Dr. Karen Petrone, Chair of the Department of History at the University of Kentucky, talking on “The Great War (WWI) in Russian Memory” at WKU Owensboro Campus
On Wednesday, Nov. 5 at 7 pm, the WKU Owensboro Campus hosted a reprise of Karen Petrone’s April Far Away Places talk on her book “The Great War (WWI) in Russian Memory.” Dr. Petrone is the chair of the Department of History at the University of Kentucky, and her work focuses on cultural histories of Russia and the Soviet Union.
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Filed under Events
October 30th has been declared Ask An Archivist Day. Archivists from around the country will be monitoring Twitter to respond to your questions. The day long event is sponsored by the Society of American Archivists as the send off for Archives Month.
No question is too silly . . .
. . . and no question is too practical!
Just tweet your question and include the hashtag #AskAnArchivist in your tweet.
Follow along through the day to see questions and answers.
And even after Archives Month is over you can ask us questions at WKU Archives – archives@wku.edu
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Filed under Events, University Archives
There are days in the archives that I feel like Dug the talking Dog from the movie Up. I’m sitting at my desk working and all of a sudden . . . SQUIRREL!
It’s not that I’m easily distracted. It is the nature of archival work that processing a collection of departmental papers may lead to the identification of a photograph. Once I open that file cabinet to get the folder of photographs, I see there are 4 or 5 folders for that particular department and I am all of a sudden processing photographs. Which in turn may lead to the prep work to have the unidentified images digitized. Continue reading
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Open Access
Special Collections are often referred to as hidden collections. They require a special environment, careful handling and labor intensive description work to make them available. In the time it takes to process a small collection of photographs I suspect a book cataloger could catalog about 250 books.
WKU’s Special Collections are over 75 years old and we are just now beginning to gain ground in opening our hidden collections with the help computer technology. KenCat is your portal into our world of special collections. Since purchasing this software in 2005 we have created descriptions of over 56,000 items housed in the Kentucky Building. There are rare books on all sorts of topics, books about Kentucky, maps, photographs, documents, oral histories, blueprints, postcards, newspapers, memorabilia, letters, diaries and much more.
KenCat went live late in 2007 and searches have been steadily increasing since that first year from 2 to 21,566 so far this year. We will continue to reveal more and more of our treasures in the years to come.
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Charles & Susan Omer
Union County, Kentucky native Charles Henry Omer (1865-1937) was a substitute teacher, postmaster, merchant, Mason, and elder at the Morganfield Christian Church. He and his wife Susan were the parents of 13 children, including two sets of twins. Somehow, they found time not only for their primary pursuit of farming, but for the maintenance of a journal that recorded the family’s daily activities from 1904-1932. Common topics over its hundreds of pages were, as one would expect, the weather, income and expenses, with the prices of food, timber, farm supplies and labor faithfully noted. But other details add color to this chronicle of agricultural life, for example:
May 23, 1904: It rained a little this morning. . . . went to Morganfield to see the Bloomer Girls play Baseball in the afternoon Expenses 70c Light-Bread 10 Sausages Bananas 10 Peanuts 5 crackers 5 steak 20 Ice cream soda 10 = 1.30
May 3, 1905: I took my crosscut saw out to Tom Berry’s and got him to sharpen it and I took his place rolling logs while he was fixing it.
July 9, 1913: I let Uncle John Berry go down to Sister Mollie’s and got a horse collar to work on Lizzie so he could plow my patch of corn he plowed all day and never got done.
Feb. 27, 1923: I hung 4 hams my 2nd killing today & cleaned the hog feet to my last killing & put them to soak to cook tomorrow.
Oct. 26, 1930: I got up at 4:30 and went to the c[hristian] church and fired up the furnace and back at 7:30 and eat breakfast and then killed 2 chickens to bake.
May 31, 1932: Mrs. Omer & I have been married 33 years today. I took about a qt. of pumpkin seed to both Wilhelm and Miller to plant.
The Omer family farm journal is part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections. Click here to access a finding aid. To explore other collections relating to agriculture (the 2014 focus of Kentucky Archives Month), search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.
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Filed under Manuscripts & Folklife Archives
Open Access
SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition coordinates the annual International Open Access Week. This year’s theme is Generation Open, that is to say the focus is upon student and early career researchers. In keeping with the theme, WKU Libraries is focusing upon our student researchers past and present.
We make access to student research projects and creative activities available by posting them on TopSHOLAR which went live in 2007. Since that time works by students have been downloaded over 487,000 times. Continue reading
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Filed under Events, University Archives
SOKY Reads! proved extremely successful last week as numerous community members and students visited with Jason Mott, author of this year’s featured book The Returned. Mott attended David Bell’s creative writing class and talked about his book, getting published, and what it takes to be a successful writer. He also offered to sign books and addressed a large crowd at the Bob Kirby Library, and participated in two separate luncheons, answering questions from members of three different book clubs. 
This year, SOKY Book Fest partners gave out 500 books of The Returned and offered book discussions at various community locations, including the public library branches, at Western Kentucky University, and at Southcentral Kentucky Community & Technical College.
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Filed under Events, Flickr Photos, New Stuff
WKU is celebrating the International Year of Ecuador during the 2014-2015 academic year. All types of events including film presentations, lectures, exhibits, and foodways demonstrations have been planned across campus. Interestingly in researching for an exhibit titled “Ecuador in Library Special Collections” at the Kentucky Building, curators found several letters written by the U.S. consul to Ecuador and his wife, Edward Rumsey Wing and Louise (Green) Wing. They both write back to her Kentucky parents telling them about their exciting adventures, longing for home, intellectual pursuits, family affairs, and adjustment to a new culture. Wing served in Quito from 1870 to 1874.
In a June 1870 letter Louise writes her parents back in Grayson County, Kentucky, about an experience traveling through the Ecuadorian mountains.
Imagine me in a mask, goggles, veil, man’s hat, green yarn gloves, the thickest of clothing, trotting on a mule past a snow clad mountain—grand, threatening, and awe inspiring. I thought I should never see the last of it, and I pray that I may never behold it again while I live. By the by I was taken for the Devil in the costume by a little crosseyed Indian girl who insisted I was le diablo. Our eyes & faces are still afflicted from the sands & wind. Rumsey looked as if he had been on a royal spree for [the] last forty years and I am not quite a beauty myself.
Toward the end of the letter, Louise summarizes her feelings about the mountain trip:
Language fails me when I attempt to tell you what I have endured and seen in this delectable Republic of Ecuador. I do not wish to recall it. Indeed I should like to blot the whole journey thus far, until all of its extentuating and beautiful surroundings, entirely from my memory. Much to my amazement I reached this spot alive, and today am almost myself— again, though stiff & burnt to a crisp.
To search for other letters and diaries written from distant lands search our finding aids in TopSCHOLAR.
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Filed under Manuscripts & Folklife Archives
WKU Libraries hosted its second Far Away Places event on October 23 at 7:00 p.m. at Barnes & Noble bookstore titled “Two Scottish Duchesses in the Age of Men” featuring Kathy Callahan. Dr. Callahan is currently Head of the Department of History at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. Her talk focused on the lives and work of two Scottish duchesses, Anne Hamilton, duchess of Hamilton, and Anna Scott, duchess of Buccleuch. The two duchesses were contemporaries in the 17th century Scotland and governed their estates during a time when men customarily handled such affairs.
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Filed under Events, Far Away Places, General, Latest News, New Stuff, People, Stuff, Uncategorized
In the photographic holdings of the Kentucky Library Research Collections are several early photographic images by C. R. (Clement Reeves) Edwards. He was a photographer, portrait and landscape artist originally from Woodston, New Jersey. He came to Bowling Green in 1857 and opened a photography studio and also offered his services as a portrait painter. This ambrotype is
an example of his fine photography work. Although, the image is not identified, it may be Edwards’s farm and his first wife, Sarah Booth. He died on February 4, 1898.
The fragility of these one-of-a-kind photographs mandated that they be cased. In 1842, Samuel Peck patented a more durable case than the previous leather or wooden ones. These “Union” cases were composed of gutta-percha, an early plastic. They could be molded to hold any surface design and dyed. This Edwards ambrotypes has a “Union” case embossed with an elk and woods scene. Additionally, the Kentucky Museum has 14 oil paintings by Edwards. Ten are portraits including two self-portraits and four are landscapes. For more information about early photographs and their identification and care email spcol@wku.edu Other photographic and illustrative holdings of the Department of Special Collections may be viewed at KenCat at kencat.wku.edu
