Officers:
President, Vice President/President Elect/Program Chair, Secretary,
Treasurer, Members- at-large (2), Membership Chair, Publications Chair.
Contact: any of the present officers (see contact for committees).
Other:
Workshops/Program Presenters: Organize and present workshops
on special topics, volunteer to serve as part of panel or give a session
at a meeting. Contact: Program Chair (Russell Koonts) or Education
Committee Chair (Jan Blodgett).
[Return to Table of Contents]
Directed by Paul Mangiafico, formerly with Georgetown University’s Center
for Text and Technology, the Digital Scriptorium recently received attention
in local, national, and international media. The Raleigh News &
Observer and Durham Herald-Sun featured stories on the Alice Williamson
diary, as did several North Carolina TV stations and WUNC-FM in Chapel
Hill. Stories about the Duke Papyrus Archive, which contains images
of document fragments written on papyri, were broadcast on NBC’s Today
Show and NPR’s All Things Considered and featured in New York Newsday and
Science magazine. In addition, the Papyrus Archive also was covered
by publications in Germany (the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and Brazil
(SuperInteressante). The Digital Scriptorium web site is visited
by thousands of users each month, and it also received a number of awards
for the quality of its work. Recently, Lycos, an Internet search
engine, rated the Digital Scriptorium as the top library web site, and
Webmaster magazine named it one of the top fifty Internet sites.
To experience this exciting and informative web site please visit the Digital
Scriptorium at (http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/).
Editor’s note: The Spring 1998 meeting will be held at Duke University.
One session will be led by Paul Mangiafico, director of the Digital Scriptorium.
SNCA members interested in attending the Spring 1998 meeting may find it
interesting to visit the Digital Scriptorium prior to the meeting.
Book reviews make their appearance in this issue. Naturally, we welcome reviews of books covering major archival issues. We also invite SNCA members to review other books related to their area of expertise or other records issues. These types of books may not necessarily receive reviews in the American Archivist, but The North Carolina Archivist wants to include them. This month Debbi Blake reviews two books related to the genealogical and local history fields. Ed Southern will review a book about the investigation of the recently declassified East German secret police files and their accuracy. Also, we hope a future newsletter will include a review of Bill King’s book, If Gargoyles Could Talk: Sketches of Duke University. If you see a book that seems to be a good candidate for review, just let me know.
Thanks to the student SAA chapters on many campuses, an increasing number of students join SNCA every year. The newsletter committee wants to tap their scholarship and insights into the archival field by welcoming the submission of condensed seminar papers. In the March, 1998 issue Nora Armstrong, winner of the first annual Gene Williams Memorial Award, will present a brief version of her award winning paper. In the future we may utilize condensed versions of all papers submitted for the Williams Award.
Longer articles will form the cornerstone of the expanded newsletter.
The committee identified several potential topics for feature articles.
Many SNCA members work for small institutions. As an outgrowth of
the afternoon sessions at the fall meeting, we hope to begin a series on
the challenges facing smaller archival shops. Anyone up for “The
Plight of the Lone Arranger?” The committee also thought that a series
highlighting African-American archives around the state would be well received
in the newsletter. To assist SNCA members in navigating the Web, future
newsletter issues may contain articles summarizing or abstracting Web sites
of different types, such as records management, preservation, or disaster
response. Not all SNCA members attend the large national meetings,
such as SAA or ARMA. If any member attended a national meeting and
really enjoyed a particular session, we want to hear about it in the newsletter.
If you want to write any of these articles or suggest another topic, we
welcome your ideas.
Plenty of other features will pop up in future newsletters, but we
need submissions or suggestions to include them, too. Would anyone
be interested in running a question and answer column? It could cover
a specific type of archival issue, such as preservation, or it could cover
a series of archival questions submitted from several respondents.
Obviously we don’t publish often enough to answer questions about putting
out fires or stopping leaks, but the column could cover the “It works for
me” answers we often seek. Once the North Carolina Preservation Consortium
gets a new director, we want to foster a closer SNCA/NCPC relationship
by suggesting the new director write a regular column for the newsletter.
It could highlight NCPC activities, meetings, and workshops around the
state. Finally, we all enjoy the portion of the newsletter highlighting
the news from around the state. We may expand that portion to include
a “people profile” focusing on one or two SNCA members. Sort of an
institutional profile, but using our members instead.
All of these plans and ideas boil down to one word, though, input. We need your input in many forms. Provide us with feedback regularly. Do you like our ideas? Tell us if you enjoyed or disliked an article or other feature. Would you like to submit an article or topic of an article? Hopefully, many small submissions and ideas will produce a longer and more valuable newsletter. One day soon you may just find yourself saying, “I read about that first in The North Carolina Archivist!”
[Sarah Koonts can be reached at (919) 733-7691; skoonts@ncsl.dcr.state.nc.us
; or in care of the Department of Cultural Resources, 109 East Jones Street,
Raleigh, NC 27601]
Virtual Roots is a guide to the many genealogical sites on the World Wide Web. In his introduction Kemp explains that he hopes researchers will use the volume to focus on sites that will be of the greatest use to them and avoid time-consuming surfing for appropriate sites.
To help researchers accomplish this goal Kemp has divided the volume into four sections: General Subjects, United States, International, and Family Associations. Within each section are listed the entry, its web, postal, and e-mail addresses as well as phone and fax numbers. It also includes any important or useful guides found at the site.
This volume is designed well, easy to use, and Kemp furthers its usefulness by rating especially beneficial sites as Outstanding Sites. Since web sites have a tendency to be transient, it is hoped that this volume will be repeated every few years in order to catch new sites and to update web address changes.
All the sites checked proved accurate, although the number of sites
added recently is staggering. These additional sites are caught easily
by links to established sites. Virtual Roots makes searching the
web for suitable sites for genealogical and family history sites a pleasant
experience.
The 1995 Genealogy Annual: A Bibliography of Published Sources. By Thomas J. Kemp. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1996. Dedication, introduction. 397pp. $95.00, cloth.)
As PERSI has done for genealogical periodicals, so Thomas J. Kemp’s The 1995 Genealogy Annual: A Bibliography of Published Sources, planned to be an annual publication, now does for genealogical books.
Divided into four sections, this compilation of genealogical books includes sections on Family Histories, Guides and Handbooks, International, and Genealogical Sources by State. The first is an alphabetical listing by surname. Books that include more than one family’s history are included under each family name. A particularly helpful aspect of this section is that alternative spellings of names are included under every variation that appears in the title. The second section lists publications by subject. Examples are General How-to books, African-American, Native-American, Libraries and Archives, Huguenots, Jewish, and so forth. The final two sections list publications alphabetically by country, province, state, county, city, or town.
If there can be anything lacking in this easy-to-use volume, it is that no publications of abstracts of original records have been included. While such an inclusion would have increased the size of the volume many times, it would have increased its usefulness to genealogists as well. Since the records provide the basis upon which family histories are built, the inclusion of such abstracts would make this the premier volume of its type. Regardless, this book will prove itself invaluable to genealogical librarians and individuals as it compiles a large amount of current information into one well-organized volume.
In this particular court case, Bland was charged with stealing 26 items from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library, where he had hit each of the three Special Collections departments. The local assistant district attorney charged with prosecuting the case agreed to a plea bargain under which Bland would acknowledge guilt but receive no active time for the UNC thefts. Instead he would be credited with time already served while awaiting trial and given a suspended sentence.
When the plea bargain was presented to Judge Hobgood, he immediately rejected it, stunning the assistant district attorney, Bland, and Bland’s lawyer. Hobgood stated, “In my opinion, the penalty is not severe enough for what the man has done. That is why I’m rejecting the plea.” He instructed the attorneys to renegotiate. The result was a new plea under which Bland received 8-10 months active time in a North Carolina prison, with credit for the 103 days he had spent in the Orange County jail awaiting his Hillsborough court appearance. Even with the time credit, Bland had to serve an additional four and a half months in jail in North Carolina.
When he accepted the second plea agreement, Judge Hobgood said, “My main concern was that if there was ever a case in which the victim was the state of North Carolina, this was one…Any citizen of the state of North Carolina would have a right to have access and go into those materials.” A number of newspapers in the state carried stories on Bland’s court appearance and the judge’s actions. When asked by reporters to comment on the final sentence, the judge described it as a, “message to anyone in a similar circumstance to know what a treasure we have in the library system.”
In conferring honorary membership on the judge, NCLA stated, “Judge
Hobgood’s actions sent a clear message that theft of library materials
should be treated as a serious crime. The publicity his decision
received has helped us educate the public about the seriousness of library
theft. Also, his firmness in dealing with Bland sets a precedent
that can be cited to other judges and law enforcement officials when library
thefts occur in the future.”
William (Bill) Brown (State Archives) was appointed Governors’ Records Archivist in August, 1997. Previously Bill was the microfilm archivist in the Reference Unit of the State Archives.
Earlier this year Christina Favretto served as Project Archivist at the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists in Research Triangle Park, where she completed an inventory and finding aid of the national association’s extensive collections. Currently Christina serves as the Condition Assessment Librarian at NCSU.
David Jackson received a permanent appointment as Head of the Special Collections Department at NCSU Libraries. David has been interim head since January, 1996.
On October 9, Paula Jeannet was promoted to a Continuing Appointment position as Senior Library Assistant at Duke University’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. A professional staff member of the Library since 1992, her official title is Archivist/Manuscript Cataloger. Paula is graduating in December, 1997 from North Carolina Central University with a Masters in Library Science specializing in archives and records management.
Donna Kelly (Historical Publications Section) of the Department of Cultural Resources attended the Association for Documentary Editing Conference held in Boston in October.
Russell Koonts accepted the position of University Archivist for NCSU on October 20. Previously Russell served as Reference and Information Access Archivist for the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History at Duke University Special Collections.
Ella Ross, whose retirement from UNCG was announced in the previous issue of The North Carolina Archivist, received her Thirty Year Service Award from the State of North Carolina on October 28, 1997.
Sam Shine (State Archives) became the Minority Outreach Coordinator for the Department of Cultural Resources in March of 1997. Prior to his promotion Sam served as Governors’ Records Archivist for the State Archives, and he will continue to oversee the arrangement and description of those papers.
Helen Tibbo (UNC-CH School of Information and Library Science) attended the Society of American Archivists meeting in Chicago from August 25-31. While there she chaired the Publications Board meeting and served on the SAA Council. She also chaired a session entitled “Research and Writing in Professional Journals.” She presented her paper, “Archival Research: From Idea to Article,” at that session. At the Mid Atlantic Regional Archives Conference in Wilmington, Delaware on November 6-8, she gave a paper analyzing the last twenty-five years of archival journal publications. She also worked with the SILS students on a pilot digitization project. The project featured a digitization of a sampling of materials from the Rowan Public Library. This project can be viewed at: http://www.ils.unc.edu/Rowan/ .
Amie Wilson graduated from NCSU’s Public History program in May, 1997. She accepted a position of Archivist with the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah, Georgia.
Collection Development and Preservation
The UNC-CH Manuscripts Department recently made available the following materials: account books, 1833-1888, of the A.E. Rankin and Company, a Fayetteville mercantile firm; records, 1913-1991, of Crown Hosiery Mills in High Point; and papers, 1914-1986, of John William Harden (1903-1985), a Greensboro journalist, newspaper editor, author, and public relations executive.
A Special Collections edition of the Joyner Library publication Columns was published in October highlighting several major acquisitions of the East Carolina Manuscript Collection and ECU’s North Carolina Collection. Copies of the publication are available upon request. Among the major recent acquisitions of the Manuscript Collection relating to North Carolin topics are the Benjamin B. Winborne Papers (in the Murfreesboro Historical Association Collection), the John M. Glenn Papers (Gates County), and the E. Frank Stephenson, Jr. Collection (Hertford County).
The North Carolina Baptist Historical Collection, Z. Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University has microfilmed records of several North Carolina churches including: Woodland Baptist Church (1977-1996), Northampton County; New Hope Baptist Church (1995-1996), Columbus County; and North Main Baptist Church (1909-1991), Rowan County.
Atkins Library, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, recently acquired the papers, 1881-1929, of Dr. Annie Lowrie Alexander, one of the first women to practice medicine in the South. Also acquired was a photograph album, 1898, of Company M, 1st North Carolina Regiment, one of two Charlotte units to serve in the Spanish American War. The Library also received on indefinite loan the records, 1817-1969, of Hopewell Presbyterian Church.
The Historical Publications Section of the Department of Cultural Resources announces the publication of the Guide to Research Material in the North Carolina State Archives: County Records. This newly revised eleventh edition replaces all earlier editions and represents a major advancement in accuracy and standardizations of listings. The illustrated volume also includes previously misidentified source material, as well as recently accessioned records. The guide contains a list of the records for each North Carolina county housed in the state archives as of May 1, 1997. It describes more than 9,000 bound volumes and 21,000 boxes of loose records, as well as over 24,000 reels of microfilm, all of which are available to researchers working in the archives. This guide sells for $15. Also available is the 1998 Publications Catalog. This free catalog lists titles, maps, posters, and guides available through the N.C. Division of Archives and History. For information on either the volume or the 1998 Publications Catalog, contact the Historical Publications Section (N), N.C. Division of Archives and History, 109 East Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27601-2817; or telephone (919)733-7442.
Exhibits, Projects, and Workshops of Note
The University Archives and Manuscripts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro recently co-sponsored an exhibit celebrating creative writing at UNCG. Called “Sleeping Beauty: Creative Writing at UNCG,” the exhibit featured books and manuscripts of alumni and faculty of UNCG’s Creative Writing Program. It ran from September 2 through October 31 in the Special Collections Reading Room.
Over the past year, Paul Kiel (NCSU) has been developing a Minaret database for collection record information. Once data is entered, it can be manipulated for numerous purposes. The database can export records in a USMARC format for cataloging. It also can export records with HTML and most SGML tags. This “write once, use many” approach will be used for all existing and new collection records.
The Preservation Task Force of the NC Archives and Records Section, under the leadership of David Olson, recently revised their disaster response plan. To introduce the newly revised plan to the section employees, the Preservation Task Force sponsored a staff education day on September 15. Led by Harlan Greene, North Carolina Preservation Consortium, and Ed Morris, the Disaster Response Team Leader for the State Archives, the staff discussed how to react to emergencies that threaten their holdings.
Christina Favretto (NCSU) helped organize a Water Emergency Salvage Workshop at NCSU on October 30. The workshop, conducted by Harlan Greene of the North Carolina Preservation Consortium, was attended by library staff from UNC-CH and NCSU. Designed to help library workers deal with water-related emergencies, the workshop featured hand-on practice in recovering water damaged library materials.
On Friday, March 27, 1998, the School of Information and Library Science at UNC-CH will host an InfoToGo workshop from 8:30-12:30 on digitizing archival materials. The sessions include hands-on work in the SILS computer lab. Call (919) 962-8366 for more information and look for a Web description at: http://www.ils.unc.edu/continuing_ed/ .
Publications
Sion Harrington (State Archives) wrote, “The Tory War of 1781-1782 in North Carolina’s Upper Cape Fear Country,” for The Recall, a magazine of the North Carolina Military Historical Society.
Donna Kelly (Historical Publications Section) reviewed A World Turned Upside Down: The Palmers of South Santee, 1818-1881, edited by Louis P. Towles. The review appeared in the October issue of The North Carolina Historical Review.
If you have not subscribed to the new SNCA Listserv, you can do so by sending an e-mail message to listserv@listserv.ncsu.edu . In the body of the message type the message: Subscribe SNCA-L (your first name) (your last name). An example of that message would be: Subscribe SNCA-L Sarah Koonts