As part of the University of Houston Libraries’ Strategic Directions Initiative, Special Collections has completed its census of projects and initiatives which fall into current, future and "blue sky" categories. Broad topical areas include:
- Digital Projects
- Instruction
- Cataloging & Collections Access
- Collection Processing
- Reference, and
- Stacks Maintenance
These areas align with already-identified strategic directions such as supporting new models of scholarly communication, the re-branding of the libraries, development of a teaching & learning center, and the expansion of the Libraries’ virtual presence.
I’ve began to create finding aids for some of the single items that have been floating around in the purgatory that was our "A-Z Collection". As you can see, the crop of material housed therein was extremely varied. I hope that by creating individual records for these homeless yet valuable items, users will be able to access them through online finding aids, and eventually, the library catalog. And, thanks to new Senior Library Assistant Rebecca Russell, they’re already encoded in EAD and up on TARO!
Lenny Abercrombie Letter, 1858
Paul Bowles Letters, 1983-1984
From the ashes of H-LIS, the H-Net listserv devoted to more or less library history, comes H-INFO. An official description:
H-Info focuses on the interdisciplinary, international study of information and information institutions, broadly construed. It includes the foundations and history of print culture; reading and reception histories; the history and foundations of library and information sciences; and the history of libraries, archives, document-based cultural repositories, and other information institutions.
The best part is that H-Info, along with all other H-Net lists, is available via RSS!
Amelia Abreu, Pat Bozeman and Julie Grob recently attended the Rare Books & Manuscripts Section’s 47th annual pre-conference in Austin, TX, Libraries, Archives and Museums in the Twenty-first Century: Intersecting Missions, Converging Futures?" held June 20-23. Amelia was one of 30 highly competitive scholarship awardees of an Institute of Museum and Library Service grants for first-time attendees at an RBMS pre-conference. Winners were selected from a pool of a record-breaking 352 scholarship applications.
Special Collections holds a small collection of the late poet Kenneth Patchen’s materials. The finding aid is now online on TARO. UC Santa Cruz holds a larger Kenneth Patchen Archive, which also includes the papers of his wife and frequent collaborator, Miriam Patchen, as well as the Chester Kessler Papers, James Boyer May Correspondence, Alan and Beatrice Collection, William Plumley Collection, William M. Roth Correspondence, Kathryn Winslow Collection, Johnny Wittwer Papers, and the Fred Wright Correspondence.
Photo by Harry Redl