PREFACE

This has been a year of both transition and achievement in the Manuscripts Department. A new curator joined the staff in October, and he has devoted much of his energy to getting up to speed while other staff have been trying to adjust to him. I think our achievements were pretty remarkable considering!

Much of what is reported here is this year's version of the standard (but always extraordinary) work necessary to keep offering excellent resources and services to our users. All of this work is significant and worth reviewing, and tribute is due the Technical Services staffs of all sections of the Department (Lynn Holdzkom, Linda Sellars, Nancy Kaiser, Kelly Kress, John Loy, Allyn Meredith, and Susan Ballinger, along with their many student and research assistants) for their assiduous efforts reflected in detail later in this report, as well as our Public Services staff (Laura Clark Brown and John White, with their students) for outstanding service to researchers on- and off-site, and Rachel Canada for superior support to all members of the Department, especially the Curator.

I also want to highlight a few of what seem to me especially outstanding staff accomplishments.

• The online Manuscripts Research Tutorial that Laura Clark Brown developed (working with Lisa Norberg) has had both a campus-wide and a national impact; it is innovative, helpful to users at a variety of levels, imaginatively constructed, and being copied (and thus complimented) regularly by other repositories.
• The Department has a steady record of successful grant applications and a stellar track record for grant-funded projects successfully completed. This year's work by the staffs of the Southern Folklife Collection (the Goldband Recording Company project and "Sea Islands to Selma") and University Archives and Records Service ("Managing the University Desktop") deserve special mention, along with the privately funded processing by Nancy Kaiser of the Richardson Preyer Papers.
• Another nationally important effort is Lynn Holdzkom's extensive contribution to Describing Archives: A Content Standard (Society of American Archivists, 2004). This work is a new basic reference for the description of archival materials, and Lynn worked with (and hosted) leaders in the field to pull together this seminal work.
• One new collection this year is a true landmark: Steve Weiss acquired the Eugene Earle Collection of 60,000 audio discs of all sizes, with related materials, representing many forms of southern vernacular music and nearly doubling the size of the Southern Folklife Collection's audio holdings.
• The staff of University Archives and Records Service (Janis Holder, Frank Holt, and Susan Ballinger) all deserve praise for carrying huge responsibilities far beyond the reasonable capacity of their small numbers. Some help is on the way and more is warranted!

As this is written, the staff is completing a process of "envisioning" the future of the Department and its components that I think will be valuable in many ways. I especially appreciate these efforts that have taken everyone from the regular tasks to which they are so dedicated. In the year ahead, I hope that we can be guided somewhat by the outcome of this process, and I predict that by this time next year the Curator will have his act well enough together to present some goals for the future along with a review of the past.

Many thanks go to Lynn Holdzkom, Assistant Curator, for coordinating and editing the remainder of this report, and to others for their contributions.

Tim West
Curator of Manuscripts and Director of the Southern Historical Collection
September 2004

SELECTED ACTIVITIES

Exhibits:

• Crowning Glory: An Exhibit Celebrating the Graduate School Centennial at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Manuscripts Department, August-December 2003, curated by Janis Holder and Susan Ballinger.
  • With materials drawn from University Archives, the Southern Historical Collection, and the North Carolina Collection and Photographic Archives, the exhibit highlighted the history of graduate studies and research at Carolina through photographs, books, original letters and documents, and University publications. It also celebrated the long collaboration between the Library and graduate education on campus.
  • The Manuscripts Department and the Friends of the Library hosted an opening reception on 21 October 2003. Deputy University Librarian Larry Alford and University Archivist Janis Holder made brief remarks. The reception was followed by a lecture presentation in the Pleasants Family Room. Laura Micheletti Puaca, author of Pioneer to Powerhouse: The History of Graduate Education at Carolina gave the presentation, and Graduate School Dean Linda Dykstra introduced Puaca. About 35 people attended.
• The Avery Family of North Carolina
  • Manuscripts Department, January-March 2004, curated by Laura Capell Knodel.
  • The Avery family was prominent in western North Carolina, particularly Burke County, from the late 1700s through the 1900s. Members of the Avery family were active in politics at both state and local levels. They operated plantations, including Swan Ponds, and acquired vast amounts of land in Burke County and other western North Carolina counties. They participated in various business ventures ranging from gold mining to railroad construction, and they also practiced law. Members of the Avery family fought in both the American Revolution and the Civil War.
• North Carolina and Brown v. Board of Education
  • Manuscripts Department, April-June 2004, curated by Anne E. Skilton with Michelle Mascaro.
  • The United States Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education decision in April 1954, declaring separate educational facilities unequal and thus unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. Brown v. Board was a landmark in the history of American education and American race relations, and its impact reverberated across the country.
  • This exhibit explored both the immediate impact of the decision and public reaction in North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the University of North Carolina, and it examined the homegrown desegregation case Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.

Publications:

Manuscripts Research Tutorial (http://www.lib.unc.edu/instruct/manuscripts/): Launched in September 2003, the Manuscripts Research Tutorial is a self-paced instructional module designed to introduce users to the methods of finding and using primary source materials with specific strategies for identifying holdings of the Manuscripts Department at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Programs and Symposia:

• Searching for "Our family black and white" or Why I've Lived with the Cameron Family for 250 Years
  • Manuscripts Department, 29 April 2004, an informal talk by Professor Syd Nathans.
  • The 33,000-item Cameron Family Papers is one of the premier antebellum plantation collections in the country. These letters, diaries, slave lists, account books, and other items derive from our own backyard--on the eve of the Civil War, Paul Cameron and his siblings owned over 1,000 slaves and nearly 30,000 acres in Orange, Wake, Person, and Granville counties, as well as plantations in Alabama and Mississippi.
  • Syd Nathans, professor in the History Department at Duke University, has mined this trove for over 20 years and has sent many students into it as well. His talk focused on his experience and discoveries in the Cameron Family Papers, especially recent explorations of the fates of black residents of the Camerons' plantations.
  • About 25 people attended the gathering, including Manuscripts Department staff, University Library staff, Duke University affiliates, and UNC students. Tea and light refreshments were served.
• Walter Lenoir: Explaining an Antisalavery Confederate
  • Manuscripts Department, 4 March 2004, an informal talk by Professor William Barney.
  • Professor Barney of UNC-Chapel Hill's History Department explained that he is "using the Lenoir Family Papers, and especially the Civil War experience of Walter W. Lenoir, to explore the question of why white Southerners who were quite ambivalent about slavery, nonetheless became ardent supporters of the Confederacy. Walter Lenoir is a particularly fascinating example of this phenomenon. He acknowledged the evils of slavery, intended to divest himself of his inherited slaves, strongly opposed secession, and was planning on moving to Minnesota in the free North when the war broke out. Yet he was hardly a Unionist. He enlisted in the Confederate army in January 1862 and supported the cause until the very end. Why?"
  • About 20 people attended the gathering, including the Manuscripts Department staff, graduate students, and other researchers. Tea and light refreshments were served.

National Recording Registry:

Cylinder field recordings from the Guy Benton Johnson Papers (#3826) were selected by Librarian of Congress James Billington for the National Recording Registry. The cylinders were donated to the Southern Historical Collection in February 1990.

Visiting Scholars Grant Program:

This spring, the Department awarded the third annual Visiting Scholars Grants (formerly Southern Studies Research Stipends). We were able to grant three $1,000 grants using the Cay, Johnson, and Sitterson endowments, and one $1,200 grant from the Williamson endowment. Relevance to the Library's collections combined with the merits of the topic were the primary selection criteria. The FY2003/2004 winners were:

• Joel Williamson Visiting Scholar Grant:
  Angela Pulley Hudson, PhD Candidate, American Studies, Yale University
  "Reading Between the Lines: Indians, Slaves, and Surveyors in the Alabama Borderlands, 1790s-1820s"
• John Eugene and Barbara Hilton Cay Visiting Scholar Grant:
  Sarah E. Gardner, Associate Professor, History, Mercer University
  "Reviewing the South: The Politics of Southern Literature and Northern Reviews, 1920-1950"
• Guion Griffis Johnson Visiting Scholar Grant:
  Niera Marshall, PhD Candidate, African Diaspora History, Indiana University
  "Female Fugitives: Enslaved Women's Resistance in the Lowcountry, 1820-1860"
• J. Carlyle Sitterson Visiting Scholar Grant:
  Judkin J. Browning, PhD Candidate, History, University of Georgia
  "Wearing the Mask of Nationality Lightly: Forging New Identities in Occupied Eastern North Carolina During the Civil War"

Grant-funded Projects:

• In August 2004, the Southern Folklife Collection completed a grant from the Recording Academy to preserve and provide access to the Goldband Recording Company Collection (#20245). The collection contains early commercial recordings of Cajun and zydeco music as well as influential recordings by Dolly Parton, Iry LeJune, and Boozoo Chavis.
• Preservation and access work continued on "Sea Islands to Selma: Preserving Sound Recordings Relating to African American History and Culture," a two-year preservation and access grant awarded to the Southern Folklife Collection by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• Work also continued on the National Historical Publications and Records Commission-funded project "Managing the Digital University Desktop," co-sponsored by UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke and managed by Helen Tibbo of the School of Information and Library Science and Tim Pyatt of the Duke University Archives. During FY2003/2004, University Archives staff members Janis Holder, Susan Ballinger, and Frank Holt researched email guidelines and wrote FAQs on managing email for the project website.
• Another NHPRC-funded project began this fiscal year. The NHPRC Electronic Records Research Program, housed at SILS and the UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University libraries, offers non-residential electronic records fellowships to archival professionals wishing to study issues surrounding electronic records. This is a continuation of the program run by the Boston Consortium, 2001-2004. Managed by Helen Tibbo, the program has an advisory board consisting of leading archival educators and practicing archivists. Assistant Curator Lynn Holdzkom and University Archivist Janis Holder serve on the executive board. In FY2003/2004, the selection process for the first group of fellows was begun.

COLLECTION USE

The Manuscripts Department as a whole recorded about 3,970 circulations in FY2003/2004. Reference questions of all types totaled about 8,250. Staff gave 35 classes and workshops to almost 550 participants and conducted 55 tours for about 410 people. Staff filled 355 studio requests.

A number of publications resulted from research in the Manuscripts Department, some of which are listed below.

Selected Monographs:

• Cisco, Walter Brian. Henry Timrod: A Biography. Madison, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004.
• Cotham, Edward. Sabine Pass: The Confederacy's Thermopylae. Austin, Tx: University of Texas Press, 2004.
• Ely, Melvin Patrick. Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004.
• Fellman, Michael. This Terrible War: The Civil War and Its Aftermath. New York: Longman, 2003.
• Schultz, Jane E. Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil War America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

Selected Articles:

• Blum, Edward J. "The Crucible of Disease: Trauma, Memory and National Reconciliation During the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878." Journal of Southern History LXIX (November 2003).
• Brown, David. "Attacking Slavery from Within." Journal of Southern History LXX (August 2004): 541-576.
• Stewart, Bruce. "'When Darkness Reigns Then Is the Hour to Strike': Moonshining, Federal Liquor Taxation, and Klan Violence in Western North Carolina, 1868-1872." North Carolina Historical Review LXXX (October 2003): 453-474.
• Strain, Christopher. "Soul City, North Carolina: Black Power, Utopia and the African American Dream." Journal of African American History 89 (Winter 2004): 57-74.

Selected Sound Recordings:

• Blue Sky Boys, Sunny Side of Life, 5-CD Box Set (Bear Family, 2004).
• Jimmy Martin, Don't Cry to Me (Thrill Jockey, 2004).

Selected Video:

• Martin Scorcese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey (Sony Music, 2003).
• King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times of Jimmie Martin (WEA, 2004).

Selected Researcher Comments:

• All the staff treated me very professionally and warmly while I was conducting my research and I came away with a positive impression of the University.
• My week at Chapel Hill was a most productive research trip.
• Thank you so much for being so very helpful on my recent visit to the library.
• I had a very enjoyable and productive time at the Southern Historical Collection. It is a wonderful place to work. The staff are extremely efficient and their enthusiasm for research projects makes working there a pleasure.
• All of your assistance--both in the past and present--are deeply appreciated.
• I really enjoyed my time at UNC, and greatly appreciated your excellent service.
• I just wanted to thank you all for putting up with and helping a novice researcher like myself. You were wonderful to work with, and it was a pleasure getting to know you all.
• I rank your service right up there with the help given to me at the National Library of Scotland ... .
• I really appreciate ... all of the help I received while using SHC materials.
• To everyone who was so helpful when I raided your collection in late November: I write rather tardily I'm afraid to thank you for all your assistance with my endless requests… .

COLLECTION GROWTH

The Southern Historical Collection, General Manuscripts, and the Southern Folklife Collection received 275 new accessions representing about 271,000 items (1,437 linear feet). University Archives received 81 records transfers representing about 350,200 items (526 linear feet). The Department received a grand total of about 621,300 items (1,963 linear feet) during FY2003/2004.

Major acquisitions include:

Gifts:

• Delta Health Center Records (#4613): Almost 40 linear feet of correspondence, subject files, and other records of the Delta Health Center, which was located in rural Mound Bayou, Bolivar County, Miss., and served Bolivar, Coahoma, Sunflower, and Washington counties, where poverty is widespread.
• Eugene Earle Collection (#20376): The Earle Collection contains about 60,000 country and western, blues, and jazz 78rpm records as well as 700 transcription discs of Sons of the Pioneers' radio broadcasts, 300 open reel tapes of live performances, song folios, periodicals, 45rpm records, LPs, cassettes, wax cylinders, books, films, and personal papers. This collection nearly doubles the Southern Folklife Collection's holdings and is one of the largest collections of American vernacular music ever donated to a university.
• Ehrlich and Rabhan Family Papers (#5129): About 90 letters in Yiddish, 1890s; photographs; and other materials of a Jewish family in Savannah and other Georgia locations.
• James A. and Annie Vaughan Felton Papers (#5161) and Alice Eley Jones Papers (#5160): Nearly 300 photographs, oral history recordings, letters, and other items of Felton family members and other members of the African American community of Hertford County, N.C.
• Ernest Frankel Scripts (#12016): About 40 television scripts of Frankel, novelist, screenwriter, and producer, who was a regular contributor to the Perry Mason television series and wrote the novels Tongue of Fire (1955) and Band of Brothers (1958). Appended to most of the Perry Mason scripts are carbon copies of notes from Erle Stanley Gardner and memos from the CBS Program Practices Department.
• Grigsby Family Papers (#5141): About 50 letters, photographs, and other items contributed by members of the Grigsby family, an African American family whose members have been active in the arts, sciences, education, and community affairs in North Carolina, Arizona, and elsewhere. This is the start of a wider family archive.
• George Watts Hill, Jr., Papers (#5162): A large collection of papers and printed materials of Hill, including correspondence, reports, maps, and other materials concerning, among other topics, higher education in North Carolina in the 20th century; the legal battle between the University of North Carolina and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare that culminated in the Consent Decree; and the speaker ban controversy.
• Terry Sanford Papers (#3531): About 15 linear feet of additional general materials of Sanford, politician, educator, administrator, lawyer, and soldier, who served as state senator, 1953-1954; governor of North Carolina, 1961-1965; president of Duke University, 1969-1985; and United States senator, 1986-1992.
• Henry Ucko Papers (#5146): About 500 items relating to Ucko, who left Germany in the 1930s and became an important member of the Jewish community in the Dominican Republic and later in Fayetteville, N.C.

Purchases:

• Rice C. Ballard Papers (#4850): Five additional volumes containing financial information, 1831-1853, concerning Ballard's slave trading business in Richmond, Va., and operations at Magnolia Plantation in Mississippi.
• John B. Evans Papers (#5165): Letter copybook, 1807-1824, documenting Evans's extensive holdings of land, plantations, and lead and iron mines in Tennessee and other southern states and his father-in-law's attempt to recover and manage them after Evans's death in 1805.
• A. J. McIntire Diaries (#5154): Two volumes of McIntire's diaries covering January-June 1864, when McIntire served with the 38th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, and January 1867-May 1868, when McIntire taught at a school for African Americans in Sampson County, N.C.
• Samuel McDowell Tate Papers (#710): Additional materials, 1840s-1910s, of Samuel McDowell Tate (1830-1897), Confederate colonel; president of the Western North Carolina Railroad; representative of Burke County, N.C., to the General Assembly, 1874-1884; bank examiner, 1886; state treasurer, 1893-1894; and longtime Democratic Party leader of western North Carolina.

Deposits (Loans):

• Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill Records (#4736): About 15 linear feet of additional general records of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a publishing house incorporated in 1982 by UNC English professor Louis Rubin, Jr., and Shannon Ravenel, a St. Louis fiction editor. Algonquin has grown into an important publisher of novels and short stories, including the annual New Stories from the South.
• Penn School Papers (#3615): The original diary of Penn School founder Laura M. Towne, 8 April 1862-30 May 1864, in two volumes. The volumes are added to the already considerable collection of materials relating to the Penn School on Saint Helena Island, S.C. Penn School was founded during the Civil War by northern philanthropists and missionaries for former plantation slaves in an area occupied by the United States Army. Over the years, with continuing philanthropic support, it served as school, health agency, and cooperative society for rural African Americans of the Sea Islands.
• Elizabeth Spencer Papers (#5145): Correspondence, photographs, and other materials of Spencer, who has written numerous novels and collections of short stories. A Chapel Hill resident, her southern roots are evident in works such as The Voice at the Back Door (1956); she is perhaps best known for her 1960 novella, The Light in the Piazza. The purchase of this material is being negotiated.

University Archives (Transfers):

• College of Arts and Sciences
• School of Law
• Department of Chemistry
• Recreation and Leisure Studies
• Carolina Population Center
• School of Pharmacy
• Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development
• Order of the Gimghoul
• Dialectic and Philanthropic Joint Senate
• UNC Press
• North Carolina Literary Festival

COLLECTION ACCESS

During FY2003/2004, we processed 116 collections and/or additions to existing collections representing about 558 linear feet (about 298,300 items) for the Southern Historical Collection and the Southern Folklife Collection. University Archives processed 82.5 linear feet of new groups and/or additions to existing groups. Also during the past year, we continued to plan how to convert from EAD (Encoded Archival Description) Version 1.0 to EAD Version 2002. This conversion is being carried out as part of our ongoing cooperation with Duke, North Carolina State, East Carolina University, the North Carolina State Archives, and other institutions that work together under NC EAD, which coordinates EAD implementation throughout the state as part of NC ECHO.

During FY 2003/2004, 37 records retention and disposition schedules were approved, with activity on an additional 115 schedules pending approval. As of the end of FY 2003/2004, there are a total of 636 records management liaisons and 520 approved records schedules for the campus.

Cataloging of audio recordings in the Southern Folklife Collection also continued. School of Information and Library Science graduate students, working as research assistants or interns, and graduate students from other disciplines have done most of this work. These catalog records have been produced chiefly through copy and original cataloging. In FY2003/2004, students created 417 MARC 21 records, with 12,781 records done since the project started in FY1999/2000.

Notable collections processed included:

From the Southern Historical Collection:

• Maude Davis Bunn Papers (#5121): Maude Davis Bunn, born in 1888 in Yadkin County, N.C., was active in community and political affairs, traveled widely, and wrote a column based on her experiences for the Raleigh Times.
• William McWhorter Cochrane Papers (#5079): Cochrane (1917- ) of Newton and Chapel Hill, N.C., and Washington, D.C., worked for the United States Senate in various capacities for more than 40 years. Cochrane was much decorated for his work and earned the respect of Democrats and Republicans alike.
• Delta Health Center (#4613): The Delta Health Center was located in rural Mound Bayou, Bolivar County, Miss., and served Bolivar, Coahoma, Sunflower, and Washington counties, where poverty is widespread. The Center, which began as an affiliate of Tufts University and then became connected with the State University of New York at Stony Brook, merged with the Mound Bayou Community Hospital in the 1970s. The Center was largely supported by grants from federal programs.
• Hooper Family Papers (#5155): The Hooper family of Alabama included Caroline Alice Hooper, Charles Mallett Hooper, John DeBerniere Hooper, and their cousin Fanny DeBerniere Hooper Whitaker of North Carolina. Charles Mallett Hooper was a lawyer, and John DeBerniere was involved in mining, serving as the Chief Mine Inspector for the State of Alabama. Both served in the Civil War.
• Lawrence D. Kessler Papers (#5098): Kessler, emeritus professor of Chinese history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, gathered the unrelated papers of George R. Marvell, the North Carolina China Council, Lawrence D. Kessler, and the Newton and Underwood families. George Ralph Marvell was a career United States Navy officer, who retired from active service in 1931 as a rear admiral.
• Ridley R. Kessler, Jr., Papers (#5132): Kessler, government documents librarian at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1970-2003, was an important contributor to the development of modern document librarianship.
• Myra Page Papers (#5143): Writer, union activist, and communist Dorothy Markey (nee Dorothy Page Gary) was born in Newport News, Va., in 1897 and died in 1993. Under the name Myra Page, Markey was an active political journalist and writer in the 1930s. In the early 1940s, she taught writing at the Writers' School sponsored by the League of American Writers in New York City. During the 1950s and 1960s, she wrote and published the juvenile biographies.
• Research Triangle Foundation Records (#5081): RTF is the owner and developer of Research Triangle Park, N.C., a research park housing research institutes and other businesses in Piedmont North Carolina. Records of the Research Triangle Foundation include files of predecessor organizations and other organizations related to the planning and development of the Research Triangle Park, among them the Pinelands Company, Inc.; the Research Triangle Committee, Inc.; the Triangle Service Center; and the Research Triangle Regional Planning Commission. Also included are materials relating to the Research Triangle Institute and the Triangle Universities Center for Advanced Studies, Inc.
• Robeson Family Papers (#5130): The Robeson family of Tar Heel, Robeson County (formerly Bladen County), N.C., included James Salter Robeson and his aunt, Emily Salter Robeson Love. Robeson was an engineer with the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company in Wilmington, N.C., and with the merchant marine during and after World War II. In 1972, he retired to Florence, S.C., where he died in 1989.
• Southern Economic Journal Records (#4886): SEJ, the journal of the Southern Economic Association, began publication in 1933 at the University of Georgia and was produced from 1935 through 1997 by the Association and the University of North Carolina. It moved to the University of Florida in fall 1997. SEJ originally was intended to examine economic issues peculiar to the American South, but, over the years, its focus shifted to more general economic topics.

From the Southern Folklife Collection:

• Paul Brown Collection (#20382): Paul Brown is a record producer, banjoist, and radio journalist who has been active in promoting interest in the music of traditional acoustic string instruments near his home of Mount Airy and Pilot Mountain in North Carolina. The collection consists of materials from Brown's personal collection of recordings and accompanying documentation relating to his promoting, musical, and journalistic activities.
• Timothy Duffy Collection (#20044): Timothy Duffy (1963- ), folklorist and musician, produced field recordings of the American roots tradition as an undergraduate at Warren Wilson College and while working on a folklore master's degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A few years after graduating in 1991, he co-founded the Music Maker Relief Foundation (MMRF), a non-profit organization near Hillsborough, N.C., that helps southern roots tradition musicians meet their financial needs and gain recognition for their work. The collection includes chiefly sound recordings, but there are also artist files, CD liner proofs, correspondence, photographs, posters, documentation, video recordings, and miscellaneous items. Most of the material relates to Duffy's work with MMRF.
• Joan Fenton Collection (#20015): Folklorist and performer Joan Fenton earned a Masters degree in folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1981. She is the owner of several stores in Charlottesville, Va., that feature traditional and contemporary handicrafts. The collection consists of sound recordings and related documentation. Sound recordings include interviews, songs, and tall tales by artists in the southern roots traditions from North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Louisiana.
• Fiddler's Grove Collection (#20016): Fiddler's Grove, an old-time-music and family-oriented campground, which hosts traditional music and dance events throughout the year is owned and operated by Harper and Wanona Van Hoy in Union Grove, N.C. The Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival, a fiddling competition, has been held annually in the spring since Fiddler's Grove's founding in 1970, and the Square-Up, a clogging competition was held in the fall until 1982. The fiddling festival, however, traces its history in Union Grove to 1924 when Harper Van Hoy's father, H. P. Van Hoy, founded the Old Time Fiddlers Convention as a school fundraiser. The collection provides an overview of the history and operation of Fiddler's Grove, and its main entertainment events, the Ole Time Fiddler's & Bluegrass Festival and the Square-Up.
• Karen Helm Pressley Collection (#20324): Ethnomusicologist Karen Helms Pressley was born in Union County, N.C. Classically trained in piano, organ, and voice, Pressley developed an interest in the preservation of old-time music and the oral tradition. The collection contains fieldwork relating primarily to the oral musical traditions of the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Union County, N.C., in south-central North Carolina.
• Brett Sutton Collection (#20041): Folklorist and librarian Brett Sutton was born in 1948 and raised in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. He enrolled in the Curriculum of Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a Masters degree in 1976. His thesis project, The Gospel Hymn, Shaped Notes, and the Black Tradition, focused on African American spiritual folk singing in North Carolina. The collection includes reel-to-reel tapes with cover sheets, tape indices, and content notes for each recording that were gathered for Sutton's thesis research.

From University Archives:

• New group:
• Office of the Chancellor: William O. McCoy Records (#40227), 4.5 linear feet
• Large additions:
• Board of Trustees (UNC-CH) Records (#40003), 2.5 linear feet
• Office of the Chancellor: Michael Hooker Records (#40026), 43.5 linear feet
• Construction Administration Department Records (#40099), 28.5 linear feet
• Small additions (less than a box):
• Office of the Chancellor: Joseph Carlyle Sitterson Records (#40022)
• Office of the Chancellor: Nelson Ferebee Taylor Records (#40023)
• Office of the Chancellor: Christopher C. Fordham Records (#40024)
• Office of the Chancellor: Paul Hardin Records (#40025)
• Office of the Director of Athletics Records (#40093)

PRESERVATION

Recent changes in how reproduction services are handled in the Manuscripts Department, chiefly relating to limitations on photocopying, have meant that preservation microfilming is largely driven by user request. When a user wishes to copy all or a large portion of a collection, the Department evaluates the materials to determine whether or not past and potential research interest points to microfilming as a way to protect high-use originals. If the materials are or may be heavily used, the user request is filled by making a microfilm copy paid for by the Department. The materials are then available on microfilm onsite and through interlibrary lending. In FY2003/2004, eleven collections were added to the Department's microfilm collection (with copies available in Davis Library Microforms) in response to user request.

Thanks to continued support from the Randleigh Foundation, we were again able to hire a student assistant to work on Department materials under the direction of the Library's conservator, Jan Paris. The student performed item-level conservation work on about 610 documents and 21 large volumes from the Department's collections at greatest risk. These included materials from the following collections: Alphonso Calhoun Avery, Avery Family, Buchanan and McClellan Family, Maude Davis Bunn, Cobb and Whitfield Family, Johnston Family, Maurice Kurtz, John J. Metzgar, Penn School, and Prudhomme Family.

John Loy and Allyn Meredith did a substantial amount of archival media preservation work in the John Rivers Studio in FY 2003/2004. The Department created 390 audio preservation masters for over 1,000 source recordings. Audio media preserved included recordings from the Music Maker Relief Foundation, the Penn School, the Highlander Research Center, the Taylor Branch Collection, and the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Program.

STAFF

In July 2003, the search for a new Curator of Manuscripts/Director of the Southern Historical Collection concluded with the hiring of Tim West, who began in the position on October 1. Tim had been Director of Collection Development at the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library since 1994. Prior to that, he held positions at the Southern Historical Collection, including Technical Services Director, for 14 years. The Department and the Library as a whole, is grateful to Lynn Holdzkom for occupying the Curator/Director position on an interim basis for 19 months. She did a wonderful job of administering an important, complex, and multi-faceted operation and representing it well to its various publics, all the while maintaining her duties as Head of Technical Services. Tim was extremely pleased when the Library administration agreed to make Lynn Assistant Curator when he joined the staff. She continues to wear multiple hats and makes absolutely critical contributions to the overall functioning of the Department, providing back-up for Tim and tracking the Department's budget as well as managing Technical Services and keeping the Department current with developments in Encoded Archival Description (EAD) and MARC 21 cataloging.

In November 2003, Allyn Meredith was hired for a one-year position as Library Assistant for the NEH grant "Sea Islands to Selma: Preserving Sound Recordings Relating to African American History and Culture." Allyn is a graduate student in the Curriculum in Folklore. Previously she worked as a freelance producer for WUNC-FM and held a position at the Wood Turning Center in Philadelphia. Allyn has quickly adapted to the work of the Southern Folklife Collection, processing collections, creating finding aids, and conducting preservation transfers.