Hidden Collections Registry - Dev

Items

• Rocky Mountain Jewish Medical Heritage Collection

  The four institutions which comprise the Rocky Mountain Jewish Medical Collection (National Jewish Hospital for Consumptives (NJH), the Jewish Consumptives' Relief Society (JCRS), the National Asthma Center (formerly the Denver Sheltering Home for Jewish Children) and the Ex-Patient's Home), reflect the medical history of tuberculosis treatment in the United States as well as the central role the Jewish community played in social welfare and philanthropy. Although they were all located in Denver, Colorado, patients and supporters of the four institutions hailed from all areas of the United States. Tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Each collection separately reflects the pivotal and unique role the Colorado Jewish community played in the national tuberculosis crusade of the twentieth century. Together, the four collections are a rare and rich treasure which reflect the diverse history of immigration, ethnicity, and medicine in America.

• Providing access and minimum description to backlog collections

  The Dood Research Center has a backlog of approximately 280 archival and manuscript collections for which there are no finding aids, catalog descriptions or preliminary access tools. The collections included in the backlog include materials acquired under the following areas of our collection development policy (http://doddcenter.uconn.edu/collections/cd/cd_policy_2008.htm): University Archives, Literary, Children's Literature, BusinessNursing and Political collections, as well as rare manuscripts and personal papers collections and organizational records. Within each of these collecting areas are collections of international significance such as the Papers of Bill Berkson, Tom Clark, William Costley, Michael McClure and Tom Raworth, Michael Rumaker (20th century American poets); Leonard Weisgard, Donald Carrick, Shelley Orr, Hilary and Clayton Knight (children's literature authors and illustrators); Pratt & Whitney Photograph Collection, and National Organization of Women (Connecticut and Rhode Island) Records. Records of the UConn Schools of Medicine, Dental Health, Allied Health and Family Studies represent some of the earliest institutional records that reside in the Dodd Center and provide a record of the university's development and significant achievements.

• Cataloging the Archives Collections of ROCS @ NSIDC

  These collections are a resource for people studying Earth's frozen regions, the history of science, or past climate related to the Earth's frozen regions. Included are materials from early expeditions to Alaska, the Alps, South and Central America, and Greenland. They also include thousands of maps, photographic prints, glass plate negatives, color slides, ice charts, and 38 cu ft of manuscript materials. These field notebooks and records contain not only scientific data but also personal accounts of daily life on the expedition, detailed sketches of glaciers and records of each photograph taken during the trip. Some examples include the field notebooks, manuscript collection, maps, and glass plate negatives and prints of Harry Fielding Reid (1859-1944), considered to be America's first geophysicist. Also included are the records of William S. Cooper (1884-1978), who chaired a committee of the Ecological Society of America, which was instrumental in the establishment of Glacier Bay National Monument (now a National Park); the field notebooks and photographs of Lawrence Martin (1880-1955), who spent time in the early 1900s on expeditions to Alaska and from 1924-1946 served as Chief of the Division of Maps at the Library of Congress; nearly 500 photographs donated by Bradford Washburn, pioneering mountain photographer and cartographer; Austin Post's 22-year photographic record of glaciers and glacier change in the northwestern United States is held on microfilm.

• The Edward R. Roybal Papers, 1919-2003

  The Edward R. Roybal Papers, 1919-2003, document the life of a Latino public figure who became the first Latino elected to the Los Angeles City Council and the U.S. Congress from California since the 19th century. This collection contains extensive materials that reflect his role in shaping local, state, and national policy, and would support new research into each of these areas with emphases in bilingual education, housing reform, aging, health care, immigration, and veterans services. Roybal was instrumental in establishing one statewide and two national organizations aimed at increasing Latino political participation. This collection is also significant because of the extensive photographic materials it contains spanning over six decades. To date, the available photographic record of the Latino community is uneven. The collection includes extensive correspondence between Roybal and national and California political figures, but also with his constituents, including five linear feet related to the Vietnam War. The collection also documents the regional and national significance of Los Angeles politics and the development of Latino civic participation since the late 1940s. While the Roybal collection has been referenced in two recent books, the depth of materials used thus far has been limited insofar as the collection is unprocessed. This collection is ideal for scholars in history, American and ethnic studies, political science, urban planning, and community health.

• Pocket Collections

  The Clark Library has identified six separate collections to be cataloged: 1. Ward Ritchie (1905-1996): 2500 monographs, serials, pamphlets, and clippings on both fine and commercial printing, typography, papermaking, and the history of the book, published during the 19th and 20th centuries, from Ritchie's personal library. A collection of about 10 boxes of personal papers, artwork, and ephemera. 2. Richard Popkin (1923-2005): a donation of approximately 100 cartons of archives and personal papers used in his study and writing of religion and the history of philosophy. 3. William Roscoe (1753-1851): a donation of 220 books, dating from the 18th-20th centuries, comprising contemporary and modern publications of his works. 4. James MacNeill Whistler (1834-1903): 780 books published in the late 19th through mid-20th centuries, primarily in English, comprising works about him, works illustrated by him, as well a multi-volume portfolio of his etchings. 5. History of women collection: a collection of about 100 books, primarily in French, but also in English and German, from the 17th and 18th centuries. 6. Engraved music : a collection of 200 scores, dating primarily from the 17th and 18th centuries, comprising operas, sonatas, and scores for instrumental music.

• Los Angeles Art in Primary Source Sound and Moving Images: Deep Indexing to Mine Hidden Time-based Content

  This is a collaborative project to provide deep access to sound and moving image content documenting the arts in Los Angeles and the region's impact on the arts globally. Project partners are: UCLA Moving Image Archive Studies (MIAS students will catalog the items), and the Audiovisual Archive Network, an independent nonprofit library of historical audiovisual content that will host the collections and provide the cataloging and access environment. The project will catalog and provide access to collections held at these 8 institutions. 1. Archives of American Art (Smithsonian). 2. Stanford University Libraries W.A.R. (Women Art Revolution) Collection. 3. California Institute of the Arts Moving Image Archive: filmed and videotaped lectures by art, film, music, theatre, and dance faculty, including documentation of "Womanhouse." 4.Filmforum: video oral histories of filmmakers and artists involved with the L.A. experimental film scene from 1975-2000. 5. Pacifica Radio Archives: radio programs with artists, composers, architects, writers, and other creators that were broadcast on KPFK 1965-1994. 6. National Museum of American History: jazz oral histories. 7. Los Angeles Dance Foundation: performances by the American Repertory Dance Theatre. 8. GYST: Interviews with artists and curators active in L.A.'s alternative space and political art scene. Also video documentation of NAAO's defense of the "NEA 4."
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  Cataloging Hidden Archives of the University of California Museum of Paleontology

  The UCMP archives provide the paleontologic, geologic, historical, legal, and sociological context for the several million fossil specimens that comprise our unparalleled collections. They also document the lives of prominent western pioneers, such as Annie Alexander, Joseph LeConte, J.C. Merriam, and John Muir, and have bearing on the history of higher education, natural resources, public policy and public administration, and the establishment of many western National Parks, State Parks and National Forests. They include detailed field notes and annotated papers and maps made by more than 300 scientists and students, some of which document localities that are now lost or destroyed. Thousands of original drawings, newspaper clippings, and photographic documentation of specimens and field sites exist in a wide variety of formats [lantern slides, glass photo plates, large format negatives, 35 mm slides, negatives and prints]. For example, we have photographs of the paleontological artwork of William Gordon Huff, who sculpted the paleontological exhibits for the Golden Gate Exposition of 1939 and 1940; most of this artwork is now missing and presumed destroyed. Also included are the professional correspondence, research notes, libraries, and manuscripts from internationally acclaimed UC faculty, dating from the end of the 19th century to the present and representing the primary archive of this type of scientific work on the west coast.

• Designing the 20th Century: Four Hidden Architectural Collections

  Following World War II California was a leader in housing and school design and developing suburban communities. This project will promote rich archival collections created by four California modernists architects practicing during the later half of the 20th Century: Warren Callister (1917- 2008), Ernest Kump (1911 -1999), Donlyn Lyndon (1936 - ) and Donald Olsen (c. 1920 - ) and make them accessible for the first time. The collections include sketches, drawings, photographs, and project files for mid-century homes, suburbs, schools, commercial centers, and other elements of the built environment throughout California, the United States, the Virgin Islands, Australia, and the Middle East. They provide a wealth of material that encourages an understanding of the design aesthetic of mid-century modernism, the cultural and architectural influence of The Sea Ranch, and the architecture that came before and after. This project will support the increasing scholarly interest in this period demonstrated by a growing number of publications, exhibits, presentations, and dissertations. When the structures no longer exist, these records are all that remain to provide this knowledge about the history and context of the cultural landscape. Arrangement, description, and proper housing are essential in order to locate and provide records to scholars, students, architectural practitioners, preservationists, homeowners, and historical researchers without putting the material at risk.

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

  This special collection of over 3,500 books, manuscripts, broadsides, newspapers, pamphlets and devotionals covers practically all aspects of life in Mexico (New Spain) from the mid-16th to the mid-19th centuries. The historical value of these materials is obvious; they are also of interest to scholars in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, military history, political science, philosophy, religion, civil and canon law, literature, and the sciences and arts. This is a standard library collection rather than an archival one. Of the approximately 3,500 items in the collection, only about 15% have been cataloged. It is anticipated that only another 200 titles will be cataloged by January 2011. Therefore, the plan for cataloging the remainder of the collection is: Approximately 500 manuscripts, broadsides, documents and ephemera, to be cataloged with the help of a visiting librarian from Mexico; Approximately 2000 monographs (printed books and broadsides) to be processed with the help of students, plus about 200 issues of serials (chiefly newspapers); and 1 painting.
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  Grove Press and a New American Morality

  The records of avant-garde publisher Grove Press span the years 1953 to 1985. While Grove was based in New York City, its list of titles, authors, and subjects was international in scope. Subjects and genres range from Victorian erotica and literary modernism to post-colonial Latin America and Africa. Grove's author list included such luminaries as William Burroughs (America), Samuel Beckett (England), Jean Genet (France), Bertolt Brecht (Germany), Frantz Fanon (Martinique), Kenzaburo Oe (Japan), and Pablo Neruda (Chile). The archive itself is comprised of manuscript drafts, correspondence, and photographs, as well as editorial, film, and publicity files for Grove and for its landmark literary magazine "The Evergreen Review." There are extensive legal records relating to the obscenity trials sparked by the publication of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" and "Tropic of Cancer." The collection includes 2,500 print titles, many of them first editions in excellent condition.

• Social Activism in Western New York

  Social activism--intentional action of individuals, groups, and institutions to change peoples' conditions--is organic to human history. Often overlooked in the telling of national or global history, local and regional histories offer rich insight into how people have organized and worked on behalf of evolving their communities. The University Archives' unprocessed social activism collections from the 19th and 20th centuries are the center of this project. The collections are YMCA Buffalo Niagara records, 1852-2000 (47.5 lin. ft.); Rev. Herman J. Hahn papers, 1888-1983 (10 lin. ft.); ACLU Niagara Frontier Chapter records, 1935-74 (57.5 lin. ft.); Western New York Peace Center records, 1967-2000 (51.25 lin. ft.); and David G. Jay Papers re. Arthur v. Nyquist, 1970-89 (55 lin. ft.). These collections from the Buffalo and Western New York area document for the period 1852-2000 the role of individuals and organizations in protesting against war and violence, promoting improved social and economic conditions, working to ensure equal rights for all, and promoting an environment in which all, regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity, can realize their full potential. Papers of local individuals, grass-root groups, and formal organizations will come together to tell vivid interrelated stories that mirror and further define national and world history.
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  Documenting Mexican American & Latino Civil Rights: Records of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund & CA Rural Legal Assistance

  The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) was incorporated in 1967 and has evolved into one of the most influential and effective organizations working to protect the civil rights of Mexican Americans and Latinos throughout the United States. The MALDEF records that are unprocessed and inaccessible to researchers date from 1984-2002 and total 2,108 linear feet. Included in the collection are administrative records, special project files, media, and litigation case files focusing on issues such as employment discrimination, education rights, reproductive rights, and voting rights. Founded in 1966, California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) is a legal advocacy organization for the rural poor in California, focusing primarily on issues faced by Mexican American migrant workers. This collection, spanning 1966-2004 and totaling 329 linear feet, contains administrative records, project files, press releases, clippings, and case files. Many of the materials in this collection provide additional insight into the legal issues confronted by MALDEF, including those related to bilingual education and the rights of undocumented immigrants. While these two organizations often serve overlapping communities, they have different and distinct missions: CRLA focuses on helping the rural poor in California and MALDEF focuses on assisting Mexican Americans throughout the United States.

• Unveiling Images of Our Southern Past: Increasing Access to Visual Materials through Innovative Arrangement, Description and Collaboration

  The South Carolina Historical Society (SCHS) is the largest manuscript repository in the South Carolina Lowcountry. For more than 150 years, the SCHS has been dedicated to the acquisition, preservation and publication of archival material pertaining to the history and culture of South Carolina. In pursuit of these goals, the SCHS has accumulated over 30,000 photographs, drawings, albums, scrapbooks, etchings, silhouettes, and prints. This rich assemblage includes images of slave cabins, burial grounds, agricultural and industrial labor, rice cultivation, interior and exterior views of historic residences (many of which have been lost to floods, fires, hurricanes, or neglect), family gatherings, baptisms, urban street scenes, festivals, waterside commerce and much more. Collectively, these images document the daily lives of women, children, laborers, artisans, elite plantation owners, overseers,immigrants, refugees, and soldiers in both urban and rural settings. Currently, these valuable cultural artifacts remain an untapped resource for increasing the understanding of South Carolina's role in the shaping of America and the Atlantic World. With CLIR support for the "Unveiling Images of Our Southern Past" (hereafter referred to as the "Unveiling Visual Materials") project, the SCHS will have the means to process and catalog these tremendously valuable resources, making them available for research and interpretation at the local, state, and national levels.

• Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's Audio/Visual Archive

  The National Portrait Gallery Audio/Video Archive is a rich collection of both original and post-production audio and visual materials constituting the historical evidence of the Gallery's programs since its opening in 1968. The media ranges in content and subject matter from unique dialogues with significant personalities, biographical footage of national figures, and educational symposia to impromptu publicity-related interviews with artists and curators, portrait presentation ceremonies, and gallery tours with staff. Original productions by the National Portrait Gallery include interviews with living Vice Presidents Cheney, Mondale and Quayle as well as former President George H. W. Bush for "Presidents in Waiting", and with World War II journalists Robert St. John, John Hersey and Bill Mauldin for "Reporting the War: The Journalistic Coverage of World War II"; one-on-one dialogues from our distinct educational program series--Living Self Portraits--with such well-known political, cultural, sports and social figures as Clare Booth Luce, Dorothy Height, Gordon Parks, Jesse Owens and Al Hirshfeld. These broadcast, production and program-based interviews with scholars, staff, national figures, and exhibition-related personalities have appeared in NPG-produced gallery enhancements as well as on C-SPAN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS. Historical and documentary footage of our home, the Old Patent Office Building, and the Portrait Gallery as an institution are also included.

• Expanding Access to Native American Film & Video of the Western Hemisphere

  The National Museum of the American Indian's Film and Video Center [F&VC] contemporary Media Collection is one of the world's most important and comprehensive study collections of films and videos by and about Native Americans. It is truly unique in both its content and scope. Works include significant productions made since the mid-1970s, when Native media-makers first began creating films and videos in the U.S. The Collection also includes social documentaries and works for broadcast by non-Native independent filmmakers dating from the 1970s to the present day. Many works in the Collection -- particularly those produced by Native Americans during the past 10 years--are works of creative expression that reflect the diversity of Native viewpoints and the many interests of Native communities throughout the Americas. They include narrative and documentary features, short subjects, comedies, animations, and youth productions, both fiction and non-fiction. A significant number have been produced in Spanish, Portuguese or French and in indigenous languages such as Hata Kui, Yup'ik, Cree, Tzotzil and Quechua (many now have English or Spanish subtitles). The Collection also features a significant number of unique video and audio recordings made by the F&VC since 1984. These include interviews with indigenous filmmakers and documentation of discussions with filmmakers during NMAI screening programs and media symposia.

• Revealing Native American History, Lifeways, and Heritage: National Museum of the American Indian Photo and Media Archives Cataloging Project

  As a part of the Smithsonian Institution, the National Museum of the American Indian's Archive Center is the preeminent repository for primary sources documenting indigenous history, lifeways, and traditions. The Photo Archive ethnographic collection contains approximately 125,000 images (negatives, vintage prints, transparencies, lantern slides, glass-plate negatives, color slides, and digital photos) comprising one of the foremost collection of images of Native American culture and history from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. The collection includes historic scenes, portraits, and field photographs of the Museum's ethnographic and archaeological expeditions in North America, Mexico, and South and Central America. The Media Archive historic collection consists of over approximately 5,000 video tapes, motion picture films, and audio recordings, dating from 1902 to the present. Native communities from North and South America are represented in field work, interviews, documentary recordings, and performances. NMAI's collection contains a vast array of formats from throughout the history of audiovisual recording, including motion picture film, analog and digital video tape recordings, and audio recordings on wax cylinders, phonograph discs, audio tape, and compact disc. This collection is a major archive of endangered indigenous lifeways, traditions, and history. Together, the Photo and Media Archives provide a rich, diverse account of Native peoples.

• Archive of Women's Military History

  Highlights: singular biographical material relating to three-dimensional artifacts documenting women's military history in the SI holdings (1860s - present). 100+ Civil War letters and related documents exchanged by a mother and son describing the war from home and battlefront (1860s). Rare photographs, records, certificates, and individual personal memorabilia of the first women inducted into the US Navy (WWI Yeoman (F), 1917-1921). WWI records of uniformed volunteer women of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America documenting their wartime work in diverse secular, religious, and military organizations (1914-1923). Photos and memorabilia of the Women's Airforce Service Pilots of WWII (1942-45). Records, oral history and significant collection of documents of the first US woman to achieve the rank of general (1930s-1980s). A special collection documenting the life of a woman in the UN Relief Agency (UNRA), 1940s. Memorabilia of WWI and WWII special services and USO women. POW documentation of Rhonda Cornum, flight surgeon captured in Iraq in 1991. "Rosie the Riveter" documentation from women workers in WWII. Letters, diaries, oral histories scrapbooks, photographs and ephemera of military women who have served during the past 60 years. Numerous contemporary manuscripts of books, conference papers, and other research material.
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  Islamic Arts of the Book at the Smithsonian: Providing for Research Across Disciplines

  Together, the Freer and Sackler have the finest collections of illustrated manuscripts from the Islamic world in the U. S. The collections contain extremely rare illustrated texts, tremendous depth in certain formative periods, such as fourteenth-century and sixteenth century Iran, and thematic depth in illustrated copies of the Shanama. These rare texts have no searchable or comprehensive catalogue, yet they could offer an incomparable resource for inter-disciplinary research. The challenge is to produce catalogue records for a museum collection compatible with description standards used by libraries. Comprising 1,200 manuscripts and folios of paintings and calligraphy, the collections include Korans from the late eighth to the late nineteenth centuries, but are especially celebrated for illustrated literary works from Iran. These works include Balami’s Tarikhnama (ca. 1300), probably the earliest extant illustrated world history from the Islamic world, and one of two extant copies in the world of the Divan (collected works) of Sultan Husayn Jalayir (1402), containing the earliest examples of ink drawings from West Asia. The Freer and Sackler also hold the largest repositories in the United States of illustrated texts and individual paintings of the Shahnama (Book of kings) by Firdawsi (d. 1020), the Khamsa (Quintet) by Nizami (d.1209) and the Haft Awrang (Seven thrones) by the fifteenth century poet Jami (d. 1492).

• Uncovering Audio Visual Media Documenting Post-modern Art at the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

  This project will support the archival processing and EAD (Encoded Archival Description) description of thirteen media-rich manuscript collections totaling 150 linear feet. Collections contain traditional paper records and 1091 media objects, including material in seven video formats, three audio formats, and two film formats. These 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. A complete list of the individual collections may be found in the attached Project Plan. The audio visual media in these collections are unique one-of-a-kind documentation of a period in contemporary American art when ephemeral and dynamic new visual art forms were emerging in studios, art communities, galleries, and art spaces across the country. The collections preserve media-based elements of the artwork itself, such as sound art, video art, or multi-media art forms. They also preserve 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.
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  Enhancing Access to the History of San Diego and the Border Region

  San Diego alone among California’s three largest cities has an historical organization specifically dedicated to documenting its history. Founded in 1928, SDHC is the primary repository for historical materials of all kinds relating to the San Diego region. Among the institution's greatest treasures are its archival collections, which are complemented by related holdings including 2.5 million photographs and major collections of maps, ephemera, oral histories, and other materials that support scholarly research. SDHC has 284 archival collections. Support is requested to create finding aids for 133 collections for which only very preliminary finding aids (83), or no finding aids of any kind (50), exist. In addition, processing will be required for those among the 133 collections which are inadequately arranged. Only 10 finding aids of any kind are currently available via the SDHC website. Therefore, for all practical purposes SDHC's archival holdings are largely invisible to scholars. The 133 collections document topics such as Indians, filibustering expeditions into Mexico, commercial activities on both sides of the border, the temperance movement, and women's history. Collectively, they constitute a comprehensive portrait of the history and evolution of American's ninth largest city and the surrounding region, including Baja California.

• Hidden Histories: Uncovering Women in Music and Art in the Twentieth Century

  The collections address two different realms of women's artistic expression; which taken together will tell a broad story of the experience of female artists working in a variety of media and from a diverse range of backgrounds in 20th century America. The first group includes the collections of women jazz artists held by the Libraries' Institute of Jazz Studies (IJS): Ella Fitzgerald, known as America's First Lady of Song; Abbey Lincoln, a singular vocal stylist, composer, and civil rights activist; Annie Ross, vocalese pioneer recently named an NEA Jazz Master; Victoria Spivey, blues singer whose career extended from 1920s recordings with Louis Armstrong to a 1960s association with Bob Dylan; Wilma Dobie, pioneering promoter, journalist, and jazz activist. The second focuses on the archives of women visual artists and organizations held by the Special Collections and University Archives (SC/UA):Lucy Lippard Women's Art Registry: documentation of many women artists in the 1970s; Heresies, inc. Records: one of the key collectives in the feminist art movement; National Association of Women Artists: oldest professional organization of women artists; Elsa Honig Fine Papers: covers the publication of the Woman's Art Journal; Women's Caucus for Art: an advocacy organization for women artists. Materials include music manuscripts; personal papers; exhibition announcements; photographs; exhibit catalogs; business records; press releases; and audio and video performances.

• Houston ARCH: Collaborative LGBT Newspaper Project

  This project aims to arrange, describe, and catalog five major newspapers generated by Texas' lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities. (1) The Montrose Voice, 1980-1991: Houston-based weekly. 7 c. ft. (2) The Houston Voice, 1991-2006: Houston-based weekly. 40 c. ft. (3) The Texas Triangle, 1992-2003: State-wide weekly. 7 c. ft. (4) OutSmart, 1994-present: Houston-based monthly print publication with webpage component. 21 c. ft. (5) This Week in Texas, 1974-2010: State-wide weekly that switched to webpage only. 58 c. ft. The materials are currently housed by two members of the Houston ARCH consortium: the Gulf Coast Archive and Museum of GLBT History, Inc. (GCAM) and the Charles Botts LGBT Archives (Botts). While produced in Texas and Houston, these newspapers are of national significance. They chart the connections that a wide range of LGBT individuals, organizations, and businesses have created on a local, regional, national, and international scale from the 1970s to the present day. Directly addressing the history of LGBT populations, these newspapers also tell us about a great deal more, illuminating the broader cultural context around LGBT lives. Together, these newspaper collections offer important resources not only for Houston's LGBT communities, but also for researchers, scholars, and students from a range of fields, especially the study of history and contemporary culture.

• ONE Archives 20th Century Activists Cataloging Project

  The ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives is the oldest Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) organization in the U.S. and it holds the largest humanities collection of LGBT materials in the world. ONE began as the earliest national gay publication, ONE Magazine in 1953 and later evolved into a degree granting Institute and in the last decade has functioned as a research center at the University of Southern California. The ONE 20th Century Activism Cataloging Project will arrange, reveal and describe 17 collections (651 feet, 800 boxes) of archival materials of pioneering LGBT institutions, writers and activists. These collections document the creation of a forum to discuss sexuality in the 1950s, gay rights in the U.S., pioneering gay activists, AIDS, gays and religion, gays in the military, gay journalism, and ONE Magazine. While the project collections have been used occasionally by researchers, they are almost completely inaccessible and often lacking any order. This project will bring these collections to the attention of students, and scholars interested in the history of civil rights, health, religion, anthropology, gender studies, gay studies and various social sciences. These collections are critically relevant in documenting the evolution of social attitudes in the United States in the last half of the 20th century. Wider access to these materials will allow for discovery of numerous untapped research topics.

• History of Sustainable Agriculture: Louis Bromfield and His Legacy

  The substance of the Louis Bromfield collection falls into three areas: his agricultural writings (soil conservation, agronomy, hydrology); political writings preceding and during the Joseph McCarthy era; and his literary work (fiction, screenplays, criticism). The geographic scope is national and international, particularly Brazil and Africa. In light of current national and international issues, such as world famine and drought, access to the Bromfield Collection documents research of national and international agricultural causes and reforms of enduring importance. Bromfield's innovative theory and practice of sustainable farming is still applicable today. In fact, as an international agricultural crisis escalates, sustainable farming becomes an ever more important topic in the minds of farmers, scientists and politicians. In some cases, the Bromfield Collection contains the only extant records of such fugitive materials as transcripts of radio broadcasts and speeches to numerous business and community organizations. Bromfield's affiliation with the Friends of the Land organization provides a detailed account of the history of the early environmental movement. The extensive collection of political newspaper columns broadens the appeal of the collection. Expanded access to this collection would be of service to such disciplines as agricultural and scientific history, political history, American studies, sociology and international studies.

• Unlocking mass culture: cataloging dime novel collections at Northern Illinois University

  Dime novels are full-length novels, sold through the mail and periodical stands in the US from 1860-1930. While a book from the same period cost about $1.25, the same amount of content, packaged to look like a periodical according to the United States Post Office, was sold for a dime, opening up leisure reading to a whole new audience. The ever-evolving physical formats for dime novels document a war between the Post Office and dime novel publishers: each time the Post Office tried to define these publications as "books" (and thus charge a higher postage rate), publishers would adjust the physical format until it met the new "periodical" guidelines (and cheaper postage rates). These changing formats also served to hide this literature from scholars for decades; cataloged in the 1970s as periodicals, works by well-known 19th century authors in this format remain undocumented and unstudied by scholars. NIU holds two complementary collections of dime novels, assembled by two different collector/bibliographers: Albert Johannsen and Edward T. LeBlanc. There are approximately 42,000-44,000 individual dime novels in the two collections, constituting roughly one third of our total departmental collections, which have remained uncataloged due to lack of adequate staff. Although we are one of the three largest repositories of dime novels in the country, the strength and depth of our collections remain unknown because the records currently documenting our holdings are inadequate.