Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Stylus 100th

A gang of Stylus students were in here yesterday when I was out sick, looking through the bound volumes, leaving slips of paper for things they wanted scanned, lots and lots of them! It's hard, I want people to have access, but having a bunch of people in here when I'd not met with them first and gone over the "rules" isn't a good thing really.I need to contact them if they don't come back in today, I can't just drop everything and scan a gazillion images...

'92 Saga

Someone came to the ref desk, had played football here in early '90s, wanted to look at the yearbook, see some photos... Greg brought him down here.

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Brown kidnapping

President's office referred a caller to me, someone inquiring about a bizarre incident of many years ago, when a pair of teenage guys concocted a plot to kidnap President Brown (October 1967.) I had heard of this once, and found a clipping in the RG29 files on Brown from an Elmira paper; found mic for D&C and located another article, added to files. Happened to see Bill Andrews upstairs, mentioned the incident to him, he laughed and said he remembered it, it was part of the Brown legend on campus, that he had been unfazed by the one fellow having a gun, talked to him in his car, then just got out and walked back in the house to call the police. Brown was in the Marines in the Pacific in WWII, I guess this kid didn't phase him too much!

More Stylus centennial

Worked with a couple more Stylus students, these two looking for sports materials from the past century.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Gamma Sigma

Interesting, the historian for what seems to be the modern day descendant of the old Gamma Sigma fraternity here has contacted me for information about the founding of it etc. It was founded ca1870 by Charles MacLean and some students, and was active here for many years. Have sent him a link to Dedman's book and Brockport Republic site, have more on a hard drive in archives etc.

Monday, November 17, 2014

Stylus Cartoons

Assisted current Stylus cartoonist in looking for older cartoons to use in upcoming centennial issue. Scanned 8-10 for him to use.

Gay Freedom League

Student beginning his thesis on gay rights in the region stopped by, looking for info on early gay groups here. Don't have a lot in the files, shared what I have, and suggested looking through the Stylus. To go through there, scan and merge articles etc would be an excellent intern project!

Writers Forum

Nice note from Anne Panning re scans of WF history intern Paul Chasse did, shows the connections and utility of the archives and its work:

Dear Charlie,

Thanks so much for your email.  I got a chance to see the scanned documents and they are just incredible. And yes, we're definitely thinking toward the 50th anniversary, and these will be a wonderful help as we formulate a program.

Thank you so much for keeping us in the loop with these efforts.

Anne

Friday, November 14, 2014

Working with multiple interns from Leslie's class

They are doing 30 hours internships.Have got Greg Hugh set up doing a scan of a 1970s campus slide tour, then he will do photos of the locations as they are now, then compare, do a slideshow... Michael MacCarthy is coming this pm, will have him do a finding aid to Special Olympics. Kimberly Taylor is going to do a study on Helen Hastings and the formation of the local museum. Shane S. (?) is going to update the general finding aid and learn basic archival organization.

More are coming...

Digitizing Suburban News

A student in Bruce Leslie's public history class has emailed about this. The student has talked to the Ogden Town historian. I had talked with this local historian before, and tried to explain the process to the student. It's way more than I could support here, i.e. making the book scanner available to scan years of a local weekly. The paper should be microfilmed and then the mic could be sent out and digitized, like the Brockport Republic. I explained as simply as I could, and gave him the digital service librarian contact at RRLC

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Media Project

Have been contacted by a student who wants to meet re a media project, and is interested in using the images associated with the '79 Special Olympics. Will see her soon.

Barrier & Page

Query from local historian re A.J. Barrier (Fannie's father) and William Page, a very interesting man in his own right. They have ledgers of theirs at the local museum, and a copies of Page's license as a civil engineer. I answered as best I could off hand about locations of shops etc., and will look further.

NOTE: William Page on his own could be a worthy subject for an intern research project, or Barrier too, or the local black community...

Monday, November 3, 2014

Costich film

Costich's 1930s home movies of BSNS and the village are becoming sought after. Shared some of intern Ian Hauck's work on them with local public library to use for an event they are having, and today signed Ian up with me as his faculty sponsor for Scholars Day 2015, to present the digitized, edited film to the campus.

Student housing research

Emily Lake who did the internship this past spring digitizing the oral history tapes is back, doing a project where she will survey the history of student housing. Good project, no such done before. Have met with her and gone over the basic history, Dedman's book, Stylus etc., and will work with her to review other sources, e.g. the housing office docs, catalogs...