Hidden Collections Registry - Dev

Items

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  Discovering a New World: Cataloging Old and Rare Imprints from Colonial and Early Independent Mexico

  The Mexican Colonial Collection at the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives at Texas A&M University consists of over 3,000 books, manuscripts, broadsides, newspapers, pamphlets and devotionals covering practically all aspects of life in Mexico (New Spain) from the mid-16th to the mid-19th centuries. This special collection is a treasure trove for scholars in the fields of history, anthropology, linguistics, religion, political science, philosophy, civil and canon law, literature, military science, the history of the book, and the sciences and arts. There are documents from the tribunal of the Inquisition, as well as other legal documents; early catechisms and textbooks in native languages; sermons; prayer books; newspapers and speeches concerning Mexico's independence movement, and even cookbooks. The religious works often contain beautiful woodcuts or engravings. Currently, two graduate students are studying the sermons. A substantial number of items have been cataloged already and are searchable via WorldCat and TAMU Libraries' online catalog. As a result we have a good idea of resources needed to catalog the remaining titles. We've also found that many items are unique or that TAMU is the only U.S. holding institution. The uncataloged portion includes: Ca. 700 manuscripts, broadsides, documents and ephemera; Ca. 500 printed monographs, some of them bound together; Ca. 50 bound volumes of serials (chiefly newspapers); and 1 painting.

• CSU Archives Activism, Culture and Diversity in Southern California Access and Preservation Project

  Four campus archives of the California State University System (CSU Dominguez Hills, Cal State Polytechnic University Pomona, CSU Los Angeles and CSU Long Beach) will collaborate on a project to reveal 45 hidden collections. These collections are focused on 20th century topics such as Latino and African-American civil rights activism and politicians, disability rights, sacred music of the African Diaspora, the Communist Party U.S.A (Southern California Branch), literature, the history of wine and American composers. Though diverse in subject most of the collections focus on the American West. The four universities are located within 40 miles of each other in Los Angeles County and provide opportunities for collaboration for both archivists and their researchers. The collections to be cataloged will include the papers of Lawrence Balzer, prominent wine writer; the collection of Don Lee White, longtime organist, chorus leader and researcher into the music of African American churches; the papers of Mervyn Dymally, which highlights the career of the first African-American Lt. Governor of a state (CA) in the U.S., the McFarling Collection deals with Japanese-American relocation after World War II; the Dorothy Healey Papers which deal with labor activism and the Communist Party in the West, and the Roy Harris Collection with a focus on the career of the prominent composer of the Bicentennial Symphony.
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  Illuminating Hidden Collections at the Center for Jewish History

  The materials cover the histories of organizations in NYC, as well as those around the country whose composition stemmed from towns in Europe from which they emigrated, such as those associated with Galicia or with Telsch, Lithuania. They also cover labor organizations in NYC and elsewhere, such as the Yidisher Teatr Gezelshaft in Detroit and the AmericanAssociation for Jewish Education. Also included are dozens of collections that describe the stories of Jews leaving Germany for America and Israel prior to WWII. The collections included in this initiative encompass the stories of Jewish migration, establishment and assimilation over the last 150 years. The project includes materials that will uncover historical evidence to support work on U.S. and European history and biographical explorations. They wield particular strengths for those exploring immigration, labor, and cultural history. Materials for this initiative will come from three of the Center’s in-house partner institutions: AJHS, LBI, and YIVO. Unless otherwise noted, the collections are entirely distinct as opposed to being the addenda to others. They include family papers as well as records of aid societies and educational organizations. The collections lack bibliographic representation in the Center’s online catalog and are therefore hidden from researchers and the public. Each was either newly-acquired or has long been in need of arrangement and processing.

• Canal Society of New York State Collection

  Represented are the entire archival holdings of the Canal Society of New York State. The Society was formed in 1956, the first such organization dedicated to the preservation of New York's canal heritage with special emphasis on the Erie Canal and its operation from 1817 to this day. It soon amassed a comprehensive collection at a time when appreciation of this legacy was young. It is the largest such collection in private hands. Manuscripts document the construction and use of the canal network, including letters, broadsides, receipts for shipments and tolls, account books for boatyards, maps and structure drawings. Published books and pamphlets mimic a union list of canal topics. Iconographic items include hundreds of paintings (pastels, watercolors and oils) and prints (some on Staffordshire china). Its birdseye view collection of New York State canal towns is unsurpassed. Photographic collections consist of albumen and silver prints, nearly 10,000 postcards, several hundred glass negatives (including some from the noted scientist Charles Steinmetz and from the Howe family as they transited the Erie Canal in the early 1900s), several thousand film negatives, color transparencies (with some of the first color aerial images of Upstate New York) and several historic motions picture films of the Erie Canal. In the 1950s audio recordings were done of first-person reminiscences of the 19th century canals. These reel-to-reel tapes are all that remain of these voices.

• Uncovering the American Folksong Revival: Coffeehouse Culture and The Caffé Lena Collection

  The aim of this project is to arrange, describe and catalog three significant collections containing a documentary record of the 20th century American folksong revival movement. Caffé Lena is America's oldest continuously running folk music coffeehouse and a national treasure. The complete Caffé Lena archives comprises the Lena Spencer Papers and Performer Files, 1000 hours of field recordings and audio recordings of performances, and the Caffé Lena oral history project collection of taped interviews with major folk, country, blues, bluegrass and theater figures. Also included are 6,000 photographs taken at Caffé Lena between 1960 and 1968 from the accompanying Joe Alper LLC collection in both negative and print formats, and the Lively Lucys Coffeehouse Collection 1972-2011, revealing an important student run coffeehouse created with Lena Spencer. Documented subjects in New York state and in far-reaching nationally relevant geographic scope include civil rights pioneers; New York architectural history; prominent folk and jazz festivals; urban expansion; and the careers of influential performers Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Emmylou Harris, and David Hyde Pierce. Also included are the personal papers of Lena Spencer relating to the Industrial Workers of the World, the inaugural visit of Robert Kennedy Jr. to Massachussets, postwar Italian American cultural history, and the New Left era.

• Unearthing Wonderland: Using a Team Approach to Expose Yellowstone’s Hidden Collections

  The Yellowstone National Park Archives documents the history and science of the world's first national park, now a United Nations Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage Site. The manuscripts, photos, maps, films, oral histories, administrative records, and scientific data document the natural and cultural resources and the development of their management. With a long history of data collection in the park, the Archives supports research in climate change, biodiversity, and ecosystem dynamics. The records are rich in topics ranging from geophysics, geology, and ecology to archeology, tourism, and history. Ideas of wilderness, conservation, and resource stewardship are woven throughout the documentary record and include materials by Horace Albright and such significant events as the 1988 fires, returning bears to natural feeding habits, and the eradication and eventual reintroduction of wolves. An affiliated archive of the National Archives, the Archives houses a unique record of physical and administrative development beginning with early civilian superintendents and pioneer entrepreneurs, through the turn-of-the-century military era to the founding and development of the National Park Service. Because the collections are unorganized and poorly described, many researchers do not realize the depth and breadth of Yellowstone's documentation. The proposed project will expose our hidden resources by making collections usable and understandable to a wide, diverse research audience.

• Scarritt-Bennett Center Laskey Research Library (SBCLRL)

  The Scarritt-Bennett Center Laskey Research Library (SBCLRL) is an established library in the Scarritt-Bennett Center that is approximately 1,500 square feet in facility size, and contains approximately 64,500 items in all formats. It also possesses one February 1, 1611 A. D. edition of the King James Bible which recently achieved its 400th anniversary. The collections contain: 10,000+ monographic works on the above topics; 5,000+ photographs; 1,000+ SBC student files; 13,000+ scholar and teaching files of distinguished professors; 25,000 +archived personal papers of distinctive scholars, activists, and major public leaders in the above fields; 5,000+ video and audio recordings of conference presentations, speeches, and interviews; 1,000+ rare and unique books in the above topics; 3,000+ letters and correspondence to alumni and distinguished speakers to the College and the Center; 500+ rare and unique journals and periodicals in the above topics; 1,000+ rare international artefacts collected by foreign missionaries; and 1 King James Bible, Newly Translated Version dated February 1, 1611 (400 years old). Total of 64,501+ of un-catalogued items in inventory. These items are rare and mostly unique materials that are housed in a secure, monitored environment. The archival materials are unique collections associated with specific individuals and the Scarritt-Bennett Center current and organizations of the past. The Laskey Research Library (LRL), due to its historic nature, possesses the broadest possible range of media, artefacts, and print formats on topics that parallel the long history of the predecessors to the Scarritt-Bennett Center. These topics and material resources are unique evidence to local, international, and American historical, scientific, intellectual, and cultural heritage. Since the 1880s, the resources of the LRL have touched the major topics of American social and cultural development. For example, the papers, journals, and publications of Dr Ina Corine Brown, an early foreign missionary and anthropologist, offer a unique perspective of a woman's struggle in African culture and her efforts to record those experiences. A complete set of documents in the form of a journal, letters, and handwritten observations currently exist in the LRL that once cataloged will open a new vista on those foreign societies and demonstrate the resolve of this unique and heroic woman. The Laskey Research Library as contained in the above quantitative material resources is organized into four historic periods and four dedicated focus and research areas. The United Methodist Church's Pioneering Missionary Movement, 1888-1923: This movement was pioneering in nature in that it was the first time in Christian history that women served exclusively as missionaries throughout the world. Their experiences, and thus the knowledge of their experiences and fortitude, are recorded in their papers, journals, accounts of momentous events, and written published works and articles that are located the LRL. Truly, these materials possessions are treasures that not only account for individual lives; the information is original documentation and forerunner to major American movements, such as, the Women's, Civil Rights, Race Relations, and Social Justice Movements. These missionary women accumulated documents, artefacts, books, and personal and published accounts that are original information resources that stand out as fundamental documentation for these early American movements. Because these items have not been catalogued, and also because they are only accessible by a personal visit to the LRL, they have been lost to most scholars and activists involved in these causes. Scarritt College for Christian Workers, 1924-1981: This college was first located in Kansas City, Missouri and it was named the Scarritt Bible and Training School. It relocated to Nashville, Tennessee in 1924, and changed its name to the Scarritt College for Christian Workers. During this period, Scarritt College was known for teaching real life experiences, and it began a progressive and liberal approach to teaching Christian workers. The material and information resources that today remain from this era, chronologue the history of Scarritt College, and its educational and training impact upon the world. These resources are available in material formats. Students were educated in different cultures, languages, and traditions. Staff and fellow students were often from other countries serving to further enrich the learning experience. The skills and knowledge acquired during; this time equipped men and women to function in the midst of wars, famine, and severe poverty as they served in countries needing assistance, as well as in domestic situations. These documented and well recorded publications began a legacy that is continued in the work of the Scarritt-Bennett Center today. Keeping in stride with the changes in the country and the world, Scarritt College hosted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who spoke in Wightman Chapel during the civil rights movement. Instruction on peaceful demonstration was also held on the campus. Again, because of the lack of cataloging, this precious information is only available to a select few that visit the Laskey Research Library. Scarritt Graduate School, 1981-1988: In 1981, Scarritt College became Scarritt Graduate School, providing educational degrees in Church Music and Christian Education. It closed in 1988. The Women's Division of the United Methodist Church purchased the building and grounds, and the 10 acres became Scarritt-Bennett Center under the direction of the Scarritt-Bennett Board. Scarritt-Bennett Center, 1988-. From the legacy of the Women's Missionary Movement and the Scarritt College for Christian Workers, the Scarritt-Bennett Center's current mission was founded. It stands for: Social Justice, Multi-cultural understanding, Diversity awareness, Eliminating racial prejudice, and the Empowerment of Women. Today, conferences, meetings, and social events characterize the current legacy of the Scarritt-Bennett Center. The Scarritt-Bennett Center has opened its doors, welcomed and embraced without discrimination based on racial, social, or faith issues. Today, Scarritt-Bennett Center remains dedicated to the legacy of Scarritt College and its missionaries and educators who were here, by providing a haven for those seeking to gather in an environment that is nurturing, conducive to open dialogue, and available to all faiths and cultures. Today, each of these events are being recorded in media and information formats, and those and future formats will continue to produce original and unique materials that will contribute to the great social themes and events that will drive America forward into the 21st Century. The Laskey Research Library plays an important role in the purpose of the Scarritt-Bennett Center. Not only has it organized the materials resources of the past into the general categories cited above, it is now participating in the conferencing events by enhancing the participants experience based upon the themes of the conferences meetings through the provision of historical backgrounds, reference resources, and applied readings for participants' effective involvement into the topics of the conferences and meetings. Now, the need for cataloging these important resources form the past or the current compilation of resource materials is more critical than ever. Each of these resources, whether past or present, is vital to our nation's success in the future. The Scarritt-Bennett Center is a place of hospitality, education for Christian ministries of justice and equality, reconciliation and renewal, cooperation and interaction within the ecumenical and global context. Rooted in mission, the Center has a strong commitment to the eradication of racism, empowerment of women, education of laity, and spiritual formation.

• Enhancing Access and Promoting Research: Uncovering the Monroe Library's Hidden Social and Environmental Justice Collections

  Loyola University New Orleans' hidden Social and Environmental Justice Collections contain papers and other materials donated by William P. Quigley, Darryl Malek-Wiley, and John Clark. Each of these distinct collections is focused on environmental justice and social justice, covering the period from the mid-1970s to the present, and centering on New Orleans and Louisiana while also containing materials related to other parts of the US and to other nations. Bill Quigley has been a public interest lawyer since 1977, concerned with public housingthe death penalty, civil liberties, and Katrina-related social justice issues. He has been a volunteer lawyer with School of the Americas Watch and the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Quigley is currently Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Darryl Malek-Wiley has been an environmental activist in New Orleans since the early 1980s. He has led campaigns concerned with Louisiana's petrochemical corridor. Malek-Wiley's papers offer researchers documentation of his own activism and of environmental struggles in New Orleans and the South that are relevant to the nation. A productive scholar, Clark's research interests include ecological philosophy, environmental ethics, and anarchist and libertarian thought. Clark's Papers are notable for his correspondence with activist and social theorist Murray Bookchin and poet and activist Gary Snyder.

• Archiving the Bascom and Jenkins Collections

  African Textiles (William R. Bascom Collection): Bascom (1912-81) was a pioneering Africanist anthropologist. The first American anthropologist to do fieldwork in Nigeria, he was noted for his comprehensive research on the Yoruba, especially "Ifa" divination. The collection includes finished clothing, untailored textiles, partially-woven textiles, looms and other weaving implements. A particular strength is a study collection of fully-documented narrow-band Yoruba weavings. The collection documents the Yoruba of Nigeria, but also other peoples of Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Benin, Congo, and Madagascar. The collection covers principal periods of Bascom's African fieldwork (1937-38, 1942-45, 1950-51), plus shorter trips in the 1960s and 1970s. Photographs of Latin American Folk Art (Katherine D. Jenkins Collection): Jenkins (1906-82) was a noted scholar of Mexican folk art, especially textiles and lacquer. The collections includes lacquer, ceramics, metals, glass, paper maché, basketry, textiles, miniatures and toys, wood, and miscellaneous crafts; also archaeology and fiestas of Mexico. A particular focus deals with the gathering and processing of the aje insect for lacquer production, in Olinalá, Guerrero, Mexico. The collection is from Mexico (North, Central, Mexico City, East, Southeast), Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru and is principally from 1949 to 1959, with a few later slides from the 1960s and 70s.

• Increasing the Impact: Revealing Hidden Collections and Expanding Consortial Processing in Philadelphia-area Institutions

  This consortial project, encompassing 98 collections totaling more than 2,900 linear feet held in 18 area repositories, builds on earlier work that laid the foundation for a regional approach to managing and providing access to historical collections. Collections included address the scientific, cultural, aesthetic, social and spiritual mores of American society from the earliest European settlement across more than three centuries as they were expressed regionally, nationally and internationally. The collections (see appendix) are especially strong in five areas: the political, economic, social and cultural history of the Delaware Valley; the history and evolution of American science and medicine; the American religious experience; history of education; and social justice and activism. While each individual collection has a high research value, often as determined by the PACSCL Survey Initiative, that value is increased in the context of the shared PACSCL Finding Aids site, enabling researchers to draw topical connections between collections and across repositories. This is an extensive and complex project with partners ranging from major universities to smaller libraries and museums. PACSCL has increased the range of partners to include three additional non-PACSCL institutions -- a university, an archives, and a local historical society -- to foster collaboration, extend connections across collections, refine metrics, and test broader applicability of the protocols.

• New Mexico's Video History: KNME-TV Albuquerque's Video Archives at the University of New Mexico Center for Southwest Research

  This collection consists of 710 broadcast quality U-matic and BetaCam videotapes that represent 5 local programming series produced between 1980 and 2005 by the Albuquerque Public Broadcasting System (PBS) affiliate television station, KNME-TV. There are approximately 500 individual program episodes, ranging from 30 to 120 minutes each, as well as a large amount of general stock footage depicting famous people, events and locations in New Mexico. The subject matter of the collection includes weekly news reports (both local and statewide), coverage of major statewide issues of the day, including cultural, health, education, political and economic topics. There are also many in-person interviews with prominent New Mexico political and governmental officials, business leaders and educators, as well as cultural, religious and popular celebrities from around the state and the bordering states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Texas and Chihuahua, Mexico.

• Revealing Performances: Cataloging the BAM Archives Hidden Collection

  The BAM Archives, formally established in 1995, documents the lives of leaders, thinkers, and artists whose careers exemplify the spirit of American innovation, as well as trace the evolution of public and cultural life in the United States. Particularly valuable materials in the collection include slides; photographs, contact sheets, and negatives of production images; promotional shots; rare artist portraits and headshots; playbills, and press clippings from a broad range of publications from around the world. In addition, BAM's institutional records document the evolution of the contemporary performing arts, both in this country, but also around the world, through artist correspondence, production plans, promotional material, and other records. The richness of the collection is demonstrated by the variety of complementary resources--the diversity of which is held by no other institution in the world--that studied together can inform an understanding of both the institution as a home for the performing arts, as well as individual artists, productions, and time periods. Due to the significance of these artists not only to BAM's institutional history, but also to the history of the contemporary performing arts, these materials are of utmost importance to scholars and the general public.

• Cataloguing Collections as a means to re-thinking the roots of a profession: Mesoamerican Studies from 1920-1940

  The collections include papers, audio, images, and maps pertaining to the study of Mesoamerican civilizations, or the cultures of ancient mexico, guatemala, and Central America, from 1920-1940. The correspondence, diary, site index, and field notes of Frans Blom - well known for his studies at Palenque and early scholarly reports of the Olmec civilization -shed light on the emerging profession. The Hermann Beyer collection, including papers, correspondence, and notes, brings to life the work of deciphering Mayan script during that time period. Also included are the correspondence, notes, and papers of Oliver LaFarge, Stanley Boggs, Maurice Ries and Robert Wauchope. These papers are complemented by a series of photographs and maps depicting archaeological sites of the time. A collection of notes, correspondence and manuscripts conducted by faculty at the Middle American Research Institute from the 1920s to the 1940s provides a glimpse into the academy and its view of the evolving field.

• Mining History, The World Museum of Mining

  The material encompasses all hard rock mining related material in the Museum's collections. The objects range in date from the 1860s to 1960s. The preponderance of objects date from 1890 to 1930. The objects contained in the collection relate to mining history, history of technology, and labor history. The collection records the history of mining in significant detail. The collection contains a wide range of mining related materials including the following. Published material: books, magazines, equipment brochures; Non-published material: manuscripts, paper, mining ephemera, business ledgers, financial records, correspondence, mining company records, newsletters, yearbooks; Photographs; Films; Artifacts: tools,equipment.

• Hidden Collections/Hidden Connections: Revealing Networks in the Development of Twentieth Century Surgery

  Project collections reveal the development of 20th century surgical methods and norms and, through the application of technical processing techniques, the hidden connections among people, events, organizations, and technologies that influenced the evolution of this central medical practice. Collections are papers of key 20th century figures in American surgery: those of Joseph Murray, awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in the first successful kidney transplant; Francis D. Moore, known for his work with organ transplantation, metabolism, and care of the surgical patient; cardiac surgeon Dwight Harken, who performed the first successful open heart surgeries, and, in 1951, opened the world's first intensive care unit (all held by Countway); William Halsted, one of the founders of American surgery who developed basic principles of surgical technique, including aseptic technique; Thomas Cullen, a surgeon who pioneered gynecological pathology as a specialty; Alfred Blalock, who in 1944 developed the "blue baby" operation which launched the field of cardiac surgery; John Cameron, who perfected the Whipple procedure for the treatment of pancreatic cancer (all held by Johns Hopkins); Harry Morton Vars, best known for his work on parenteral (intravenous) feeding; and the records of the Philadelphia Academy of Surgery, founded in 1879 and the oldest continuously meeting professional society in surgery (both held by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia).

• The Business of Glass: Bringing to Light Two Centuries of Glassmaking History through Company Records

  This project will make accessible approximately 8,000 historical documents generated by glassmaking firms in the course of daily business. Dating from the second half of the 18th through the first half of the 20th centuries, this collection includes advertisements, correspondence, glasshouse workers' currency, invoices, stock certificates, and other assorted records. The firms are mostly located in the main glass production centers for this timeframe. In addition to the New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest states, western Europe (primarily England, France, Germany) is also represented. With a focus on glass companies, and therefore of interest to glass scholars, the collection is an equally rich resource for business historians and researchers in labor and industrial relations. Because the bulk of the materials date from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries, they open a unique window to the post-Civil War, turn of the century, and World War I eras. They also have value for local and regional historians. And finally, the Rakow Library is the world's premier source for information on the art and history of glass. While this business collection, in development since the Library's founding in 1951, enhances, substantiates, and adds an important dimension to these principle areas of focus, it also informs the object collection on display in our parent organization, The Corning Museum of Glass.

• The Kansas City Stockyards Collection Project

  The Kansas City Public Library holds a unique collection which has the potential to enrich Kansas City's history specifically in the areas of agriculture and industry. In 2008, materials housed in the Livestock Exchange building in the West Bottoms of Kansas City were donated to the Library by William Haw (owner of the Livestock Exchange building). The majority of the material in this collection covers the early period of the Stockyards (1890-1940) which was the most prosperous and active time period for the Stockyards. Thus far, the Library staff have identified the following pieces in the collection: - architectural drawings and blueprints of the Kansas City Stockyards which include quarantine areas, viaducts, holding pens, sewer and drainage systems, slaughter houses, and administration buildings. Staff estimate there are approximately 4,000 of these pieces. - maps, photographs, railroad documents, construction and material costs, correspondence, payroll records, land appraisals, field notes for structures, land abstracts, and flood surveys. - drawings related to the American Royal livestock show which began in 1899. The American Royal, which was born out of the Kansas City Stockyards, continues to operate today.

• Documenting Civil Rights and Civic Activism: the Papers of Margaret Bush Wilson

  The Margaret Bush Wilson Papers document many significant events and movements of 20th-century America, offering a unique view of local and national history. A pioneer for African Americans and for women, Margaret Bush Wilson (1919-2009) led a distinguished career as a lawyer, public servant, and civil rights activist. As the second woman of color admitted to practice law in Missouri, she began her legal career as a United States attorney for the Rural Electrification Administration, served among counsel in the landmark Supreme Court case of Shelley v. Kraemer, and provided legal assistance to those involved in the demonstrations at Jefferson Bank & Trust. Wilson was the first African American woman to run for Congress in Missouri, and she later held several public service positions including assistant attorney general, assistant director of the Lawyers for Housing program, which aimed to increase low-income housing in St. Louis and six other cities, and acting director of the Model City Agency, an initiative created by President Johnson. However, it was her role as the first African American woman elected to chair the NAACP, a position she held for nine consecutive terms, that placed her in the national spotlight. The Papers documenting Wilson's life include her personal and professional correspondence, speeches, research notes, photographs, awards, and personal library, providing rare insight into historic events that altered the trajectory of a city and a nation.

• Revealing Music History: Cataloging the Frederic Louis Ritter Collection at Tufts University

  The personal library of scholar/musician Frederic Louis Ritter (1834-1891), a European-trained musician and historian working in America at a critical time in the development of the discipline of music history and criticism, consists of manuscripts, scores, books and periodicals about music, dating from the 16th century until the time of Ritter's death. Most publications hail from Germany, France, England, Italy, and America. The collection is a carefully selected assembling of rare, important, historic, or unique materials of seminal value to Ritter as a music scholar. Individual masterworks in the Ritter collection are set against a background of related writings and repertoire that provide the contemporary context for works that continue to be studied. Some of the subject areas of particular strength include: music theory; harmony and counterpoint treatises from the 16th through 19th centuries; music aesthetics and criticism from the 18th and 19th centuries; French opera from the 18th and early 19th centuries; music histories and dictionaries from the 17th through 19th centuries; and treatises on performance practice from the early 18th through the late 19th centuries. Although few in number, the manuscripts in the collection are anticipated to be of interest to researchers wishing to document particular performances of such notable works as Haydn's Creation, Cherubini's 3rd Mass, or the Rameau opera Hippolyte et Aricie.

• Closing the Gap: Identifying and Cataloging Uncataloged Titles in the Classed Collections of the American Antiquarian Society

  Materials in AAS classed collections, i.e. works with call numbers beginning with E (American History); G (Topical Classifications); H (Latin America); J (Foreign History and Travel); L (U.S. Local History); R (Biography); X (Religion); Y (Antiques and Collecting); and Z (Printing and Related Arts), cover a wide range of topics within the scope of the Society’s mission to document the life of America’s people from the colonial period through the Civil War and Reconstruction. They include primary and secondary materials from the 18th and 19th centuries. Religious and political works, novels, poetry, local and county histories, medical and scientific treatises, and annals of travel and exploration are well represented. For reasons that will be explained in this proposal, an estimated 9 percent of these preeminent collections are hidden – not only from readers but sometimes also from staff -- because although they have call numbers and are on the shelf in a logical place, they have never been cataloged. Our experience with this problem reveals that coverage of twentieth-century publications is very good, though occasional gaps exist. Coverage of materials printed in the U.S. before 1841 is virtually complete. But a dismaying number of U.S. imprints, 1841-1899, and of British and European imprints of the 18th and 19th centuries have no cataloging records whatever. This is not a recon problem, where cards were simply skipped; the cards never existed.
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  Uncovering Hidden Audio Visual Media Documenting Post-Modern Art at the Archives of American Art

  This project will support the archival processing and creation of EAD (Encoded Archival Description)finding aids for twelve media-rich manuscript collections totaling 155 linear feet. Collections contain a mix of traditional paper records and 1091 media objects, including material in seven video formats, three audio formats, and two film formats. Collections include the papers of American artists, art critics, and scholars; the records of gallery exhibitions; and collections of documentary film and radio productions. They represent a fair sampling for developing guidelines and benchmarks to support an archival processing approach for media-rich archival collections. The audio visual media in these collections are unique and rare archival documentation of a period of contemporary American art when ephemeral and dynamic new visual art forms were emerging in studios, art communities, galleries, and art spaces across the country. These collections contain media-based elements of the artwork itself, such as sound art, video art, or multi-media art forms. They also contain media-based archival documentation of ephemeral art forms such as installation, environmental, conceptualism, performance, minimalism, or technology-based arts such as video art, kinetic sculpture, or light sculpture. In many instances, this archival documentation may be the only remaining evidence of the artwork itself.

• Sights and Sounds of Black LA: Mapping Black History and Culture in Los Angeles (1850 - 2000)

  The Sights and Sounds of Black LA: Mapping Black History and Culture in Los Angeles (1850-2000) provides access to hidden collections pertaining to black history and culture throughout Greater Los Angeles. The project is a collaboration between the Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum (MCLM), the Ralph J. Bunch Center for African American Studies at UCLA (Bunche Center) and the California African American Museum (CAAM). MCLM has uncataloged photographs, newspapers (California Eagle 1903-1971), pamphlets, sheet music and letters chronicling the history and culture of Black LA from 1850-2000. The Bunche Center collection of roughly 300 audiocassette taped interviews, and events that document the tradition of African Americans who have visited and taught at UCLA (recording included playwright and poet Ntozake Shange). The Center also maintains the Dr. Darnell Hunt Research Archive, comprised of VHS tapes of news coverage of the 1994 O.J. Simpson trial and 1992 Los Angeles civil uprisings. CAAM's uncataloged materials span from 1976 - 2010 and include 1,650 slides of artists' works (e.g., Edmonia Lewis, Henry O. Tanner) and Black LA neighborhoods and artifacts, 100 audio and 80 videotapes, documenting Conversations at CAAM with leading civic leaders. 2,300 photographs of events occurring in Greater Los Angeles involving people of local, national and international renown (Black Olympians, Rosa Parks, Arthur Mitchell, Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Height and Sen. Barack Obama).

• Working Waterfronts: Labor Collections Documenting Maritime Workers of the Pacific Coast and the Pacific Rim

  The thirty-four hidden collections in this proposal are part of LAWS, a collaborative project between the labor community and the University. Its 200-plus collections have attracted the intense interest of scholars from around the country. Maritime collections are of high scholarly value and a top priority is to increase their visibility and access. The collections in this project connect to the theme of waterfront workers on the Pacific Coast and Pacific Rim and address an array of scholarly concerns including labor, industry, immigration, civil rights, and political history. They are important to the fields of Asian American studies, legal studies, and literary criticism as well as history and attract scholars from nations around the Pacific and the United States. Collections include records of important unions: ILWU, Cannery Workers, Carpenters, Ship Scalers, Fishermen, Inlandboatmen, Marine Engineers; labor federations: IWW, Washington Federation of Labor, King County Labor Council; political organizations and law firms, and the papers of important activists and journalists. Highlights include more than a dozen collections documenting Asian American labor activism, especially Filipino Americans; collections documenting the history of West Coast radicalism from the 1890s-1970s, and key materials on civil rights activism in African American, Asian American, and labor circles. Legal scholars will find documentation of pivotal 1970s affirmative action cases.

• Preserving the American Spirit: Uncovering Personal Collections of World War II

  From the Museum's opening in 2000 until a full-time curatorial staff was hired in 2008, the Collections Department was understaffed and unable to properly process a rapidly growing archive. To circumvent a backlog, new acquisitions were processed hastily and often by museum volunteers. For example, single database records were created for entire accessions often numbering in the hundreds rather than for individual records for items or finding aids. Today, Museum collections include an estimated 31,000 artifacts and 194 linear feet of archival materials condensed into less than adequate accession records. The previous system, in use from 2000-2007, has diminished staff and research access to the collections by severely limiting the ability to search and study Museum holdings. This project will focus on effectively cataloging all predominantly archival collections acquired from 2000-2007. Materials to be cataloged include photographs, correspondence, scrapbooks, maps, military documents, posters, original artwork and booklets from WWII. These items capture the American experience of WWII from the viewpoint of its participants, from the battlefront to the home front. They especially cover the period of the early 1940s and encompass nearly every inhabited continent. Large collections of letters, military documents, etc. will be described within a finding aid at the folder level, while significant archival pieces will be cataloged individually along with all photographs.
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  Merchant Mariners Muster: Cataloging Crew Manuscripts

  44 separate manuscript collections relating to shipping, predominantly Maine sea captains' business papers but also including ship owners' records, customs house records and a shipping agent's records, all of which have been determined to include records of individual mariners (other than officers) serving aboard a vessel. Most are merchant mariners, but there are also some fishermen and naval seamen. The collections include documentation of mariners who signed aboard both in foreign ports and US ports. Most are 19th century, but there are also late 18th and early 20th century manuscripts. The unifying element to all the collections is that they relate to Maine. They are the papers and records of Maine mariners, Maine-built ships, Maine shipyards and Maine ship owners. The vessels and the mariners traveled to major and minor ports all over the world, and so the manuscripts document maritime history world-wide. All the collections contain documentation of people, ships, and firms outside the region. The shipmasters documented here occasionally served in the Navy during the Civil War so, in at least two instances, their papers include records of their naval commands. Aside from the mariners documents which we are studying in this project, the collections will include: important and revealing correspondence between captain and owner; correspondence with family; construction details of ships; charter, cargo and insurance information; and detailed documentation of port visits.