Connecting with Historical Consciousness through Special Collections Libraries

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8 hours ago
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Kristina R. Sutherland │Louisiana State University

Tucked into a small building on the Louisiana State University (LSU) campus, Hill Memorial Library houses the LSU Libraries Special Collections. But what makes these collections special? Special collections libraries connect people with heritage and history via archives of themed materials. These libraries are often affiliated with universities and are accessible to faculty, students, and others who seek answers to research questions. Universities are places of research and learning where individuals acquire knowledge while creating lasting memories. They build communities and histories while also housing materials in museums, repositories, and libraries. At LSU Special Collections, items related to the historical consciousness of Louisiana, as well as other areas of interest, are available.

Steps lead up from a tree-shaded plaza with crisscrossing concrete walkways to the exterior of the front entrance of Hill Memorial Library. Several windows are offset to both sides of double glass doors located on a covered patio above another set of steps, with a ramp offset to the right. — The front entrance exterior of Hill Memorial Library. (Author’s photo).

Exhibit spaces on the first and second floors feature curated displays about various topics. Selections of materials are displayed to classes or special gatherings in the McIlhenny Room, and students can work in the quiet study room on the second floor. Patrons can access materials and perform research in the reading room, and library staff at the reading room reference desk assist patrons with finding and viewing materials. These items are often rare and frequently fragile, so special rules and restrictions are required for accessing them. Librarians also create tools for patrons to use while navigating the catalogue records. For example, someone interested in researching Louisiana during the Populist governorship of Huey P. Long during the 1930s can use the Huey P. Long Papers finding aid to find more specific material. Long’s governorship nearly a century ago still echoes throughout the state, and the results of his actions are still visible through highways, bridges, and structures such as LSU’s Tiger Stadium.

A large room with wood-paneled walls, carpeted floors, tall windows, and a two-story-high ceiling. Several rows of wooden tables and chairs are spaced apart from each other at set intervals, providing visitors with adequate room to work. The former reference desk borders the right side of the room. — The quiet study room at Hill Memorial Library. (Author’s photo).

Special Collections accounts can be created to request materials for a particular date or range of dates before visiting to maximise time spent with the collections. Research tools such as research guides, subject guides, and finding aids provide starting points for exploring topics in the collections, and archive records and the digital catalogue allow for searches of all types of materials. These tools are created and updated during the curation process, when materials are identified, classified, and organised. Items are catalogued via common naming and identification conventions, such as Resource Description and Access, Descriptive Cataloguing of Rare Materials, and Describing Archives: A Content Standard. Notes are also provided about the historical importance of specific items, such as a book’s previous owners or the inclusion of marginalia. Cataloguing standards and the use of controlled vocabulary for subject headings make items more easily accessible to researchers. Librarians make these records objectively descriptive, while highlighting important and less represented issues and also providing content warnings for manuscript collections with sensitive material. The records are entered into digital systems, including WorldCat, which is shared between libraries around the world and is accessible online. Research tools are available through the Special Collection website with open access, so preliminary research can be performed remotely, and library staff can assist with questions about specific research topics. Such tools provide a starting point for finding materials related to more specific subtopics within a collection.

A large wooden desk to one side of the room separates the public reading room space from restricted administrative spaces further within the building. Several tables and chairs are spaced apart from each other, providing visitors with room to work. — The Hill Memorial Library reading room reference desk. (Author’s photo).

Materials housed in Special Collections include rare books and manuscripts concerning assorted topics, many of which are connected in some way to Louisiana or regional culture. The personal papers of politicians, soldiers, store owners, scholars, and the general populace provide perspectives on life and events from different points in history. Newspapers of record from throughout the state are primary sources concerning births, deaths, elections, and historical news and events. Oral histories contain recordings of public speeches, musical performances, and singing and speaking of languages and dialects which are endangered and extinct. For those interested in studying LSU itself, the University Archives provide access to a curated history of LSU, digital issues of the school newspaper The Reveille, and archived articles, theses, dissertations, and other scholarship in the LSU Scholarly Repository. Digitised materials from some collections are accessible online through the Louisiana Digital Library. These collections contain primary source materials, which are essential for research.

A box containing materials from a collection sitting on a reading room table. Boxes of different sizes and shapes house many kinds of materials. Research tools such as finding aids contain information on what materials are stored in which containers, making it easier to access documents or groups of photos. — A box containing collection materials in the reading room at Hill Memorial Library. (Author’s photo).

Materials related to particular topics are grouped into collections. The Louisiana and Lower Mississippi Valley Collection (LLMVC), the primary collection in the LSU Special Collections, is the largest known grouping of materials related to the title region. The LLMVC provides a gateway for studying the culture and history of Louisiana and its people. Materials involve topics such as plantations, slavery, land surveys, the US Civil War, and state and local politics. Creative works by Louisiana authors or related to Louisiana culture are included. Researchers might find travelogues about French Colonial America, sheet music or musical recordings created in or related to Louisiana, letters sent home by a soldier, or collections of Cajun, Creole, or European recipes. Exhibits concerning groups of people at museums and on monuments are often limited by space. In special collections, patrons can access much more information. Historically underrepresented voices, such as Louisiana’s free people of colour, can be heard, assuming they were documented. By searching the online catalogue and making use of subject headings, patrons can access memories of Louisiana from the seventeenth century to the present using the LLMVC.

The Mermaid Gate at the Louisiana World Exposition. (Cary Akin, Wikimedia Commons, modified from original image, CC BY-SA 2.0).

The Clarence John Laughlin Collection involves a different kind of cultural heritage. Representing his lifelong fascination with the arts, literature, photography, and worlds beyond, this material explores Surrealism, speculative fiction, the supernatural, and more. This resource connects artists to various areas of artistic heritage to inspire their own creative endeavours. Most of his works and personal papers are in the Historic New Orleans Collection museum and research centre, but the Laughlin Library of the Arts was purchased for LSU Special Collections with a gift from the Friends of the LSU Libraries. The Andrei Codrescu Collection of Outsider Literature has a similar function. With over five thousand works of late twentieth-century poetry and fiction, including small works from small presses, this collection provides writers, poets, and others with access to works which are otherwise practically inaccessible.

A black and white photograph of the Girod Street Cemetery in New Orleans. Sunlight from left of the frame casts shadows across above-ground tombs and monuments and illuminates wispy clouds which stretch outward from the light. New Orleans graves are often above ground, partially due to the elevated water table. — The Unending Stream. (Clarence John Laughlin, Fogg Museum, modified from original image, Harvard Art Museums).

The Rare Book Collection is, as its name implies, a collection of rare books and prints. The scope of these materials is not limited to the state of Louisiana or to any particular region. The collection includes: some incunables, which are books from the first fifty years of printing in Europe; some first edition printings of assorted books and prints; two copies of the Second Folio edition of the works of William Shakespeare, one of which includes 18th-century marginalia; and high-quality reproductions of manuscripts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. There is also a wide variety of artists’ books, which are often shown as part of LSU’s courses on book arts and printmaking. The Wyatt Houston Day Collection of Poetry by African Americans contains rare books of poetry from the collection of New York book seller Wyatt Houston Day. These books include works from prominent and obscure African American authors whose publication ranges from the eighteenth through the twenty-first century, including the Harlem Renaissance. Special collections librarians seek to acquire such materials which preserve the history of communities grounded in particular places and times to expand access to interested researchers. By providing access to a wide variety of materials, such collections enable patrons to learn more about these groups without the need for extensive travel to multiple libraries. They also create opportunities to find unique materials: two cousins, Renee Anderson and Sharon Young, were able to find an autographed first edition of Harry Wilson Patterson’s Gems of the Soul in the Day Collection – a selection of poetry written and signed by their grandfather.

A digital scan of the title page of William Shakespeare’s Second Folio with text and engraving. The centered text “Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. Published according to the true Originall Copies. The Second Impression.” sits above a black-and-white engraving of Shakespeare’s head. The original image includes his torso. — The title page of William Shakespeare’s Second Folio edition. (Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Collections, modified from the original image, CC0 1.0).

The E. A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection features books containing imagery of birds and plants from the New World, including species found in Louisiana. The double elephant folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America is one of the more prominent pieces in the collection. The base of the collection was donated to LSU Special Collections by the McIlhenny family, owners of the Tabasco hot sauce company. The donated materials were combined with similar materials that were already owned by the LSU Libraries, and the collection continues to be expanded. The Rhoades Crayfish Collection includes four centuries of scientific literature regarding the taxonomy and culture of crayfish. This collection was a joint gift and purchase agreement with Nancy Rhoades, the widow of zoologist Dr. Rendell Rhoades. Crawfish is the culinary term for crayfish, and crawfish are a culinary delight across south Louisiana. Here, where the weather is hot and muggy through much of the year, locals say that the four seasons are ‘crawfish, shrimp, crabs, and oysters’. The Rhoades Crayfish Collection thus provides opportunities to explore this connection to local culture and industry.

A pile of boiled crawfish, red potatoes, corn, and other vegetables spread out over newspaper on top of a table. Crawfish boils are popular events in South Louisiana during the spring, and boiled crawfish are a key ingredient in seasonal dishes such as étouffée, bisque, crawfish pies, and crawfish pastas. — Boiled crawfish, red potatoes, corn, and other vegetables. (Author’s photo).

Some smaller collections devoted to singular topics act as memorials to the original owners and their personal hobbies. Researchers can combine sources from multiple collections. The William Morton Bowlus Collection contains thousands of comic books, serving as a tangible publication history for many popular characters. The Gladney Chess Collection explores the history of famous players of, and discussions about the game of chess. The Carrier Collection of Poker and Hoyle includes works by Edmond Hoyle concerning board games and card games, plus literature focused on poker. The Russell Mann Sherlock Holmes Research Collection features canonical and non-canonical depictions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s hero in varied media, the range of which attests to Holmes’s lasting legacy. While these collections provide in-depth details about particular subjects, someone studying the use of card games or chess in Sherlock Holmes materials or comic books could combine resources from the collections above.

A Rio Staunton wooden chess set with chessboard made from mahogany and sycamore woods and chess pieces made from rosewood and boxwood, marking light and dark sides for the game. All of the pieces are on the board, with the light side closer to the viewer, awaiting their opening move. — A Rio Staunton wooden chessboard and chess pieces. (Wilfredo Rafael Rodriguez Hernandez, Wikimedia Commons, modified from original image, CC0 1.0).

Some special events related to the Special Collections are held at Hill Memorial Library. On Audubon Day, an annual Spring event, the double elephant folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America is made available for public viewing in the McIlhenny Room. Reservations are required due to the popularity of the event. Multiple sessions are held, each with limited attendance, to avoid damaging the materials. Despite Audubon’s connections with slavery, people appreciate the Louisiana ties of his art. The Audubon Zoo, Aquarium, and Insectarium in New Orleans provide living connections to his work. Afternoon in the Archives events are detailed presentations about particular collections or themes, with materials selected for public viewing in the McIlhenny Room. These events are often connected to important milestones related to the collection. Talks from grant-funded scholarship and research regarding the collections are held in the lecture hall. The lecture hall is also available as additional quiet study space every semester during Finals week.

A banner displaying an American flamingo standing on a rock with its head lowered to the water. The banner is hanging in front of the entrance to Hill Memorial Library, indicating that the annual Audubon Day event will occur soon. — An American Flamingo banner hanging outside of Hill Memorial Library for Audubon Day. (Author’s photo).

Special Collections also involves the preservation of physical materials. Collections are housed in climate-controlled spaces and protected from dampness, heat, light, or other possibly harmful factors. Materials are transferred from containers made of assorted substances to acid-free paper, folders, boxes, and other substances designed for long-term archival storage when required. Items which have become degraded due to exposure to the elements, physical wear, or other means are repaired using professional conservation practices whenever possible. Materials are digitised for preservation and increased access via the internet when time and funding allow. Digital exhibitions enable specialised presentations of selected topics and materials to be shared repeatedly in the future. One such exhibit, Creole Echoes, features information and images about French and Creole cultural heritage expressed in various ways in New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase. While architectural and culinary traditions persisted, Creole and French culture were dominated by British and American influences. This cultural heritage gradually faded over time. By preserving an exhibit online, the library provides another resource for patrons to learn about historical heritage, such as the Creole Echoes of New Orleans in the comfort of their own homes and raises awareness of the topics one can research at LSU Special Collections.

A statue of the Rougarou monster from French and Louisiana folklore at the Audubon Zoo. The Rougarou stands in the dim light of a swamp scene, its clawed hand raised menacingly, eyes and mouth open wide. Children’s bones, body parts, sandals, and shoes lie in a pile at its feet. — A statue of the Rougarou from French and Louisiana folklore at the Audubon Zoo. (XxxJohnDoExxxx, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0).

Avenues for exploring the culture and historical consciousness of Louisiana at LSU exist beyond Special Collections and outside of Hill Memorial Library. The LSU Campus Mounds, amongst the oldest human-made structures in the Americas, physically connect Native American history with LSU. The LSU Museum of Natural Science in Murphy J. Foster Hall has one of the largest research collections in the country and the largest collection of genetic resources in the world. The William A. Brookshire Military Museum at Memorial Tower displays the military history of LSU. Art galleries in the art, design, and art studio buildings, the Student Union, an outdoor sculpture garden, and the off-campus LSU Museum of Art connect people with culture and heritage. The off-campus LSU Rural Life Museum shows modern visitors how past lives were lived in the Louisiana countryside.

Two ancient earthen mounds covered in green grasses sit adjacent to a row of large oak trees which provide shade for walking paths and streets at Louisiana State University. These earthworks, some of the oldest known human-made structures in the Americas, were built by Native Americans over thousands of years. — The LSU Campus Mounds earthworks. (Spatms, Wikimedia Commons, modified from original image, CC BY-SA 3.0).

Just as the LSU Special Collections connect people with the historical consciousness and cultural heritage of Louisiana, other special collections libraries around the world help people explore the past and bond with their history. The Stanford University Special Collections at the East Asia Library contains materials about Japanese, Chinese, and Korean culture, including material concerning the all-female Takarazuka Revue theatre troupe from Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. The British Library’s National Sound Archive features one of the largest collections of recorded sounds in the world. The University of Tokyo Library System Special Collections has works on medicine, art, literature, natural history, and other topics. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. contains the largest Shakespeare collection in the world in addition to rare books, manuscripts, and artworks from the early modern period.

A room with wooden bookshelves lining the walls bordering a white stone fireplace, forest green carpeted floors, stained-glass windows, and a three-story-high ceiling with hanging chandeliers. There are several wooden tables with reading lamps aligned in the center, and red leather chairs are spaced on either side of the tables. — The Gail Kern Paster Reading Room at Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. (Julie Ainsworth, modified from original image, CC0 1.0).

Special collections libraries are places where people can connect with culture and historical consciousness. Focused archives of materials provide opportunities to view a plethora of items connected to the past. Whether searching for information about ancestors while building a family tree, seeking knowledge of ghost stories and monster tales related to local folklore, looking up recipes to determine their cultural origins and variations, or tracing a record of past performances in a theatre, special collections libraries provide invaluable resources for researchers of all kinds. The rare and irreplaceable items contained in these collections require great amounts of effort to properly identify, describe, and preserve so that they will be available for future generations. Digitisation efforts protect items and provide broader access to materials, expanding the impact of these resources. It is important to spread awareness of these institutions so that more people might appreciate their purpose and benefit from their use.