Tag Archives: Archives Month

by | October 22, 2012 · 4:25 pm

A Day in the Archives – Reference

Every day is something a bit different than the day before in WKU Archives.  I may find myself processing photographs, blueprints or president’s papers.  October 2nd was definitely a reference day.

Request 1 – WKU maternity leave policies, when were they first instituted and how have they changed over time.  After a couple false starts in the Board of Regents and University Senate records, information was found in the faculty/staff handbooks created by Human Resources.

Request 2 – Topographic maps of WKU campus. Unfortunately we do not have any in WKU Archives.  It may be that none have been created.

Request 3 – WKU vs Russian football team, all information available.  Film footage was pulled and transferred from tape to dvd.  The poster above was digitized for the researcher as well.

Request 4 – Information and photos of the Rock House for an upcoming exhibit.  A search of KenCat revealed that there is a single photograph, 3 floor plans and Rock House Reunion records created by alumni who once used the building as a dormitory.  Records were pulled for the researcher to use.  The photograph and floor plans were digitized for inclusion in the exhibit.

Request 5 – Photographs to be used in celebration of Gary Ransdell’s 15th anniversary as WKU president.  Luckily the request included a list of events the researcher wanted images of.  A search of KenCat found most of them quickly.  These were forwarded to the researcher to make selections.  Then I went through unprocessed photographs and pulled relevant images for digitization.  Records for these images were created in  KenCat and thumbnails attached.  Now they are available to all researchers.

Request 6 – A request was made for a copy of a SITE committee report.  The researcher had already checked the Board of Regents and University Senate records online.  A search was made of the President’s Office papers and some University Senate records that have not been digitized.  The report was not found and in talking with the researcher, it was decided that it probably never existed.

Research can be quite time consuming.  WKU Library Special Collections & Kentucky Museum Research Strategies is available to help researchers use the online resources before making a trip to the Kentucky Building.  Processing and digitization of WKU Archives collections is user driven.  All requests are answered in the order received.  We are working daily to process additional records, add entries to the database and make more records available more quickly to our patrons.

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by | October 15, 2012 · 1:25 pm

Photograph Collection

WKU vs Youngstown, 2002

If anyone had told me when I was in school that one day I would get paid  to identify college logos on football helmets I would have laughed.   Some days that’s exactly what I do.

Processing photographs involves evaluation of quality in relation to other similar images in the collection.

WKU vs WIU, 2002, long focus

Identification of people, places and events and even athletic teams. Rehousing in mylar sleeves and acid free folders. And occasionally discarding images due to blurriness or poor composition.

WKU Archives holds approximately 50,000 photographs, slides, negatives and drawings. Photographs are described in bulk by topic in KenCat, our online catalog.  Broad topics include campus buildings, portraits, organizations, athletics and events.  As researchers request images for projects, they are digitized.  At that time a thumbnail image and corresponding description are entered into KenCat.  To date, a little over 9,000 have been digitized. Check out WKU Archives – Photograph Collection for more detailed information regarding the collection.

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by | October 10, 2012 · 3:36 pm

Electronic Records Day

The Kentucky Library & Archives in coordination with the Council of State Archivists have declared today the first Electronic Records Day.  At WKU faculty, staff and students are creating records on computers every day.

Electronic records are wonderful.  They can be shared through email, thumb drives, or on computer servers.  They can enable greater collaboration in research at increased speed.  Some contain confidential information that need special protection.

The WKU Records Management program identifies permanent and non-permanent records created by faculty and staff.  We also assist departments in the maintenance and preservation of those records in all formats.  In addition, we provide guidelines for the proper destruction of non-permanent records.

WKU Archives is working to capture and store permanent electronic records that have historic and administrative value in order to make them available to researchers for generations to come.  One avenue is through TopScholar, WKU’s institutional repository.  Here you will find departmental and administrative electronic records that document decisions of administrators and campus activities.

 

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by | October 1, 2012 · 3:31 pm

Archives Month – Athletics in Archives

WKU Soap Box Derby

October is Archives Month and in Kentucky the theme is Athletics in Archives in honor of the 2012 Olympics. This year’s poster features images of sports being played and enjoyed by Kentuckians of all ages.  The WKU photo shows children participating in a soap box derby race down College Heights Hill.

The WKU Archives website is featuring links to Hilltopper related items housed here in the Kentucky Building.  The collections are open to researchers most Mondays – Saturdays 9 to 4.  The online inventories and digital objects are available 24/7 through TopScholar.

Archives throughout the Commonwealth capture and preserve records of all types of athletic activities.  Check out collections near you in person and those available online year round.

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by | October 19, 2011 · 3:32 pm

Spirit Masters Turn 30!

The Spirit Masters have been around for awhile and will be celebrating their 30th anniversary this weekend.

WKU Archives holds several composite photographs of the group such as this one.  The 1991-92 photos are special as the Spirit Masters signed them with well wishes for Elizabeth Esters and WKU President Thomas Meredith.  This image and and notes are now available for viewing on TopScholar.

WKU Archives also hold UA12/2/16 Spirit Masters records.  Mentions of the group are also found in UA4/2 Academic Budgets & Administration and UA12/2/20 Phi Delta Theta records.  These records are available for researchers to use in the Harrison-Baird Research Room Monday – Saturday 9 – 4.

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by | October 20, 2009 · 12:06 pm

Hilltopper Heritage

Chapel

Students Attending Chapel

Archives are not a digital Mecca where every text of every document is online and searchable by keyword ~ archivist Luncinda Glenn, Graduate Theological Union Archives.

That being said, more and more individual images and documents are going online every day, along with descriptions of collections. These are put up to conserve fragile documents, to provide easier and greater access to records that are in high demand among researchers and to draw attention to an archives collections in order to bring people in for more indepth research.

Hilltopper Heritage is the University Archives “digital Mecca” for WKU sources including historic events, biographies of faculty, staff and alumni, photographs and departmental histories. You will find digitized yearbooks, College Heights Herald articles and building histories. While we will never digitize the entire collection, it is a good place to begin your research.  Hilltopper Heritage also allows for users to share their memories of WKU experiences with us through Share a Tradition.

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by | October 19, 2009 · 12:03 pm

Ogden College

Ogden College

Ogden College

Before there was a WKU, Bowling Green was home to a number of private colleges. One of these was Ogden College. Located between State and Chestnut Streets, Ogden opened in 1877 as a boy’s school offering a 2 year prepatory course and 4 year college work. In 1927 the Ogden trustees and Western regents came to an understanding whereby the property was leased to Western. The campus is now home to the Ogden College of Science & Engineering. The records of the school were transferred to University Archives and are now available for researchers. These include images, student records, student newspapers and yearbooks.  Check out the following websites for more information regarding Ogden College:

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by | October 13, 2009 · 11:52 am

Archives Take Time

Archives are not the place to run in to check a quick fact and then again, sometimes they are. Archives generally are about indepth research. It takes time to read through original sources and find the information that will prove or disprove your hypothesis about a person or event. Often reference staff will slow you down and go over the question(s) that you are looking to answer. We are attempting to narrow the field of the many resources we hold to get you to the ones that have information that you are requesting. Sometimes the answer you want is not the one you get.

Then again, sometimes researchers ask a question that has been asked many times and the reference staff does have the answer immediately. It can happen. Either way, archives are a great place to find answers.

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by | October 8, 2009 · 4:22 pm

WKU Construction

D92

Cherry Hall Elevation

Construction on a college campus is an ongoing occurrence and that certainly seems to be true of WKU. Current renovation and construction projects include the Chapel, Van Meter Hall, Snell Hall and the College of Education. University Archives holds records of construction projects dating back to 1906. These are found in a variety of collections such as the president’s papers, photograph collection and the Building File created by the Planning, Design & Construction Office.

University Archives staff are processing the building file as it is being used by patrons. During processing, folder level descriptions are added to the finding aid. Updates are posted on TopScholar. There you will see the type of records in each folder: correspondence, construction meeting minutes and inspection reports. Correspondents are listed by name or company. Researchers can see the process of how a building has gone from the drawing board to final inspection and opening.

Student volunteers and workers have been researching building histories.  These are posted online as a part of Hilltopper Heritage.

Check out these and other records in University Archives via KenCat.

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by | October 7, 2009 · 2:07 pm

Archives Month

Holy Cross archivist Sarah Campbell stated that “archives aren’t lending libraries.”  Special collections serve a different mission than lending libraries.  They hold unique, one of a kind items that need special care and handling in order to preserve them for as long as possible. 

Think about the different conditions that you subject a library book to while you have it checked out.  How many other items are in your back pack with it jostling around?  Is it raining outside as you cross campus without an umbrella?  Do you read at the dining table while eating?  Do you take notes with a sheet of paper laid over the pages?

These are things that would destroy most archival materials in a relatively short time.  Special collection books and documents don’t circulate and we have rules about how they can be handled in order to ensure that you can use them as well as the person who comes in after you.

Check out the Kentucky Library & Museum collections on KenCat.

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