The newsletter of the Society of North Carolina Archivists Number Number 46, Winter 1996/1997
Institution
Profile
Developments with NUCMC
Around the State . . .
Society of North Carolina Archivists' Web Site
In Memoriam
MOVIES CENSORED IN NEW YORK: INDEX TO OLD
SCRIPTS ONLINE
Davidson Hosts SNCA Spring Meeting
Institution profiles are a new feature of The North Carolina Archivist. Each issue will include a feature profile of a selected archival institution in North Carolina. Institutions profiled will include organizations that maintain archival and manuscript collections as a component operation or as its sole purpose. Fall and spring issues of the newsletter will include profiles of institutions hosting SNCA meetings or that are located near the meeting site.
Can you imagine American society without advertising? Without the apparatus of marketing and sales to move goods and services from producers to consumers? All of us have grown up in a culture that would be unrecognizable without them. Yet the history of these fields has been preserved in a haphazard way, leaving only limited resources for scholars and businesses to use in analyzing their impact.
At Duke University a unique and exciting endeavor is underway to preserve records of these business activities that have helped to define modern society. As a means to this end, the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising, and Marketing History was established at Duke's Special Collections Library in 1992. Through documentation and programming the Hartman Center stimulates interest in and study of the roles of marketing, advertising, and sales. The Center also seeks to provide leadership in building national and international networks among institutions that document these fields.
The most extensive collection at the Center is the J. Walter Thompson Company Archives, the most comprehensive surviving historical record of any advertising agency. Another significant agency collection is that of D'Arcy, Masius Benton & Bowles. In October 1996, the Hartman Center acquired the records of the Outdoor Advertising Association of American. Included in this most recent acquisition are several dozen billboards, 70 years of office records, 1,000+ books, 11,000+ photographs, and over 108,000 slides documenting outdoor advertising from the late 1800s to present times.. Other Hartman Center holdings include vast files of 19th-20th century advertising, the extensive Wayne P. Ellis Collection of Eastman Kodak Advertising, Sales, and Marketing, and records of the Charles W. Hoyt agency. Archival holdings now total well over 3,000,000 items, including such diverse material as meeting minutes, correspondence, research reports, publications, advertisements, films, and photographs. The collections occupy over 4,000 feet of shelf space. While continuing to enlarge its existing collections, the Hartman Center also actively seeks to acquire new materials--books, trade magazines, manuscripts, media--that enrich understanding of all aspects of sales, marketing, and advertising.
In addition to preserving important documentation, the Center also sponsors innovative
programs that encourage awareness and analysis of marketing, advertising, and sales. The
Center is committed to offering programming that enhances the teaching and research use of its
holdings. Activities include:
Annual travel grants on a competitive basis for visiting students and scholars; funding to support
campus visits by distinguished business persons and academics to enrich the Duke curriculum,
especially for undergraduates; grants to support Duke student research projects; extensive
research services to companies whose records are held at Duke; special exhibits and
presentations for visiting groups; and a periodic newsletter.
Students, faculty, the general public, and businesses all make heavy use of the Center's research collections. The Hartman Center annually attracts hundreds of academic researchers from numerous universities and colleges in fields as diverse as history, film and video, American Civilization, journalism, psychology, and international studies. Duke faculty members are encouraged to incorporate Center materials into undergraduate teaching in various disciplines. Other users include authors, film makers, journalists, museums, and television producers.
The Hartman Center is located in the Special Collections Library, which adjoins the William R. Perkins Library at the heart of Duke's West Campus and is currently staffed by three full-time employees, a student intern, and eight part-time student employees. Collections may be used in the Dalton-Brand Research Room (Room 103) in the Library. Hours are 9-5 Monday-Friday and 1-5 p.m. Saturday, with extended research hours Monday through Thursday during the fall and spring academic terms. Reference, research, and photo duplication services are also available by telephone (919) 660-5827, fax (919) 684-2855, e-mail hartman@mail.lib.duke.edu, and mail, Box 90185, Duke University Special Collections, Durham, NC 27708-0185. Detailed guides to the collections are available at Duke. Visit our growing World Wide Web site at: http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/hartman. Please contact the Center if you have questions or would like to receive copies of the newsletter or brochure.
The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), a free-of-charge cooperative cataloging program operated by the Library of Congress, is pleased to announce that during the current fiscal year (1996-97) the NUCMC World Wide Web page will contain a link to a search form that will provide researchers with free access to the RLIN AMC file through LC's WWW/Z39.50 gateway. The RLIN AMC file is widely recognized as a critically important source of information concerning archival and manuscript collections and includes all online cataloging created by NUCMC. To find the gateway, simply locate the NUCMC Web page at http://lcweb.loc.gov/coll/nucmc. Once there, click on either the NUCMC cataloging icon or the Utilities icon. No account number or password will be necessary to search the RLIN AMC file. Comments regarding the usefulness of the gateway and suggestions of ways to improve it are welcome. For more information concerning the gateway or the NUCMC Team, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20540-4375 (telephone 202/707-7954; fax 202/707-7161; Internet: nucmc@mail.loc.gov).
Lynn Holdzkom, Technical Services Archivist for the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-CH, resigned December 31, 1996, to accept the position of University Archivist at the University of Washington (Seattle). Todd Crumley joined the Duke University Archives as Assistant University Archivist on January 13. Todd is a December graduate of the Public History Program at NC State. Cilla Golas began work as a part-time processing assistant with the Special Collections Department at NCSU Libraries. Cilla will graduate in May from the Public History Program at NC State. Cilla will also handle reference work for the department's weekend service hours (Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 1-5). Sara Bell also joined the staff as a processing assistant. Sara has worked for both Wake County Public Libraries and the State Archives. Kenneth Marks has been promoted from Collection Preservation Repair Assistant to Collection Preservation Repair Technician. Ken is with the Preservation Program at NCSU Libraries. This past fall, Ken also attended the Southeast Regional Collection Conservation Training Program at Emory University. Funded by an NEH grant, the workshop provided advanced training in conservation techniques for both paper and book repair.
The Southern Historical Collection acquired the papers of North Carolina authors Tim McLaurin and the late W. LeGette Blythe. The papers of poet Michael Chitwood were donated in January. NCSU Libraries acquired over 2,500 drawings representing nearly 50 projects from the architectural firms of William Henley Deitrick, Inc. and Guy E. Crampton and Associates, both located in Raleigh. The Crampton firm (1959-1974) was the successor to the Deitrick firm (1927-1959). Among the projects in the collection are the working plans for the nationally acclaimed Dorton Arena (1950), the original 1947 Carolina Country Club in Raleigh, and Broughton High School (1928).
Laura Micham, a UNC-SILS student, recently completed processing the papers of Katharine M. Banham in the Duke University Archives. Banham (1897-1995), a longtime professor of psychology at Duke, was a noted infant and child psychologist, and was also instrumental in setting up service facilities in Durham for children and the aged. The papers are interesting for the perspective they offer on the career of a woman scientist.
Tim Pyatt, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts, and Libby Chenault, Rare Book Collection, UNC-CH, will be presenting a session on collecting and interpreting publishers' archives for the 1997 Rare Books and Manuscripts Section ALA Pre-conference at Claremont College, California.
Michael Taft, Southern Folklife Archivist, UNC-CH, and Tim Pyatt, Assistant Curator of Manuscripts, UNC-CH received a campus grant to enhance the Manuscripts Department's web site (http://www.unc.edu/lib/mssinv/). Dr. Taft will be creating "virtual information packets" highlighting North Carolina folklife resources available in the Southern Folklife Collection. Tim Pyatt will be creating an Internet exhibit on North Carolina authors whose papers are held by the Southern Historical Collection.
A photographic exhibit on Charlotte history opened on January 10, 1997, at the Charlotte Library. It will run through June. Forty years of the city's history is relived through images captured by Charlotte Observer photographs. The Charlotte Library is the repository for negatives from the newspaper. The prints in the exhibit represent a small portion of the entire collection. For more information call the Carolina Room at 704/336-2980.
Davidson College Archives now has a web page at www.davidson.edu/administrative/library/archives1.htm
The North Carolina Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill launched its World Wide Web site on December 19, 1996. The URL is: www.unc.edu/lib/ncc
The Special Collections Department at NCSU Libraries will present two exhibitions from their collections this spring. Opening on April 3, 1997, in the D. H. Hill Library will be "Perceptions of War: State College Alumni Remember World War II." The exhibit will feature archives and manuscripts documenting several different perceptions of the war ranging from war time campus life to combat experiences. "Simplicity, Order, and Discipline: The Work of George Matsumoto from the NCSU Libraries' Special Collections" will open on April 10, 1997. On view at the Visual Arts Center at NC State, the exhibit will feature the recent gift of papers and architectural drawings relating to the award winning residential work of Matsumoto, now a resident of Oakland, California. Matsumoto was a founding member of the School of Design at NC State and practiced in North Carolina between 1948 and 1961. For information on either exhibition, call the Special Collections Department at 919/515-2273.
Several SNCA members are helping with local history collection workshops this spring. Sponsored by the North Carolina Library Association Round Table on Special Collections and the North Carolina Preservation Consortium with funding from SHRAB, the workshops are designed to help small libraries and historical societies. Maury York and Ann Wright have been instrumental in getting grant monies and planning the workshops and Harlan Greene and Jan Blodgett will be presenters.
SNCA now has a web site on the Internet. The URL is http://www.duke.edu/~rkoonts/index.htm
The new Web site's purpose is to serve the archival community in North Carolina through more immediate information and communication. In addition, it will help inform the larger archival community of what is happening at SNCA. Your comments, critiques, additions, or corrections are encouraged. An early survey of web hits was encouraging as the word seemed to get out quickly. In fact, the site was soon picked up by search engines such as Yahoo and Altavista, so if you don't have a bookmark you can search for it.
To begin with, you can find issues of the newsletter The North Carolina Archivist. The three most recent issues, including this one, are on the site and the plan is to continue to put these up. In addition, there is information on the semiannual meetings, awards and endowments, the constitution and bylaws, publications, and SNCA membership.
Another feature provides links and/or information on employment in North Carolina. If your institution wants to have a link or provide information on a particular job, simply contact the Web Team. The web site also includes some useful links to other sites, including state and national organizations as well as tools for HTML.
The design and markup of the web site began last summer. The Web Team of Paul Kiel, NCSU Libraries Special Collections (paul_kiel@ncsu.edu), and Russell Koonts, Hartman Center - Duke University (rkoonts@acpub.duke.edu), established guidelines for the design. The goal was to design a site that was browser friendly, with fewer graphics, which can slow down the user. In addition, the design was intended to work on any platform, so individuals could use the site even if they cannot support images, tables, frames, etc.
The early response has been very positive, and we would like to hear from you. Please check out the site and give us some feedback. The Web Team is here to serve you.
Thomas V. Mims died of cancer on December 29, 1996. He was Johanna Mims' husband. Many SNCA members will remember him from his regular participation in SNCA social events. Johanna's home address is 9119 Robert Frost Lane, Charlotte, NC 28213.
Gene Williams, University Archivist at East Carolina University and a former archivist and records manager with the NC Division of Archives and History died Tuesday, December 17, 1997, at his home in Greenville, North Carolina (107 Tyler Lane) after a lengthy and painful battle with cancer. He is survived by his wife Louise Bissett Williams, his son Alex, as well as number of other family members. A Mass of the Resurrection was held on Thursday, December 19, 1997, at St. Peter's Catholic Church, Greenville. Gene will long be remembered for his wonderful sense of humor which has been described as somewhere between wry and dry.
Memorial gifts for Gene Williams may be made to:
The Jimmy V. Foundation for Cancer Research
1201 Walnut Street
Cary, NC 27511
St. Peter's Catholic Church Building Fund
2700 E. Fourth Street
Greenville, NC 27858
St. Mary's Catholic School Building Fund
1000 North Jefferson Street
Goldsboro, NC 27530-3141
Gene J. Williams Scholarship Fund
c/o Society of North Carolina Archivists
P. O. Box 20448
Raleigh, NC 27619
"Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a hoot." Is that the way the original script of Gone With The Wind reads? The only way to find out is to look at the original script, and that is a lot easier now that an index to the scripts of 55,000 motion pictures produced between 1921 and 1965 is online at http://www.sara.nysed.gov, the web site of the New York State Archives and Records Administration.
Users can search the index by movie title, director, or writer and get basic information about each film, including date, country of origin, manufacturer, and other writers involved in the script. A form for ordering the entire script can he downloaded. The form includes a section requiring anyone who wants a script to certify that they will abide by copyright laws. The cost of each script varies depending on its length For example, the very lengthy script for Gone With The Wind would cost about $50. Most others would be less than that.
The State Archives' collection of movie scripts is one of the largest in the world. The State has the scripts because it used to play the role of censor. The practice began in 1921 when the state legislature passed a bill establishing an independent commission to review and license films. It was responding to public pressure for government control over the brutality, crime, and sex that was appearing in films
Among the basic information provided on the web site is the state's determination whether a film could be shown in New York. Most were approved, some were rejected, and still others were labeled with the word, "eliminations," indicating that portions of the script that the reviewers deemed offensive had to be eliminated before approval was granted.
The Spring Meeting will be at Davidson College, Friday, April 11th. Some of the programs include: Computer 101--a panel of computer specialists will discuss how to talk to computer departments and will have a question and answer time; Focus groups--small group meetings based on type of repository or archival departments. Each group will have a leader to facilitate a discussion of current concerns and sharing of experiences; Web Tour--take a guided tour through some of the Web sites for SNCA members, get ideas for your site, information for your patrons.
Mailings have gone out for a pre-conference workshop on exhibits sponsored by SNCA. The workshop will be held on April 10th by Neil Fulghum of the North Carolina Collection at UNC Chapel Hill and will take place in Chapel Hill. The workshop will feature hands-on instruction and each participant will take home an exhibit kit with tools and materials that will help them put their new skills to practice quickly.
At the Annual Business Meeting, held during the Spring Meeting, the following nominations for the SNCA Executive Board will be presented to the membership for their vote. Additional nominations will be taken from the floor.
Vice-president - Russell Koonts, Duke University
Publications Chairperson - Ed Southern, NC Division of Archives and History
Secretary - Michele Justice, Forest History Society
Members-at-Large - Ann Wright, Pack Memorial Library, Asheville; Antoinette Gaddy, Bennett
College