University of St. Francis Library Archives

Part six of This Week in History will be diving into Scribner’s Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine for the People , specifically the March edition from 1877. Scribner’s Monthly was a pictorial publication focusing on bringing art, science, and literature to the American people. Unfortunately, this publication was short-lived, only lasting from 1870-1881. Scribner’s Monthly was renamed to The Century Magazine following the sale of the company. Founder Charles Scribner came back and created Scribner’s Magazine in 1887 to compete with the highly successful Harper’s Weekly (which is discussed in Part Four of this series). Interior of New York Aquarium Fortunately, the March volume of Scribner’s Monthly is full of interesting articles, poetry, literature installments, advice, and a few other oddities. The headliner for March was the New York Aquarium, which opened December 10, 1876. The article has no author but the illustrations were provided by a local artist who documented...

Hi everyone! I'm getting this blog in on the last day of the month, hence the title. USF is halfway through the semester (Spring Break is next week) and it seems people are ready for vacations. Student nurses coming out of St. Joseph College of Nursing ca. 1980s This will be a quick one because February has been a very quiet month in the archives. I am editing metadata for the soon to be published St. Joseph College of Nursing digital collection, which I think will add a great deal to the USF community. And that's about it for February in terms of archive projects. My other library duties are taking more time and consideration, so that's what I've been focusing on. Hopefully March will bring lots of donations and interesting stories! See you then.

Entering my third year as Archivist at the University of St. Francis, I have new responsibilities in the library and goals for the archives. A Quick Recap College of St. Francis cheerleaders practicing in hallway ca. 1980-1989 At the beginning of last year my student worker, Adjo Tameklo, and history intern, Madison Bowie, worked together to add metadata for over 500 new images for the digital collection, Sharing Our Past, A Visual History . Many of the pictures depict USF athletics from the 1970s-1980s, which had been a gap in the collection. I was also able to catalog 400 books from the Barbara A. Cooke Musical Theater Collection . Mostly autobiographies, biographies, and historical reference books the collection is available to search in the Brown Library catalog. During the summer I became the Library Archives & Catalog Manager for the Brown Library. Along with managing the archives, I am now responsible for overseeing the cataloging and classification of mate...

(L to R) Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ross Perot Election Day is tomorrow , so I looked back in the student newspapers to see what USF students had to say about their elections. I found a very apt article from staff writer Paul Popek in volume 17, number 3 edition from the 1992 Encounter about the “mudsling tactics” which occur during campaigns.  For reference, there were three major candidates in 1992: Incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush; Democratic Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and independent Texas businessman Ross Perot. The 2016 election is one of the most divisive in our nation’s history. The article touches on how negativity and "dirty politics" has become expected during elections and the issues take a backseat to name-calling. Please take the time to read the entire article, and don’t forget to VOTE ! Volume 17, Number 3 of Encounter, November 6, 1992

This past weekend was homecoming at USF and I hosted a “USF History in Pictures.” Over the two hours, there were alumni from the 1991 nursing class, a couple 1992 business majors, and about 10 women from the 1966 class. They were celebrating their 50 th reunion! They reminisced about dorm living in Tower Hall, which consisted of 10pm curfews and 10 person rooms during their freshmen year. Still an all-girls school in 1966, they needed permission from their parents to go on dates with students from Lewis University. They also pointed out that the Uno Lounge where my display was used to be the mail room and a security guard was stationed there at night. Thank you to everyone who came out on homecoming weekend!

Conceptual drawing of CSF Library - 1965 With the construction of the new USF science building underway, I think it’s a good opportunity to look back at another building on campus. Specifically, the Library , home to the USF Archives. Coincidentally, construction of the two buildings fall fifty years apart.   Plans for a new and modern library began several years before any dirt was moved. The previous CSF library was in the Motherhouse, the first building on campus. The collection grew steadily over the 1930s-1960s, with a total of 70,000 volumes by 1964. The amount of undergraduate students increased over this period to around 1,100 students, which gave a compelling reason to build a standalone library building. Library during construction - 1966 Another reason to move forward with construction was due to the new Higher Education Facilities Act of 1963. It states:  "To authorize assistance to public and other nonprofit institutions of higher education...

The latest installment of This Week in History takes us back to the American Civil War, specifically July 27, 1861. Harper’s Weekly, A Journal of Civilization was an American political magazine which was the most widely read publications of the 19 th century. Famous for their illustrations, Harper’s Weekly featured foreign and domestic news, works of fiction, and political essays. The USF Archives holds volumes five, six, and seven (1861-1863), but today I’ll be focusing on volume 5, issue 239. It was the beginning of the war, with the Battle of Bull Run – the first major land battle of the Civil War – fought the previous week on July 21 st . However, details of battles usually came out a couple weeks later. The editors of Harper’s fully supported President Lincoln and the Union once the war began, but because of their wide readership in the southern states they took a moderate stance on slavery. Readers of issue 239 were presented with news and illustrations from earl...

We are halfway through 2016, so I want to do a quick update for one of the projects I discussed in the first post of this year ( go check it out if you haven’t read it !). Pictured: (left) Enchanted Evenings ; (right) Strippers, Showgirls, and Sharks ; (center) Broadway Musicals Beginning in March, I started to catalog the large number of biographies in the Barbara A. Cooke Musical Theater Collection. It was decided these books are best served as reference materials, which means they do not circulate. You might ask why, since this is a library and shouldn’t all books circulate? Normally, yes. However, the books add context to the songs, lyricists, composers, and shows the archived sheet music emphasizes, so I think they are more useful as reference books. Some of the influential people in the musical theater and motion picture world includes: Fred Astaire, Bing Crosby, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Stephen Sondheim and many more. Now they all have a place in the reference collect...

CSF Francisline cheerleaders in formation Over the past month my student worker, Jojo, and intern, Madison, have been busy, busy, busy! I tasked them with creating original metadata (information about information) for over 600 images, which depict events, people, and places from the University’s past. These images were added to the Sharing Our Past, A Visual History online collection. This project was achieved through a number of steps; the first included digitizing the physical photographs. This was completed at the beginning of 2015. Over December 2015 and January 2016, I looked over all the images to see which ones would be selected for the online collection. This is known as “appraisal” and done at least twice to determine which images should be included based on their historical significance to the institution. Reasons images might not be included in the collection are: Redundant/duplicate material Photographs which are blurry and/or of poor quality Material tha...

After my first year of being the University of St. Francis archivist, I hope to make 2016 as productive as last year. A Brief Recap Last year we created 18 individual collections relating to the University’s rich history, participated in Chicago Open Archives and showcased the Barbara A. Cooke Musical Theater Collection , implemented our records management system ArchivesSpace, and continued to fill requests from faculty, students, alumni, and the public. There are also a few new forms, making contact with the Archives easier. The Appointment Request Form can set up a time to meet with me individually or for a class session. I also created forms for our faculty and student groups to transfer  valuable  historical  records for permanent storage to the Archives. New Goals Over the next few months, my focus will be cataloging the 1,000+ books of the Barbara A. Cooke Musical Theater Collection. We will start with biographies, which focus on influential...