Preserving our Heritage: The Resources of the Kansas Collection

Sheryl K. Williams, Curator, Kansas Collection

All history, so far as it is not supported by contemporary evidence, is romance. Samuel Johnson, 1709-1784

Sketches and impressions of a surveyor on an expedition from Fort Leavenworth in 1876—the World War I diary of a Kansan heading off to war—photographs of the Kansas City Monarchs Baseball Team—a report on the Kansas response to the AIDS crisis.

These are just a few of the items available for consultation and research in the Kansas Collection. Home to thousands of manuscripts, over a million historical photographs, and 107,000 books, serials, and pamphlets, as well as numerous maps, architectural drawings, and audio and video tapes, the Kansas Collection preserves and makes available materials that document the social, cultural, economic, and political history of Kansas and the Great Plains.

The Kansas Collection traces its beginnings to 1891 when Carrie Watson, the first University Librarian, purchased a collection of 100 volumes about Kansas from the Reverend J.W.D. Anderson of Baldwin, Kansas. Through the dedicated efforts of Watson, and later Mary Maud Smelser and Laura Neiswanger, the Collection continued to grow, with the addition of significant books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and photographs. An effort was made to acquire everything written about Kansas, in Kansas, and by Kansans—one important part of the work was the collection and preservation of all official Kansas state documents. While some of the materials acquired were purchased, much was obtained through the generosity of donors interested in state and local history. This remains true of the Collection's development today.

By 1950 the Kansas Collection had grown to include 15,000 bound volumes, a large number of manuscripts and maps, and a significant collection of photographic images from Junction City, Kansas (the Joseph J.Pennell Collection, consisting of approximately 30,000 glass negatives and 4,200 prints). A new library wing in Watson Library provided space for a Kansas reading room, and a closed stack area for Kansas Collection materials. In the same year Mary Maud Smelser, the Library's Accessions Librarian, was appointed as the first Curator.

Since 1950, the Kansas Collection has continued to grow, with increased emphasis on the acquisition of manuscript and photographic materials. The collecting focus has been broadened to cover the immediate region, but without losing the original emphasis on Kansas history. Staffing has expanded to include seven full-time positions, including specialized support to collect and make available African American resources and the photographic collections.

Chief among Kansas Collection functions is the preservation of materials needed for research. Kansas Collection staff are actively involved in seeking out such materials, searching for items that might lie tucked away and sometimes forgotten in attics, basements, or closets of individual homes, offices, and businesses. Once acquired, the materials are processed and cataloged, with special attention given to their physical needs, to insure their availability for the future.

Historical materials face many enemies that threaten to destroy them. People are often the biggest offenders, and much damage can be caused to materials through well-intentioned but uninformed handling and storage. Folding up letters and documents, using paper clips to keep materials together, using tape or glue to affix materials to scrapbooks, are just some of the things that have been done to documents of our past and that have seriously compromised their continued existence.

The quality of the paper used in documents and publications often poses a serious preservation problem. In the mid-nineteenth century increased demand for paper necessitated finding a more readily available source of raw material for its production, and manufacturers switched from rag fiber to woodpulp. Unfortunately the methods generally used to break down the woodpulp did not eliminate lignin, a natural constituent which causes paper to become yellow and brittle. Libraries throughout the country are faced with the challenge of preserving hundreds of thousands of volumes that are turning to dust. In Kansas this problem is especially alarming because the history of our state (established in 1861) is largely documented in publications and documents that were produced after the switch to woodpulp was made.

Historical materials deteriorate because of both inherent characteristics and external factors. External factors that threaten the materials include inappropriate levels of temperature and relative humidity, sunlight, fluorescent lighting, air pollutants, including mold spores, vermin, and natural disasters. While there is little that archivists or librarians can do to alter the inherent characteristics of historical materials, much can be done to control their environment, and thus slow down their deterioration. The Kenneth Spencer Research Library was designed with this purpose in mind. Throughout the Library constant and appropriate levels of temperature and relative humidity are maintained to help insure the future availability of the resources housed here.

Lighting levels are also controlled in the building. Windows, always a problem because of the damaging effects of sunlight, are kept to a minimum. Fluorescent lighting is filtered in storage and exhibit areas and reading rooms to screen harmful ultraviolet rays.

Preservation activities within the Kansas Collection also focus on providing a safe environment for materials. Processing and cataloging routines, storage of materials, procedures for retrieval of items for patrons, and use policies all reflect concern for the careful handling and use of potentially fragile materials.

The Kansas Collection supports teaching and research at the University. Without an active, organized collecting program, much that is important to the study of our past would disappear through the ravages of time and nature. Many an important collection in private hands has gone into a trash can simply because the historical value of the material and the need to place it in a specialized library was not recognized. Kansas Collection staff actively work to identify potential resources important to the history of Kansas and the region,and to acquire those materials for researchers to use. This entails visiting with many potential donors across the state and region, climbing into attics, sorting through storage areas, packing and transferring papers and other materials from a variety of settings to the Spencer Research Library.

The collecting program of the Kansas Collection is broadly defined to include acquiring materials that reflect the economic, social, cultural and political history of the state and the Great Plains. For many years the papers of well-known Kansans have been sought, and the Collection includes represenation of many Kansans who have made names for themselves in the arts, politics, communication, the sciences, and business. While the papers of the famous continue to be important to acquire and make available, collecting efforts have focused in more recent years on acquiring materials needed for the study of social history: materials that reflect the interests, activities, and thoughts of everyday people leading everyday lives. It is just this type of material that can easily be overlooked and discarded. Emphasis has been placed on acquiring personal papers, collections of family correspondence, the records of voluntary organizations, churches, and schools, all of which can contribute to the documentation of society.

Also important to our collecting program is the need to include all segments of society. The experiences of minorities, women, and children are often inadequately reflected in historical repositories, and special efforts are made to insure that we collect materials that reflect their activities and concerns.

Recognizing that the experiences of African Americans within the state and region were not well represented in area repositories, the Kansas Collection joined with the University's Department of African and African American Studies in 1985 to develop a more formal collecting program in this area. A three-year federal grant provided funds for staff to travel throughout the state to identify and collect the papers of individuals, and the records of African American churches, businesses, and other organized groups. Many papers and photographs were acquired for the Collection, and in recognition of the continuing need for this collecting activity, the University provided a full-time field archivist position in the Kansas Collection.

The Kansas Collection has been active in collecting materials that document the experiences of women in the state and region. In addition to individual collections of women's letters, diaries, and personal accounts, the Collection contains the records of many organizations, such as the Whittier Club of Leavenworth, and the Ladies Literary League of Lawrence (both of which have been in existence for over one hundred years). Other organizational records document women's activities in public and private life, such as those of the League of Women Voters of Kansas. A segment of the photographic collections portrays women at home and in the workplace.

While many of the resources of the Kansas Collection date from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Kansas Collection also collects contemporary materials. What happened yesterday is potentially of as much interest to a researcher as the events of one hundred years ago. It is imperative that we be as diligent in our collecting of materials that reflect the present as we have been with those of the past. In documenting contemporary life we have a special challenge. Rapidly changing technology is dramatically affecting the nature of records that are created in the course of business and daily life. While we have not yet become a paperless society, record keeping and even basic day to day communication is often electronically transmitted and stored. Archivists in many repositories are currently meeting with the challenges involved in appraising electronic records, and providing for their long term preservation.

In preserving the documentation of Kansas' past the Kansas Collection provides access to materials in a variety of formats, each of which has its own requirements for preservation and use. A visitor to the Kansas Collection can, for example, make use of books analyzing some aspect of the history of the state or region; first-hand accounts, such as diaries or letters, of life in Kansas; photographs taken a hundred years ago; maps that show the geographic boundaries of states and counties, and the location of cities; or architectural records that provide detailed information about our built environment. This exhibition offers examples of some of the different types of material available to both the serious researcher and the casual reader interested in the history of this state and region.