It should come as no surprise that as a city-owned and operated station, WNYC maintained a good relationship with the New York City Police Department, serving early on as part of its communications apparatus for locating missing persons. In fact, the Missing Persons Alarms or reports are among the oldest of WNYC’s regularly broadcast features, beginning with the launch of the station in July, 1924. The NYPD Missing Persons Bureau was then only six years old and under the direction of Captain John H. Ayers (1897-1943). Initially, the programs were nothing more than the names and descriptions of people who had disappeared and were sought by friends and relatives. Said Ayers:

“When the detective rings off, I direct that a radio broadcast regarding Bennett’s disappearance be made through Municipal Broadcasting Station WNYC. We give a complete description of the missing man; his age, height, weight, color of his hair, eyes, the clothing he wore, his teeth, scars, birthmarks.”[1]

WNYC Missing Persons Alarm, December 2, 1931.

Captain John H. Ayres, first Chief of the NYPD Missing Persons Bureau in 1922.

(WNYC Archive Collections)

Later, the broadcasts included short ‘sermons’ or homilies about why it is unwise to run away from home and the like, written by the announcing officers themselves. Profiling the reports in 1940, New York Sun writer Samuel Kaufman got a bit hyperbolic when he described the daily five-minute program as “packed with more drama, pathos and human interest than many stations present in a full day’s broadcast.”[2]

From 1934 to 1943, the NYPD Missing Persons Bureau was headed up by Captain John G. Stein (1879-1972), who, following in Ayres’ footsteps, also broadcast regularly from WNYC in “a clear flexible voice” radio experts called “ideal for broadcasting.”[3] Within a year of taking command of the bureau, Stein took the show from five to fifteen minutes daily and brought in four additional detectives who first had to pass an audition and reportedly opened each program with “the wail of a police siren.”[4] Among the new reader-detectives was George L. O’Connor, profiled by writer and veteran newspaperman Joseph Mitchell.

“…Every weekend throughout the winter he goes swimming among the ice floes and grapefruit rinds in the surf at Coney Island; he is in fact, President of the Icebergs Athletic Club. He writes sentimental poetry. He used to be a tap dancer with a Primrose and Dockstader minstrel show, and at 48 is still able to make a lot of noise with his shoes. ‘However,’ he said today, ‘I think my most important accomplishment is my Missing Persons human interest broadcast. I am a keen student of psychology, and I take these stories from the original files, stories of broken home ties, and broadcast them over WNYC, the municipal broadcasting station, at 1 P.M. on Sundays. I write a poem about each case and finish up with that, and I feel the broadcast is an important police service…’ ”[5]

Stein wrote the broadcasts brought in many tips and responses, including word from the missing themselves, who knew to tune in “on the

NYPD Captain John G. Stein in 1934.

(New York Times)

chance of hearing themselves described, then ‘phone in and complain if they weren’t.”[6]  The progressive tabloid PM noted that a lot of women listened  to Captain Stein over WNYC.  Because of this, Stein explained he would not broadcast the name and description of missing young women until several days had passed, at the risk of soiling a girl’s reputation.

“Why should everybody in Flatbush know Mabel wasn’t home last night? Suppose a year from now Mabel gets married. Say she married Harry. They put it in the papers. The neighbors read about it. Should they be able to discuss with each other, ‘I wonder if Harry knows about that night Mabel didn’t come home? It was on the radio. I heard it myself! Most of these things are only overnight disappearances. Girls around 16, the foolish age, when they think they know everything. Women, women!” [7]

The Missing Persons broadcasts were highlighted with the opening of the station’s new WPA-built studios on October 23, 1937. In the day’s featured radio drama, The Voice of the People, Mayor La Guardia and other officials played themselves as they extolled the virtues of the city’s radio station through a series of vignettes. In one dramatized segment a boy listener complains to his father that WNYC is boring, “No movie stars or nothin’. ”  His father, however, points out the excitement inherent in the daily Missing Persons Report direct from police headquarters. “There’s material for a dozen novels, and all true stories, too,” says the father before he describes one case solved with WNYC’s help that segues to the drama. [8] Even Time Magazine recognized the broadcast’s effectiveness in helping to find runaway girls in the big city, noting, “an appreciable few went home in response to the Bureau’s famed daily five minutes of missing persons alarms over ‘New York City’s Own Station,’ WNYC, kindly father of this sort of broadcasting…”[9] 

After what appears to be a brief hiatus, the missing person reports were reintroduced in March, 1956 with five-minute bulletins four times a week. A WNYC press release referred to the broadcasts as ‘missing persons alarms,’ that “will expedite the location of many amnesia cases, runaway youngsters and others who are reported lost by their worried families.”[10] Below, courtesy of the Municipal Archives, is the inaugural broadcast for the renewed bulletins.

At this writing it is not clear when this ‘renewed’ Missing Persons report came to an end, but the station cited the broadcasts in a submission to the FCC as late as 1982, saying, “WNYC maintains a permanent remote facility at the Police Department’s Missing Persons Bureau. On a regular basis, as it has for over 40 years, the station reports information therefrom at 1:50 PM. Finding persons as a result of the broadcasts has had noteworthy results.”[11]

Nevertheless, cooperation between the city-owned WNYC and the NYPD was part of the station’s DNA and extended to various public relations and community-oriented programs. Among the police-sponsored shows were Pals of the P.A.L. a youth variety show and a singing safety policeman  on The Police Safety Program, a show for younger children. The police and WNYC also worked closely on most issues around civil defense and on Election Day with the communications involved with the release of polling returns through the police department’s facilities. 

________________________________________

[1] Ayers, John H., and Carol Bird, Missing Men, The Story of the Missing Persons Bureau of the New York Police Department, 1932, pg.15. The screenplay for the 1933 film Bureau of Missing Persons, starring Bette Davis, was adapted from this book. 

[2] Kaufman, Samuel, “Drama in Capsule Form,” The New York Sun, 1940.

[3] Livingston, Armstrong, and John G. Stein, The Murdered and the Missing, Stephen-Paul Publishers, New York, 1947, pg. 66.

[4] “To Hunt Missing by Radio,” The New York Times, September 22, 1935, pg. N11.

[5] Mitchell, Joseph, The New York World Telegram,  May 9, 1936

[6]  Livingston, Armstrong, and Capt. John G. Stein, pg. 103.

[7] Ager, Cecelia, “The Missing Girl’s Best Friend,” PM, May 4, 1942, pg. 22.

[8] Original WNYC script for The Voice of the People, October 23, 1937 

[9] Time Magazine, February 27, 1939.

[10] WNYC Press Release, March 1, 1956.

[11] Federal Communications Commission Reports, Volume 91, Second Series, October 1982-April 1983,  Application for Special Service Authorization, Docket # 11227, September 23, 1982, pg. 773.

WNYC, the city-owned and operated station, maintained a good relationship with the New York City Police Department, serving early on as part of its communications apparatus for locating both criminals and missing persons. In fact, WNYC continued the progress initiated by WLAW, the police department’s first fully functional broadcast facility, operating between September, 1922 and August, 1924.[1].

Radio Bloodhound

In fact, long before Fox’s America’s Most Wanted and the FBI enlisting of the national media to apprehend The Ten Most Wanted List, the NYPD used WNYC to help track down criminals. In January, 1925, magazine writer James C. Young described it this way:

“The mission of WNYC is not always entertainment or instruction. It has a grim purpose, in part. Every night at 7:30 and 10:30 a man in a blue coat and prominent brass buttons sits down at the microphone. ‘WNYC broadcast,’ he says, ‘for the New York Police Department. General alarm for Harry Martin, age 30, 5 ft. 6 in. tall, weight about 140 pounds. Dark face with bold features and frowning eyes. Has a slight limp. Dangerous man. Escaped from Welfare Island early today. Believed traveling west.’ The listener rather catches his breath at such use of radio. It is an eerie thing–this pursuit of a man by air. An observer wonders what chance there will be of detecting Harry Martin among all the other men in the country of that general appearance. But his speculations are cut short by a new description, which the officer is spreading far and wide. This time another man is wanted. And presently it is another, until the department has sent out the particulars of some twelve or fifteen men whom the law demands.” [2]

The writer claimed the programming worked and that “no quicker method is known to criminal procedure, and it has the power of drama.” Similarly, he added, stolen automobiles were tracked down and missing persons found. [3]

As late as December 1994, WNYC, the NYPD and the New York City Police Foundation were planning a regular half-hour show to broadcast the mug shots and criminal records of accused murderers, thieves and violators of parole and probation over WNYC-TV, Channel 31. The program was scheduled for weeknights and offered viewers rewards of up to $1,000 for information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of suspects. [4]

Police Booth & Station House Communications

In June, 1925 The Christian Science Monitor reported on a soon-to-debut special police frequency using WNYC “to light a signal light at any police station or booth in the city,…all of them simultaneously or…in any number of selected precincts at once.” The paper explained, “the signaling is accomplished by sending dot and dash combinations of musical tone over the wavelength…The radio police alarm system is believed to mark an advance in rapid communication for the prevention of crime and the arrest of criminals…” [5]  The Bell Labs-developed system (pictured above in part) became a model for other departments. It was described in great detail in the October, 1926 Bell technical journal, which noted the NYPD planned to “equip the precinct houses and police booths located  in various parts of the city with receiving sets with which they could listen in on communications from the headquarters station WNYC.”[6]

Radio News, July, 1926.

(WNYC Archive Collections)

Cooperation between WNYC and the NYPD extended to various public relations and community-oriented programs as well. These included Pals of the P.A.L. a youth variety show and a singing safety policeman on The Police Safety Program, a show for younger children. The police and WNYC also worked closely on most issues around civil defense and on Election Day with the communications involved with the release of polling returns through the police department’s facilities.  

_________________________________________

[1] Jaker, Bill, Frank Sulek and Peter Kanze, The Airwaves of New York, “WLAW,” McFarland & Company, 1998,  pg. 109.

[2] Young, James C., “Radio-Voice of the City,” Radio Broadcast, Vol. 6, No. 3., January, 1925, p.446. Editor’s Note: WNYC was among the earliest, but the not the first. Our research indicates Municipal station WRR in Dallas, Texas was the first licensed radio station to be used by the police to capture suspected outlaws.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “N.Y.P.D. Blue” is about to face some new competition — from the N.Y.P.D. itself,” The New York Times, December 21, 1994. 

[5] “Radio Police Signal Perfected, Christian Science Monitor, June 5, 1925, p.12.

[6] Anderson, S.E., “Radio Signaling System for the New York Police Department,” The Bell System Technical Journal, October, 1926, pg. 529.

In November, 1961, reporter Eleanor Fischer went to Atlanta, Georgia to interview Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) and his father, Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. for her CBC documentary portrait of Atlanta released the following year. The audio presented here is from Fischer’s original raw field recording and has not previously been released in this form.

Mrs. King begins by talking about her family background, upbringing and education as well as how she met Dr. King when they were both in school in Boston. She spoke of their both wanting to return to the South to give back to the community although she would have preferred to spend more time in school. She explained that her husband felt he could serve humanity best through the ministry and that she was impressed by him. Initially, they shared a quiet year prior to the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott, at which point she had just given birth to their first child.

Mrs. King describes in some detail the beginning of the boycott and her husband’s role in it. She says the philosophy of non-violence evolved as things went along. Being a Christian minister, he was well versed in it, but it took a bit to get people to accept the theory and practice.  She explains that they did so first out of their respect for the movement leadership, suggesting a deeper meaning came later. They came, she believes, to understand that civil disobedience is not passive and that it “takes more courage to stand up to the assault than to fight back.”

Mrs. King says it’s difficult to say why the movement’s strategy worked in Montgomery and not in other places. But she speculates that there are periods in history when the time, situation and individuals on hand provide the right catalyst for change. She refers to boycott as a “new reawakening for whites in the South” that in the end brought about “respect for the Negro.” Fischer asks her to reflect on the day her home was bombed and her husband’s continued calls for a non-violent response.

____________________________________________

Special thanks to Elizabeth Starkey.

Our digital collections are growing with regular ingests of digitized material from the Archives & Special Collections.  Past highlighted ingests have included our Emily Dickinson manuscripts, selections from the Younghee Kim-Wait/Pablo Eisenberg Native American Literature Collection, material from the Doshisha Collection, Amherst College Olios and Catalogs, and more.

This month marks the addition of the William E. Barton Walt Whitman Collection and more of the Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Collection.

Edward Hitchcock

Walt Whitman

Series 8 of the Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Collection, now accessible in ACDC, contains more than a dozen distinct images of Hitchcock, in a range of formats including engravings, lithographs, and albumen prints. Many of the portraits were taken for yearly Class Albums compiled for the students at Amherst College. All the images are of Hitchcock as an adult.

Series 8 also includes snapshots of Hitchcock’s family homes and a photograph of Hitchcock’s gravestone.

There is also one photograph album which includes identified photographs of Edward and Orra White Hitchcock and some immediate family members.

The William E. Barton Walt Whitman Collection contains prints, photographs, post cards, and correspondence.

The Walt Whitman Collection also includes original prose manuscripts and galley proofs collected by William E. Barton (1861 – 1930).

These digitized items and more from the Edward and Orra White Hitchcock Collection and the William E. Barton Walt Whitman Collection can be found in the Amherst College Digital Collections, and of course the originals are located in the Archives & Special Collections.

It is with a heavy heart that we learn about the passing of FSU Professor Emeritus Dr. Fred Standley. Dr.  Standley, the Daisy Flory Parker Professor Emeritus in English, taught at FSU for 50 years until his retirement in 2013. His academic pursuits specialized in both British literature and works of African-American writers, and taught a popular course on banned books that was originally developed for FSU’s London program. His banned books course led to the tradition of the annual banned books read-out, where students and faculty members read aloud passages from previously banned books at Strozier Library.

Fred Standley’s involvement at FSU extended beyond the classroom. Dr. Standley served as chair of the English department from 1973 to 1982, and again from 1997 to 1999. He is credited with ushering the program into the modern era, and connected faculty members with opportunities for book contracts and conference presentations. He also served as the president of FSU’s Faculty Senate for two terms, chaired the search committee in 1976 (which led to the hire of Bernie Sliger), president of the friends of the Library (1989-1995; 2006-2008), and director of land acquisition from 1989-1994.

Dr. Standley’s accomplishments and contributions didn’t go unacknowledged. The Distinguished Service Professor Award (2003), the Friends of Strozier Library Distinguished Service Award (2006), and the FSU Torch Award (2013) are few among the many honors he received while at FSU. Awards have also been created in his honor, including the Fred L. Standley Award for Outstanding Teacher and the Friends of Strozier Library Fred L. Standley Award for the Academic Librarian of the Year. The Fred L. Standley Award “honors an outstanding faculty member within the University Libraries at the Florida State University for significant contributions to campus, state, national and/or international research librarianship and library development.”

A celebration of Fred L. Standley’s life will be held at FSU at a later date.

Thanks to funding from the British Columbia History Digitization Program, we’ve recently completed a project to digitize over eight thousand images from the Pacific National Exhibition fonds that you can easily view and re-use. In addition, we’ve digitized another 874 images that are under copyright to other parties, but which can be viewed at the Archives. The dates range from 1914 to 1980.

Man and woman eating foot-long hotdogs from P.N.E. Gayway concession stand, 1953. Photographer unknown. Reference code AM281-S8-: CVA 180-2219.

These photographs were either created for the P.N.E. or collected by the P.N.E. staff. They document a wide variety of activities at the fair, including rides, displays, competitions and performances.

Women on Sky Glider chair lift, 1971. Photographer Bob Tipple. Reference code AM281-S8-: CVA 180-6891.

Many buildings on the site are shown, including:

• the first building used when the fair was called the Vancouver Exhibition
• the Agrodome under construction in 1962
• the Pacific Coliseum under construction in 1967
• the Rollerland Building in the 1960s

The Fair was a showcase for new products and technology over the years.

B.C. Telephone Co. exhibit on how to use the dial telephone, 1940. Photographer unknown. Reference code AM281-S8-: CVA 180-0876.

There are images showing other uses of Hastings Park, such as horse and car racing, auto shows, and hockey games.

Claude Evans of the Vancouver Canucks, on-ice portrait, circa 1961. Photographer unknown. Reference code AM281-S8-: CVA 180-4031.

Motor car race at Hastings Park racetrack, 1919. Photographer unknown. Reference code AM281-S8-: CVA 180-5087.

There are a few images that show Japanese Canadians living at Hastings Park before being transported to internment camps in B.C.’s interior.

Men’s dormitory in Forum building, Building K, during Japanese Canadian internment and relocation, 1942. Photographer unknown. Reference code AM281-S8-: CVA 180-3541.

We have put a small selection of images on flickr as a sample. We’ve mentioned before that these images were on a big screen at the Fair this year. Watch for them again in the future!

This digitization project was made possible by funding from the British Columbia History Digitization Program at the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia.

Posting on behalf of Katie McCormick, Associate Dean for Special Collections & Archives:

The Special Collections Research Center has an ongoing collaboration with the Museum Studies program at FSU. The Museum Object course teaches students the fundamentals of museum exhibit creation and installation. In our collaboration, students from the class are given a broad topic and guidance towards collection areas and create an exhibit from our materials. At the end of the semester they install the physical exhibit, most often in our primary exhibit room, and create an online companion exhibit.

Students begin the course with little to no knowledge of our collections and little to no experience creating exhibits. They end the course having worked through all the stages of exhibit design and installation and walk away with a new, important understanding of process and our materials.

Over the 2014 fall semester, 8 students from Amy Bowen’s Museum Object class did research on the Battle of Natural Bridge, a Civil War battle in March 1865 that FSU cadets participating in. Students were asked to find and research materials and create an exhibit that highlighted the battle itself, as well has broader themes of community, campus, veterans, and then and now.

Myself and staff from the Research Center, Digital Library Center, and Heritage Protocol worked with the students to teach them about our collections, to help them connect with the State Archives and other campus entities, to digitize and help produce the materials to be put on exhibit, and to work side by side with them during installation.

The magic, and immense value, of this kind of partnership is the laboratory nature of the project and the hands on engagement we can provide students. There are times when it is chaotic, when you don’t know what the end product will be, when you’re not sure there will be an end product, when communication appears to have broken down, and when the students make a last minute, last ditch effort to pull together all the parts of something totally new for them. I am always amazed by what the students see in our collections and how they chose to publicly interpret materials and events.

The Battle of Natural Bridge: Bridging Past and Present is free and open to the public Monday-Friday, 9am-6pm in the main exhibit gallery on the first floor of Strozier Library. The online exhibit can be viewed here: http://naturalbridge150.omeka.net/

In November, 1961, reporter Eleanor Fischer went to Atlanta, Georgia to interview Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his wife Coretta Scott King and his father, The Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. (1899-1984) for a CBC documentary portrait of Atlanta released the following year. The audio presented here is from Fischer’s original raw field recording and has not previously been released in this form.

Reverend King says he and his wife taught their children to aim high in life and that his son Martin, in turn, taught him to temper his approach to life. That, in fact, he said, “he’s been a lot of help to me,” and “taken some of the fight out of me.” This is not to say that Rev. King, Sr. is any less passionate about the cause for civil rights but that the non-violent philosophy and strategy espoused by his son is the “correct path.”  It is this approach that, he says, has brought about a transition for many people who hated Dr. King, now praising him.

Fischer asks whether some whites praise Dr. King because they see him as moderate. His father, however, believes there is no more militant voice in the South now than Martin Luther King, Jr.  But again, militant in a non-violent way. Fischer and King, Sr. discuss the 1961 election and Kennedy’s overtly political move to get King out of jail and the role that may have played in the campaign. King, Sr. also describes an Atlanta now markedly different from the Atlanta of the past, the end of lynching and the rise of a “Negro” middle-class in Atlanta that, with exceptions, is not anxious to challenge the status quo for fear of reprisal. But, King, Sr. says, “change is coming and we have to accept it.” He believes there are enough liberal whites in Atlanta to move the city past token integration. He knows his son must carry on with the civil rights movement. At the time, however, as a father, he worries about the strain and demands on his son.

_______________________________

The Reverend Martin Luther King Sr became leader of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta in March 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression. The church was struggling financially, but King organized membership and fundraising drives that restored the church’s coffers. King was the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church for four decades, wielding great influence in the black community and earning respect from many in the white community.

_________________________________________________

Special thanks to Elizabeth Starkey.

President Obama announced yesterday afternoon his intention to nominate William Leary to serve a second three-year term on the PIDB.  The members are pleased to learn of his reappointment and we are looking forward to his continued help in advocating for transforming the national security classification system.  Before his retirement from Government service as the Senior Director for Records Access and Management at the National Security Council, Bill was instrumental in assisting us as we developed recommendations to improve declassification.  After his retirement, the President nominated him to serve as a member of the PIDB.  Bill helped us fulfill the President’s request that we study the classification system and make recommendations on its modernization.  Most recently, Bill led our effort to highlight and make additional reforms to the way our Government declassifies information.  This supplemental report, Setting Priorities: An Essential Step in Transforming Declassification, recognizes the need for the Government to target its declassification efforts on information of most interest to the public.

Bill is a key member of our Board and we look forward to working with him as he begins his second term.  Congratulations Bill!

Work has begun on a new collaborative project involving the Digital Projects Unit of the University Libraries at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the Hayes-Taylor YMCA. The Digital Projects Unit has been awarded a 2014-2015 IMLS Sparks! Ignition Grant for Libraries and will manage this $23,522 grant in partnership with the Hayes-Taylor YMCA and their Achievers Program.

The youth at the Hayes-Taylor YMCA will participate in discussions on local history and digital photography, learn the proper handling of historical and archival materials, and will visit area libraries and archives. These young DGHi (Digitizing Greensboro Historical information) Explorers will be taught to use flatbed scanners and digital cameras as document “scanners.”

Teamed with YMCA mentors, the youths will go into homes and organizations in the community to discover and reproduce hidden historical documents with digital cameras. The completion of questionnaires will permit the UNCG Libraries to place the material online. There will also be significant public outreach, including a “community history scanning day” held at the new Hayes-Taylor YMCA, and a capstone display of some of items and information discovered during the course of the project.

Project staff at University Libraries include Digital Projects Coordinator David Gwynn as project director, J. Stephen Catlett as project manager. Felton Foushee, Achievers Director at Hayes-Taylor YMCA, will coordinate the DGHi Explorers.

The Florida Handbook is a comprehensive reference source and the official guide to Florida government and history, with additional information on the state’s lands, culture, economy, and people. Allen Morris, the Clerk of the Florida House from 1966-1986, first published the Handbook in 1947. Joan Morris assisted with the compilation of information and then continued updating and publishing the biennial Handbook following Allen’s death until its final print edition in 2011-2012.

The volumes in this collection represent the entire run of print volumes, spanning the years 1947-2012. Beginning with the 2014 edition, the Clerk of the Florida House is continuing the Handbook as an electronic publication with limited print copies being available as well. For more information, visit the Handbook‘s website or call or email the Office of the Clerk at (850) 717-5400, officeoftheclerk@myfloridagouse.gov.

FSU began digitization of all print versions of the Florida Handbook mid-2014 after receiving permission from Joan Morris to make them publicly available in the FSU Digital Library (FSUDL). We also worked with the Clerk of the Florida House’s office to make sure our project fit in with their plans to take the Handbook forward digitally. We’re pleased to offer these fully text searchable digital copies of the Florida Handbook through the FSUDL.

In the past few months, the Cataloging and Description department work tirelessly to liberate a large collection of foreign print materials from Remote Storage to their proper library homes. The collection, known as the Asian Religions Collection, includes books and other print materials written in Tibetan, Sanskrit, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. While this collection has been in FSU’s possession since 2008, it was fully cataloged and made available to university patrons as of December 23, 2014.

Background

In order to settle part of a national debt, India paid the United States in books and other print materials. These items were then acquired by the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions. Eventually, the books found a new home at the University of Virginia. UV evaluated the collection and kept a portion of the materials. The remaining 25,000 items were purchased at $2 a piece by FSU in 2008.

After the collection was purchased by FSU, it was delivered to the Remote Storage 2 (RS2) facility. Together, led by Amy Weiss, Head of Cataloging and Description, and Roy Ziegler, Associate Dean for Collection Development, the staff unloaded two full semi-trucks of books. In order to fit the massive collection in RS2, the boxes of books were piled around the sides of RS2, waiting to be cataloged and shelved.

Of the 25,000 books, nearly 13,000 books were labeled as English language materials. After being reviewed, more than 6,000 of these books were cataloged and shelved in the Strozier library.  Following the English books were the Sanskrit and Tibetan Petcha books. Since this part of the collection was considered to be a priority, the department decided to dedicate three months of cataloging to it. The entire staff work tirelessly on the Petcha until it was completed. With the priority materials cataloged, the remaining items remained in RS2.

Beginning the Collection

Due to the delicate condition and complex languages of the materials, the collection required a great deal of time and hard work. With all the other priority projects handled by Cataloging and Description, the Asian Religions Collection remained in Remote Storage 2, waiting to be assessed and cataloged. Once the department hired Complex Cataloging Specialist Dominique Bortmas, Cataloging Associate Elizabeth Richey, and ARC Cataloger Stephanie Truex, Cataloging and Description was finally prepared to focus on this massive collection. Once an inventory was taken, the books were transported from RS2 to their new temporary home at 711 Madison Street where they waited to be cataloged. The staff organized the books by language and began to devise a plan to make the collection available to the public as soon as possible.

Cataloging the Collection
As with any material, the cataloging process is very precise and detail oriented; this is particularly true for the complex materials in the Asian Religions Collection. Catalogers must personally analyze each item, then find or create a machine readable record. A call number, notes, and Library of Congress subject headings are just a few of the fields needing to be included in the records. This allows the material to appear in the library catalog where it can be discovered.

In addition to these usual obstacles of cataloging, the staff also faced additional challenges. For Amy Weiss, Head of Cataloging and Description, the main obstacle was finding the time and resources to catalog the 25,000 items in the collection. Yearly, the department catalogs about 15,000 items. Finding the time to balance the usual cataloging with an additional collection of 25,000 was not easy. However, thanks to a dedicated staff equipped with catalog cards and a workflow guide, the department was able to finally tackle the collection. Refusing to sacrifice speed for quality, the department decided to dedicate 25% of each staff member’s time to cataloging the ARC books. Catalogers Stephanie Truex and Elizabeth Richey devoted most of their time to completing the collection, while the rest of the staff also significantly contributed.

Once the staff began cataloging the the collection, they discovered that the language barrier often made it difficult to locate and create catalog records. While many of the books had old Library of Congress catalog cards in them that made it easier to search for records, not all of the books included this extra bit of helpful information. Catalogers had to rely on their research skills and newly acquired transliteration skills just to locate a record. Even if a record was located, it had to be upgraded. The records were outdated, and needed to be edited in order to meet current cataloging standards.

The collection is now completed, with the exception of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (CJK) languages materials. Nearly 200 items remain since they present additional language and translation issues. CJK librarian, Yue Li, is currently focusing on this fraction of the collection.

The ARC project is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of the behind the scenes Cataloging department. Through their team work and efficient procedures, the collection, with the exception of the CJK materials, is now available to be checked-out by FSU students and faculty.