), and Head Jobs, Vol 1-5 (2022-2024), a serial zine publication by a local Lawrence, Kansas, zine-maker (Call Number: RH Ser C1591).
  • For the Wilcox collection: Wonders of Nature (2023), an experimental sound recording (Call Number: WL AV10).
Photograph of a yellow cassette tape. The adjacent case has a yellow insert with a sketch, in black, of a person standing in front of a tree as concentric lines go around them.
Wonders of Nature, 2023. Call Number: WL AV10. Click image to enlarge.

Jaime Groetsema Saifi
Special Collections Cataloging Coordinator

Meet the KSRL Staff: Adrienne Sanders

May 21st, 2024

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 Adrienne Sanders, who joined Spencer Research Library in September 2023 as a Rare Materials Cataloging Librarian.

Photograph of a woman standing in front of a wooden bookshelf. She is holding a book about Robert Burns.
Rare Materials Cataloging Librarian Adrienne Sanders. Click image to enlarge.

Where are you from?

I’ve lived in Lawrence for over 25 years, so I think I’m from here now. I grew up in various places around the greater Kansas City area and went to college in Southern California, then came to Lawrence after getting my undergraduate degree in linguistics. I like it here so I stayed.

How did you come to work at Spencer Research Library?

I didn’t set out to specifically work with rare materials. I worked in Watson Library at KU as a cataloging staff member for many years, and then at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library for several years. Both positions had me working with rare materials some of the time. I worked with Latin American materials from Spencer’s Griffith collection at KU and with local history materials in Topeka. This position combines my cataloging and rare materials experience, although I’m still learning more all the time.

What does your job at Spencer entail?

Cataloging, in a nutshell, is creating the description of library materials that goes into an online catalog or database, so users can find out what we have. I describe the item physically, and I also assign subject headings that say what the work is about and call numbers that tell where the item is located in the stacks. There are multiple sets of rules that tell me how to compose and structure a bibliographic record, as well as conservation guidelines we follow to physically protect the materials. All of this is so when people search our catalog, they get results that (hopefully) show them what they want and how to access it through the library.

What part of your job do you like best?

I love learning a little bit about lots of things, and this job is perfect for that. Most materials come to me in batches of similar things that were donated or purchased together and are similar in topic or genre. I have to quickly learn what they’re about in order to describe them. It could be anything from 100 books about flying saucers to a dozen zines about political protests in Hong Kong. It keeps me from ever getting bored!

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

One of the most interesting items I’ve worked with is also one of the oldest items. It’s a document created in Spain in 1570, called a carta executiva de hidalguía (or ejecutiva in modern spelling). These cartas were created to commemorate successfully petitioning the king to become nobility. (One of the benefits of being nobility was not having to pay taxes.) It’s written in gothic script and has a couple of pages of fantastic painted illustration. It turned out to be harder to read than I’d predicted, as I quickly learned that particular type of gothic script didn’t use punctuation marks or spaces between the words. The majority of materials I work with are from the 20th century, so this was both a challenge and a treat to catalog.

Colorful illuminated manuscript page with a block of text in the middle, and illustration of Mary and baby Jesus in the upper left corner, and a large family crest at the bottom.
A page from the Carta executoria de hidalguía de Lazaro de Adarve, 1570. Call Number: MS E289. Click image to enlarge.

What are some of your favorite pastimes outside of work?

I’ve been knitting for many years, and it’s my favorite, but I will dabble in just about any craft involving yarn, fiber, or fabric. I’ve done a little crochet, embroidery, cross stitch, spinning (making yarn on a spindle), yarn dyeing, quilting, sewing, macrame, and probably more I’m forgetting. In stereotypical librarian fashion, I read a lot/listen to audiobooks, mostly literary fiction and science fiction. I also enjoy going to museums and historical sites, especially when traveling to places that are new to me.

Adrienne Sanders
Rare Materials Cataloging Librarian

New Finding Aids: July-December 2023

January 9th, 2024

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:

Peggy Harrison papers, 1991-2002 (RH MS 1591)

Wilburn family collection, 1960-2023 (RH MS 1592)

Kij Johnson papers, 1975-2021 (MS 377)

Personal papers of Karen Severud (Pearson) Cook, September 1972-September 2021 (PP 648)

Personal papers of Amy Devitt, 1980-2013 (PP 653)

Personal papers of Dean “Deaner” Nesmith, 1935-1979 (PP 655)

Lorraine Co-Operative Oil Company records, 1930-1948 (RH MS D307)

U.S.-China Peoples Friendship Association ledger, 1975-1977 (RH WL MS P3)

Take Ten, Inc. records, 1976-2013 (RH MS 1596)

This image has text. Black-and-white illustration of a stick-figure person standing at a large chalkboard covered in math equations.
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.

Schubert, Funk, Cooper-Warren Mortuaries records, 1904-1966 (RH MS 1597)

Alvin Forrest “Fritz” Grauerholz papers, 1925-2009 (RH MS 1593)

Creed Shepard collection, 1992-2002 (RH MS 1598)

Marvin Voth collection, 1975-2009 (RH MS 1595)

Pamela Johnson Betts collection, 1969-2021 (RH MS 1594)

Courtship of the Ruff watercolor, 1923 (MS Q107)

Illustration of birds in shades of white, black, and brown.
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.

Wagner family collection (MS P766)

Personal papers of Tom Skrtic, 1972-2020 (PP 651)

Personal papers of Tom Hedrick, 1947-2021 (PP 654)

Personal papers of Ellsworth S. Gray, circa 1930-1955 (PP 656)

Yusuf and Zoleikha = یوسف و زلیخا, Poem originally written 888 A.H. / 1483 CE; this manuscript copy inscribed 17th century CE (MS A9)

Barteldes family tree, [after 1963 and before 2021] (RH MS R542)

Alice Walker photograph, February 1, 2002 (RH PH P2851)

Kaw Valley Living Wage Alliance collection, September 25, 2000-January 17, 2006 (RH MS 1602)

Personal papers of Andrew Tsubaki, 1954-2001 (PP 650)

Color photograph of actors kneeling around a man who is standing with his arms raised in the air.
A photograph of a 1973 production of the popular kabuki play Kanjinchō by 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.

Records of the Kansas State Geological Survey, 1865-2022 (bulk 1950s-2010s) (RG 37)

Jane van Meter collection, 1923-2020 (MS 383)

Paul Schaefer poster collection, 1970-1985 (RH WL MS R19)

Black-and-white illustration of a woman lying in a field of grass, looking at two nuclear reactors in the distance.
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.

General records from the University of Kansas – Architectural drawings, approximately 1890s-2000s (RG 0 – AD)

Archery: Two Treatises, 1150 A.H. / 1737 C.E. (MS C33)

This image contains handwritten text.
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.

Marcella Huggard
Manuscripts Processing Coordinator

Charissa Pincock
Manuscripts Processor

Spencer’s November-December Exhibit: “Creating Over a Century of Symphonies: The Reuter Organ Company”

November 14th, 2023

While each year we at Spencer process many new collections, we are also adding to preexisting collections through the continued generosity of our donors. From Pulitzer Prize-winning authors to LGBTQIA2S+ activists, an individual’s history doesn’t end when their collection comes through our doors. Individual and organizational histories continue to evolve past the snapshots their historical records provide, and we at Spencer aim to provide as complete a picture as we can! One collection we’d like to draw particular attention to is an addition to the Reuter Organ Company photograph collection (Call Number: RH PH 68). Through this collection, patrons can follow the construction of uniquely hand-crafted pipe organs before they were built into their new homes in institutions all over the world. And now, with a 2023 addition, patrons can see even more of the grandeur of these massive instruments as well as the incredible skill and historical craftsmanship of this Lawrence-based company!

Black-and-white overhead photograph of a large pipe organ.
Reuter Organ Company’s Opus 2179 at the Elm Park Methodist Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1995. Photo credit: Max Mayse. Reuter Organ Company Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 68. Click image to enlarge.

The history of the Reuter Organ Company starts in 1917 when Adolph Reuter established the Reuter-Schwarz Organ Company with his business partner Earl Schwarz. After a disastrous tornado blew through the company factory, the company relocated to the Wilder Brothers Shirt Factory on New Hampshire Street in Lawrence, Kansas, after fulfilling a commission for the city’s Masonic Temple in 1919. Schwarz departed from the company shortly afterwards, and the company was renamed the Reuter Organ Company. In less than ten years, the company grew from a six-employee operation to over 50 full-time employees with over 50 commissions a year. However, after lean years during the Great Depression, the Reuter Organ Company faced a manufacturing ban on musical instruments during World War II and stayed afloat by producing government-sanctioned boxes for munitions materials with a skeletal crew. After the war, the company began to flourish again, and Reuter began hiring skilled staff with formal music education and expertise in organ construction. Through the knowledge base of its staff, the company began to experiment and further develop traditional construction techniques with new pipe organ technology to develop a signature “Reuter sound.”

Black-and-white photograph of a pipe organ in the corner of a balcony in an auditorium.
Reuter Organ Company’s Opus 1741 at the Shryock Auditorium at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois, 1970. Photo credit: Max Mayse. Reuter Organ Company Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 68. Click image to enlarge.

After Adolph Reuter’s retirement in 1961, the company continued to evolve under the direction of longtime employee Franklin Mitchell. Mitchell, with then newly appointed production manager Albert Neutel, purchased the company in the early 1980s. Together, the two continued to refine the Reuter technical craft, particularly with the mechanical aspects of organ construction and the tonal sound of the company’s organs. After Mitchell’s retirement in 1997, Albert Neutel was joined in management by his son, Albert “J.R.” Neutel, a former longtime employee of the company. Under the Neutel family’s direction, the Reuter Organ Company moved operations from New Hampshire Street to a newly constructed and specially designed factory and administrative facility in northwest Lawrence in 2001. Sixteen years later, the company celebrated its 100th anniversary by holding a public open house in their newer facility and inviting old and new customers alike. By this time, the company had constructed over 2,200 pipe organs for public and private institutions around the world. The company had also built a respected name in organ rehabilitation within the pipe organ community. In 2022, amid the retirement of several longtime key staff members, J.R. Neutel, the company’s current president, decided to sell Reuter’s factory and administrative facility. A major selling point of the Reuter Organ Company is the institutional and craft knowledge of its staff. There is a strong tradition of old staff mentoring new staff and passing down historic pipe organ construction techniques. Operating at the same scale without that same level of institutional knowledge was deemed impossible. And in the beginning of 2023, the Reuter Organ Company further scaled back operations to only fulfilling the customary 11-year warranties offered to their past clients with special consideration for smaller projects.

Black-and-white photograph of a pipe organ in a balcony at the back of the church's sanctuary.
Reuter Organ Company’s Opus 2044, 1982 in St. John’s Episcopal Church in Clearwater, Florida, 1982. Photo credit: Max Mayse. Reuter Organ Company Photograph Collection. Call Number: RH PH 68. Click image to enlarge.

To honor this historic company and to showcase a new addition to the Reuter Organ Company photograph collection, we here at Spencer have created a temporary exhibit to display images of a few of the beautiful pipe organs Reuter’s has constructed over the years and to dip into some pipe organ terminology. Have you ever wondered were the phrase “pulling out all stops” comes from or just how big the biggest musical instrument in the world can get? Come on by to learn more about this incredible company and the incredible instruments it made! The exhibit opened free to the public in Spencer’s North Gallery on November 1st and will continue to be on display until early January 2024. We hope you “stop” by!

Charissa Pincock
Manuscripts Processor

New Finding Aids, January-June 2023

July 3rd, 2023

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)

Wooden red apple on top of and affixed to a black scrapbook cover.
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Black pages in the shape of an apple. On the left is white handwritten text detailing highlights from the school year. On the right are clippings.
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.

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)

Page with lettering and figures in red, purple, and (mostly) black ink. The corners of the page have been cut out, and there are noticeable lines where it was folded.
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.

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)

Watercolor illustration of a boy sitting under a tree with a gingerbread man.
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.

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