While many of us no longer create traditional scrapbooks and rely on digital solutions in the form of Pinterest, Facebook, and Flickr, there are still many examples from the long history of scrapbooking that need special care. At Heritage Protocol & University Archives, we use a variety of methods to preserve our large collection. We choose the best way to preserve while trying to maintain the original look and feel for the viewer.

Some scrapbooks have a multitude of types of materials that need extra consideration. In the over 100 scrapbooks created by the Florida State College for Women and  FSU alumni, we have found things such as bones, hair, fabric, dolls, jewelry, flowers and other plants, along with paper based memorabilia. This scrapbook has varnished wood covers that require special handling and usually a sturdy box. 

If the scrapbook is in relatively good condition (clean of obvious dirt and debris, dry, no mold, or obvious insect activity) wrapping gently, and/or boxing and storing in a cool dry place is a simple way to preserve.When tying with linen tape, we are careful not to tie so tightly that the covers or pages are damaged at the edges.

Interleaving pages containing photographs and other items with buffered or at least acid free paper can also provide  stabilization. Cutting the sheet to fir the page and gently tucking it in works well.

With photographs,  a properly cut piece of buffered or acid free paper can be slid under it to create a barrier between it and the paper it rests on. There is still the matter of the photo corners, but some separation is better than none.

If many additional sheets are needed, the spine of the scrapbook may not accommodate the extra pages. Scrapbooks that are too large, over-stuffed with objects (anything that exceeds the capacity of the binding) may need to be separated into parts, and either wrapped or boxed in sections to keep fragile items and brittle paper from falling apart.

For albums with pages that are falling apart or otherwise in bad condition (bugs, mold, etc.) it may be wise to document the pages through scanning, photocopying, or photographing, and then remove as many items as possible and preserve them individually. Documenting the original order and other details of the pages preserves the context of items and the overall creation of the scrapbook, especially if there are notations or other items to preserve that cannot be removed easily. One method for removing old photos from paper and magnetic pages (sticky, striped backing), very gently saw back and forth with fine, waxed dental floss. 

These procedure are great tips for preserving your own scrapbooks, however removing items involves tools, patience, and a steady hand. The first rule of thumb with archival materials is to “do no harm.” If you aren’t sure what to do or aren’t comfortable with some of the more aggressive techniques, simply stabilizing your scrapbook is best (see interleaving and wrapping). If you are more daring, practice on something you aren’t attached to first.

As FSU students were finishing up their final papers for the semester, at Complex Cataloging we were working on a group of theses and dissertations written by FSU students long ago. Our project involved almost 600 digitized works from graduate and undergraduate students, most of them written between 1920 and 1979. Electronic theses and dissertations are popular items for researchers: as of December 10, 2015, 1,974,053 titles in this category have been downloaded from the institutional repository. We wanted to create records that would make our digitized theses and dissertations available to anyone who needed them.

These student works are windows into the past, giving us a look at a world that no longer exists – a world where the cutting edge of school technology involved typewriting classes and film reels, where many teachers were not allowed to attend the theater, play cards, or dance.

Some of the works that we cataloged were written by teachers and librarians who were already working in the field while finishing their degrees. They wrote about the tensions and problems they had seen in their own schools and communities.

Other works included personal details from contemporary authors that are available nowhere else.

To help make these theses and dissertations part of the Digital Library, we had to come up with a way of creating records for the electronic works based on their print versions. First, an automated process was used to gather the catalog records as a batch.  Then, the Complex Cataloging team, along with Amy Weiss, Head of Cataloging and Description, updated and enhanced the catalog records in WorldCat and FSU’s catalog. The records now contain information that will allow researchers to find them in a number of ways, and to know from reading each record whether that work is the one they want. Next, Annie Glerum, Head of Complex Cataloging, developed an XSLT program that was custom tailored for this project, using more updated XPath functions than other similar programs, to transform them into the format used by the Digital Library. Once these records are added to the Digital Library, researchers will have access to these fascinating student works that not only tell us about our history, but also make a contribution to scholarship in many fields.

Judge Alfred M. Lindau and Bernard Cone at the cornerstone ceremony for Cone Hospital in 1951.

The University Libraries have entered into a partnership with the Cone Health Medical Library to digitize a large and important collection of archival materials documenting the history of Greensboro’s Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital.

Aerial view of Cone Hospital, circa 1953.

The hospital, which opened in February, 1953, was originally funded through a trust established by Bertha Cone in honor of her husband, Moses H. Cone, who was one of the founders of Cone Mills in Greensboro. The Greensboro Daily News reported that Mrs. Cone had “proposed to build the most modern hospital in the South.” It is now the flagship institution of the Cone Health network, one of the largest healthcare providers in the Southeast.

Moses H. Cone.

The Cone Hospital collection contains historical information about the Cone family, who were instrumental in the development of Greensboro into the city that it is today, and a wealth of material on the background, construction, and ongoing operations and growth of Cone Hospital. Included are historical records, construction photographs, newsletters, rate books, and procedure manuals.

Of particular interest is material related to the 1963 Simkins v. Cone case which resulted in a ruling by the United States Supreme Court ending segregation in publicly-funded hospitals. Cone Health Medical Library Director Edward Donnald described the collection as “a significant historical resource with local, regional, and even national interest.”

The project will digitize more than 16,000 items from the collection during 2016, and all material will be made publicly available as part of the local history portal of UNCG Digital Collections.

The partners are currently working on a grant proposal to digitize additional medical history collections held by Cone Health, the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives at UNCG, and the Greensboro Historical Museum.

(Note: Some of the quotes in this post were taken from the October, 2015, issue of Code U, the Cone Health newsletter.)

We selected this week’s magician, June McComb, on the basis of her bibliophilic prop, which appears to be an enormous book on a TV tray table and/or an extra-tall luggage rack.

June, in her sharp yet seasonally-confusing outfit of fur cape and silky leotard, was, according to a writer from The Ireland Magic Co., “probably the prettiest girl in magic in the whole world.” (Let’s envision, just for a moment, a world where male magicians of the 1950’s were praised for being “perhaps the handsomest man in magic in the whole world,” and/or where they performed in heavily accessorized satin bathing suits.)

The photo above comes from Ireland’s 1955 Year Book, published in Chicago by The Ireland Magic Company. The internet has several videos of June McComb in action, for those who would like to see more of this “glamorous girl magician”.

P.S. Her shoes!

WNYC host Oscar Brand died Friday at age 96. This is a tribute by WNYC archivist Andy Lanset published last year.

Until I met him, I used to think of a barefoot Oscar Brand roaming about the station, a guitar slung over his shoulder, strumming and singing folksongs. That’s because when Oscar started, announcers always introduced him as “WNYC’s shoeless troubadour.”

At that time, his theme song was an earnest entreaty to women of the city to leave their homes and “dance by the light of the moon.” 

Sometimes it was “yon Municipal moon,” or even “the WNYC moon.” But Oscar hasn’t done that for some time. While theme songs do change, Oscar’s show is still pretty much the same as it’s always been, a showcase of folk music talent, and veritable Who’s Who of folk music for the last seven decades. You name them, Oscar has had them in the studio, recorded them for the show or just simply played their albums. They include Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Pete Seeger, Huddie Ledbetter, Woody Guthrie, Jean Ritchie, and Josh White, to name a few. You see, it is indeed a very long list.

Oscar Brand with Pete Seeger, Josh White Jr., and Odetta for Oscar’s 50th anniversary in 1995.
(Christine Butler/WNYC Archive Collections)

Of course, Oscar has been an extremely busy fellow for the last 70 years, pretty much since he got out of the army. Along with being on WNYC, he’s cut a whole lot of records, written a bunch of songs and ballads, been a TV host, an emcee, composed music for a Broadway musical, been an actor, author, narrator, storyteller, musicologist, historian, game show contestant, playwright, children’s recording artist, American Music Festival host, Curator for the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an honorary Ph.D. and won two Peabody’s, among other awards. One of those other honors is from the Guinness Book of World Records (can you guess?) for having the world’s longest-running radio show with the same host.  And if that wasn’t enough, rumor has it he’s also the namesake of Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch. Now that’s a legacy.

Oscar Brand
(WNYC Archive Collections)

While it would be great if we had a copy of Oscar’s very first show, alas, we don’t. The earliest edition of The Folksong Festival I’ve been able to find was recorded for Labor Day in 1946.  You can listen to it below.

Hear Oscar celebrate Folksong Festival’s 70th anniversary at 10pm every Saturday in December on AM 820.

More Oscar!

Celebrating Oscar – The 60th Anniversary Special hosted by Leonard Lopate

Classic Oscar from the 1940s and 50s.

Oscar Interviews Bob Dylan – A Soundcheck Reprise

The Official Oscar Brand Home Page

Students taking a new course on Interpretation and Exhibition Design have created two new displays in the university library using material from our archive collections. The third year undergraduate students were given the task of exploring our John Grierson and Norman McLaren archives and researching, planning and installing exhibitions based on material in the collections.

The two displays focus on particular aspects of the work of the two Stirling-born filmmakers chosen by the students. The display in the archives reading room cases looks at John Grierson’s time at the GPO Film Unit, which he joined in 1933. The library wall features material relating to Norman McLaren’s experiments with hand-drawn images and sound, with particular reference to his 1940 film Dots.

The exhibitions will be on display in the university library until Friday 26 February 2016.

Part of student exhibition looking at Norman McLaren’s interpretation of sound in his films.

Camera featured in John Grierson display.

Lise Summers
Friday, December 4, 2015 – 11:33

Digitisation and copyright at the SROWA

For the past three months, people coming to our new catalogue system have been able to enjoy looking at one of the records in our collection – “Unidentified Flying Objects”, from the WA Police Department (https://archive.sro.wa.gov.au/index.php/unidentified-flying-objects-1964-2885).  In the first week of it being made available we had over 1,000 visitors to that page, and it has remained in our “popular this week” section ever since.  But all good things must come to an end and we have to take this file off the catalogue. Why?  Because for this type of file we must meet our obligations under the Copyright Act (1968).

Copyright exists in a range of different works, including artistic and written works, like the reports and small illustrations that dot the file. Generally, the Crown owns copyright in State archives created by government agencies. However, the UFO file contains a couple of police reports from private individuals, in their own words, so the copyright in these, as opposed to the rest of the file, belongs to those individuals.

Libraries and archives are able to provide individual copies of works to users for private research and study and with a view to publication, but the Copyright Act places some limits on what we can do. With regard to the UFO file we digitized, we did so because we were able to copy and communicate items containing material for which we do not hold the copyright for the special purpose of promoting our new catalogue, which it did well.

The UFO file in question is in the open access period for police records, so you can still come and see the original in the State Records Office.  Should you know or have contact details for Valerie Joyce Casley, Ronald Victor Lind or Valma Murray, please let us know so that we can get the necessary permissions to make the file available online promptly.  Should we not be contacted by the copyright owners within the next three months, we will re-install the UFO file in our catalogue for public access and research purposes and to better manage our collection.  Should we be contacted by the copyright owner subsequently, we will remove the digitised item from our catalogue at their request. This approach is consistent with the Copyright Act, and best practice among archives and libraries for managing orphan works.

Copyright law is complex. Concerns about copyright can limit what cultural institutions, such as the State Records Office, can do.  In an age of increasing digitization, cultural institutions around the world are trying to find ways to manage copyright and meet a growing demand for online access to their collections.  In 2015, the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) launched a ‘cooking for copyright’ campaign to highlight some of the problems that copyright is causing to cultural institutions (https://fair.alia.org.au/cookingforcopyrighthttps://fair.alia.org.au/cookingforcopyright).  In the UK, museums, libraries and archives put out blank sheets in place of letters written in World War 1, to highlight the length of time unpublished works were in copyright and the difficulties in finding out who the author was, when they died, and who held copyright, http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/05112014-copyright-battle-over-orphan-works.

In 1952, the International Council of Scientific Unions proposed an International Geophysical Year (IGY) (which was actually the 18 months from July 1957-December 1958).  Members of the global scientific community would coordinate their efforts in order to enhance human understanding of the Earth.  Special attention was to be given to the Antarctic continent, for which comprehensive data did not exist.  To this end, twelve nations established 36 scientific stations on the Antarctic Ice Shelf in the years leading up to the IGY.  Little America V was one of six bases established by the United States during this time.  (Four previous bases named Little America had existed in other locations on the continent, but had been discontinued.)  Logistical support for the base was delegated to the US Navy by the US Department of Defense, as Navy seaplanes had already been operating on the Antarctic continent for decades; Navy forces under Admiral Richard E. Byrd had been essential to the establishment of previous US research facilities there.

The resulting Navy mission, Operation Deep Freeze, was planned in two phases, to avoid flying during the punishing Antarctic winter.  Deep Freeze I ran during the 1955-1956 austral summer, delivering equipment necessary to outfit the six research bases.  Lieutenant Commander Robert E. Hancock Jr. was a supply officer with the US Navy, and spent much of 1957 on the Ross Ice Shelf as a result of Deep Freeze II, which ran further supplies to Little America V and other bases from October 1956 to February 1957.  Hancock brought many souvenirs back from Antarctica, including photographs, Navy-issue maps and survival guides, schematics of Little America V, and coal from the volcano at Mt. Erebus.

Later in life, Hancock collected other artifacts related to Antarctic exploration, including model ships and aircraft, an empty can of cocoa from one of Captain Robert Scott’s expeditions, even ceramic and glass penguins.  All of these items and more now reside in FSU Libraries Special Collections and Archives as the Robert E. Hancock Jr. Antarctic Collection, and are open to all researchers from the FSU community and general public.

Operation Deep Freeze and the International Geophysical Year each had lasting impact on the global community.  Cooperation among international scientists in Antarctica laid the foundation for the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, which still guarantees that no single country will claim territorial sovereignty over the Antarctic continent.  The IGY saw the first scientific satellite launches by the United States and Soviet Union, and thus the birth of the “space race” that led to the creation of NASA and the multiple agencies of the Soviet space program.  Deep Freeze has continued far beyond its initial two phases in 1955 and 1956, and today,  under the command of the US Air Force, still services military and civilian bases across Antarctica.

Further Reading:

Robert E. Hancock, Jr. Antarctic Collection, Special Collections, Florida State University Libraries, Tallahassee, Florida.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. “The International Geophysical Year.” Accessed December 3, 2015. http://www.nas.edu/history/igy/

National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. “IGY History:  International Geophysical Year.” Accessed December 3, 2015.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/obop/spo/igy_history.html

Ellery D. Wallwork & Kathryn A. Wilcoxson.  Operation Deep Freeze: 50 Years of US Air Force Airlift in Antarctica, 1956-2006.  Scott Air Force Base, Illinois: Office of History, Air Mobility Command, 2006.

We had another successful run showcasing our moving image series at the Vancity Theatre this past November. Every year, we are thrilled to see the enormous interest our screenings generate. We are aware that due to sellouts, the theatre must turn away many hopeful theatre goers. To accommodate as many people as possible, each year we will continue to hold multiple screenings, and rerun previous years’ screenings. You can also view all past shows on our YouTube channel, including this year’s Vancouver – A Distant Mirror and Reflecting the City (Redux). Please note that online content will not include pre-screening projected snipes and presentations, or any commentary or music accompaniment. For more information about the most recent screenings, please visit our previous post.

We hope to see you at our 2016 show!

Listed below are the four sections of Vancouver – A Distant Mirror, and the individual archival films featured.

Filming Friends and Family
Hamber family films (1920s to 1930s)
excerpts
AM1036-S10-: MI-137, MI-150 and MI-151

George Thompson family films (1920s to 1930s)
excerpts
AM1590-: 2011-016.3

W.J. Lloyd family films (1930s)
excerpt
AM1487-: 2013-062.1

Noel B. Daniels family films (1964)
excerpt
AM1487-: 2013-062.3

Out with a Camera
We Drivers (part 1) (c. 1936-39)
excerpts
AM1487-: 2013-020.10

Old Vancouver 1948 #1 (1948)
excerpts
AM1601-S1-: 2012-010.01

Here’s the Score for ’64 (1964)
excerpt
AM1487-: 2013-062.3

Old False Creek
The new Granville Bridge (1954)
excerpts
COV-S361-: 2013-020.08

Sweeney Cooperage films
From Log To Barrel (1962)
excerpt
AM1033-: 2013-015.5

Drop In – CBC (1972) [NOT part of YouTube video due to copyright]
excerpt
AM1033-: 2013-015.4

Page 12 Cameras visit Sweeney Cooperage – KVOS Bellingham (c. 1972)
AM1033-: 2013-015.1

A Distant Mirror
Scenes of Vancouver (1942)
excerpts
AM1611-: 2012-033.04

Our Hit Parade (1955)
excerpts
Item No. 2013-020.19

Listed below are the five sections of Reflecting the City (Redux) and the individual archival films featured.

Peacetime
We drivers (part 2) (c. 1936-39)
excerpts
AM1487-: 2013-020.11

Wartime Summer
Our Outdoor Heritage (1940)
excerpts
VPK-S652-: MI-105

Not Quite Haight-Ashbury
Denman family films (1960s)
excerpts
AM1487-: MI-590, MI-591 and MI-595

V.R.B. Dead or Alive? (1977)
excerpts
AM1323-: LEG181.3

Neighbourhood Improvement Program (1976) excerpt
AM1323-: LEG181.4

Getting Around
New Westminster: Bridges (c. 1936)
excerpt
AM1591-: 2011-089.032

Vancouver Low Cost Street Program (1971)
PUB-: MI-27

Urban Transportation (1971)
excerpt
AM1487-: 2010-028.2

Bicycle Ride (1974)
AM1487-: 2012-029.001

Free Wheelin’: show #6 (1992)
excerpt
AM1651-: 2010-025.45

Cycle!: show #3 (1995)
excerpt
AM1651-: 2010-025.14

Almost Yesterday
Trading Post (1967) [NOT part of YouTube video due to copyright]
excerpt
AM1487-: LEG188.7

Rogers’ Golden Syrup Ad: Bob Lenarduzzi 1980)
AM1592-: 2011-092.0553

Province Reports – “That’s the BC Spirit” (1982)
AM1553-8-S10-: MI-357

Stadium (1983)
AM1553-8-S11-: MI-251

NPA Spot (Bill Vander Zalm) (1984)
AM1553-: MI-348 

Expo ’86 North American Consumer Television Campaign (1985)
AM1487-: 2006-105.1

It’s citrus season in the Northeast, and to celebrate, the archives offers this 1949 recipe for honey baked grapefruit. This clip – an interview with then Florida Governor Fuller Warren – is from a WNYC program we’ve yet to identify.

We’re not sure how popular baked grapefruit was in the 1940s, and we were only able to find one instance of it on a contemporary restaurant menu: Thanksgiving dinner at the Hotel New Yorker in 1937.

This audio is part of a longer eight minute interview with Warren, which you can listen to in its entirety below. The Governor had been up to New York on official business and dropped by the studios to talk about a wide range of topics, like removing livestock from the Florida highways and the proper way of pronouncing Florida town names.

Many thanks to Rebecca Sims for the photo.  You can find her version of baked grapefruit here. The original airdate for the audio was December 2nd, 1949. Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

So, the title is more akin to Halloween than the newly arrived holiday season but this new digital collection fits the saying.

70 herbals and cookbooks have been added to the FSU Digital Library over the last month.

Herbals, which describe the appearance of medicinal plants, tell how to gather, prepare, preserve and store them. These books contribute to the work of physicians, pharmacists and botanists by providing data about the indication and dosage of these plants. Elizabethan literature is filled with references to herbal lore, herbs and their uses, herb gardens, and manners and customs associated with herbs and their use. Thus herbals can provide a vivid background of life in times past.

An interest in cookbooks and household management is a legacy from FSU’s earliest years as a women’s college. Cookbooks are held in our Rare Book, Florida and Scottish collections. The oldest in our cookbook collection is from 1622 Venice.

These books are pulled from various collections housed in Special Collections & Archives but are presented as a single collection in the FSUDL as they often would have been used in tandem by the women of the household to feed and keep healthy their families.

Please explore the collection – maybe you’ll find a recipe for a holiday meal to remember (or the secret recipe for treating warts from the 16^th century).

For 30-plus years, Tony Schwartz produced WNYC programs that uncannily captured the diversity and vitality of the people that lived and worked in and around New York City. In this clip from 1964’s Adventures in Sound, straphangers speak about their joys and frustrations, most of which will sound familiar to today’s riders. Original Air date January 7, 1964

After capturing sounds familiar an unfamiliar to 21st century riders (token turnstiles; the roaring of the cars pulling into the station; the drone of the train, in which “you can hear a beauty” when it is heard in isolation), Schwartz focuses on the riders themselves. The 1964 straphangers speak about their joys and frustrations, most of which will sound familiar to today’s riders.

For 30-plus years, Tony Schwartz produced WNYC programs that uncannily captured the diversity and vitality of the people that lived and worked in and around New York City.After capturing sounds familiar an unfamiliar to 21st century riders (token turnstiles; the roaring of the cars pulling into the station; the drone of the train, in which “you can hear a beauty” when it is heard in isolation), Schwartz focuses on the riders themselves. The 1964 straphangers speak about their joys and frustrations, most of which will sound familiar to today’s riders.

For 30-plus years, Tony Schwartz produced WNYC programs that uncannily captured the diversity and vitality of the people that lived and worked in and around New York City.After capturing sounds familiar an unfamiliar to 21st century riders (token turnstiles; the roaring of the cars pulling into the station; the drone of the train, in which “you can hear a beauty” when it is heard in isolation), Schwartz focuses on the riders themselves. The 1964 straphangers speak about their joys and frustrations, most of which will sound familiar to today’s riders.

For 30-plus years, Tony Schwartz produced WNYC programs that uncannily captured the diversity and vitality of the people that lived and worked in and around New York Cit