Still incomplete, archive is open
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 01:14 p.m., January 17, 2008
Updated 01:14 p.m., January 17, 2008
The new Emporia State University archive in the basement of the William Allen White Library is available for use. All it needs now are most of its archives.
Thanks to winter weather and an overwhelming boxes-to-manpower ratio, it’s going to be a while before that happens.
The archive opened Wednesday with the start of the spring semester, but with only a small number of archive collections available — those that already had been housed at the White Library for decades and some that had been moved there in the past couple of years pending the renovation.
The rest of the university archives sit in boxes at the old Anderson Memorial Library building, which ESU plans to put on the market sometime after it is cleared out. Last spring, the Kansas Legislature approved the university’s request to sell the historic Anderson building, which was originally a Carnegie library on the College of Emporia Campus.
University archivist Heather Wade said there are about 4,100 boxes of archives containing the university’s records from 1863 to the present. Each box weighs between 40 and 60 pounds.
Good weather is critical to making sure the collections aren’t damaged during the transition from Anderson to White. And until the university puts together a crew to help move the archives, it’s up to Wade and her small staff to move what they can.
“Everything in the university archives, which by and large is a body of records, all of that stuff will remain closed until further notice,” Wade said. “And we just can’t predict when we’ll have good weather and when we’ll have support from university facilities to actually make the move happen.”
While she waits for those factors to fall into place, the new archive area will feature a clean, fresh-looking reading room, processing room and collections room with relatively few materials for researchers to use.
Perhaps the most impressive structural feature is off-limits to researchers: the collections room contains three miles of motorized compact shelving. At the push of a button, shelves separate to form the aisles between them, then close against each other once the proper materials are retrieved. Student pages will retrieve the desired materials for those who need them. But compact shelving is also being installed in another section of the library, where it can be seen and used by library patrons.
Among already accessible archives are the William Allen White papers, a collection of about one-third of the personal papers the revered Gazette editor generated during his life. That collection has been at the White Library since 1951. Also available will be the Walter Andersen photos, which Wade said she moved herself to the White Library last Friday using her own car. The Andersen photos collection contains about 50,000 images of Lyon County and Emporia.
“That’s our most heavily used collection,” Wade said. “A lot of people from the community really rely on photographs ... from the collection.”
Another option for curious researchers will be the May Massee collection, which has been at ESU since 1972. Massee, Wade said, was the second children’s book editor ever; she was responsible for forming two of the first three children’s publishing divisions within major publishing houses. After Massee died in 1966, colleagues put together a memorial collection of artwork that Massee had published in children’s books, as well as manuscripts and letters from Massee’s life.