INTRODUCTION

The Manuscripts Department improved access to much of its unique research materials during 1997-1998. Enhancements include SGML encoding of collection finding aids, searchable databases for folklife materials, and electronic texts of selected manuscripts. This report describes these access advancements as well as collection use, growth, preservation, and staffing for the past year.

COLLECTION USE

A total of 2,101 registrants made use of the Manuscripts Department holdings on-site this year. However, as in past years, the number researchers who accessed the collections by email, fax, telephone, and correspondence continued to increase. We received a total of 5,629 requests via electronic means. A total of 12,502 items were used in 1997-1998 - 6,121 by on-site researchers and 6,381 by remote inquiry.

A number of publications resulted from research in the Manuscripts Department, including:

Selected Books:

• Andrews, William L., Ed. The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology (W. W. Norton, 1998).
• Clark, Daniel. Like Night and Day: Unionization in a Southern Mill Town (UNC Press, 1997).
• Edwards, Laura. Gendered Strife and Confusion: The Political Culture of Reconstruction (University of Illinois Press, 1997).
• Leidholdt, Alexander. Standing before the Shouting Mob: Lenior Chambers and Virginia's Masive Resistance to Public School Integration (University of Alabama Press, 1997).
• Luraghi, Raimondo. A History of the Confederate Navy (Naval Institute Press, 1997).
• Minchin, Timothy. What Do We Need a Union For? The TWUA in the South, 1945-1955 (UNC Press, 1997).
• Robertson, James I. Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend (Macmillan, 1997).
• Sears, Stephen. Chancellorsville (Houghton-Mifflin, 1996).
• Symonds, Craig. Stonewall of the West: Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War (University of Kansas Press, 1997).
• Tolson, Jay. The Correspondence of Shelby Foote & Walker Percy (W.W. Norton, 1997).

Selected Articles:

• "Expressing a Dream: In Celebration of Black History" Newspaper-in-Education Special Section, Charlotte Observer and The Herald-Sun (February 1998).
• Jabour, Anya. "Grown Girls, Highly Cultivated: Female Education in an Antebellum Southern Family," Journal of Southern History (February 1998).
• Marten, James. "Fatherhood in the Confederacy: Southern Soldiers and Their Children," Journal of Southern History (May 1997).
• Thuesen, Sarah. "Taking the Vows of Southern Liberalism: Guion and Guy Johnson and the Evolution of an Intellectual Partnership," North Carolina Historical Review (July 1997).
• Wright, Annette. "The Grown-up Daughter: The Case of North Carolina's Cornelia Phillips Spencer," North Carolina Historical Review (January 1998).

Recordings:

• Dock Boggs: Country Blues: Complete Early Recordings (1927-1929), Revenant 205.
• Black Banjo Songsters of North Carolina and Virginia, Smithsonian/Folkways CD 40079.
• The North Carolina Banjo Collection, Rounder CD 0439/40.

EXHIBITS

We mounted three exhibitions this year. Our Fall exhibit on maps was timed to coincide with the North Carolina Collection's conference, The Southeast in Early Maps. Our Spring exhibit on Algonquin Books was part of activities associated with the campus literary festival.

• Maps of the Southern Historical Collection (Fall 1997).
• Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill: Publishing New Authors of the American South (Spring 1998).
• Horace Williams: Hegel of the Cotton Patch (Summer 1998).

COLLECTION GROWTH

We received a record number of new collections and additions to existing collections this fiscal year. The Southern Historical Collection received 199 new accessions representing 1,403,244 items (1,791 linear feet); the Southern Folklife Collection received 65 new accessions representing 35,854 items (363.5 linear feet); University Archives received 48 records transfers representing 203,223 items (689.5 linear feet). A grand total of 1,642,321 items (2,844 linear feet) was received during fiscal year 1997-1998 by the Department.

Notable gifts:

• Charles Kuralt Papers - correspondence, office files, and related materials of the late CBS broadcaster. Gift of Mrs. Suzanna Kuralt.
• George Esser Papers - personal papers of the former director of the North Carolina Fund. Gift of George Esser.
• Glencoe Mills Records - nearly 100 years of correspondence, ledgers, and administrative records of the Burlington-based textile mill. Gift of Preservation North Carolina.
• Susie Sharp Papers - correspondence files of the late North Carolina Justice. Gift of the Sharp Estate.
• Florentine Films Addition - materials pertaining to the films Jefferson and Lewis and Clark. Gift of Ken Burns.
• Don Brown Collection - audio recordings and related materials pertaining to the history of country music. Gift of Don Brown.

Notable purchases:

• Rice Ballard Papers - letters, financial and legal materials, volumes, and other material documenting Rice Ballard's life as a slave trader and planter (received as a gift/purchase).
• Collection of 9,000 country music 45 rpm records (ca. 1950s-1970s).
• Addition to the Clyde Edgerton Papers - correspondence, journal entries, and materials pertaining to his most recent book, Where Trouble Sleeps.
• Addition to the C.G. Memminger Papers - correspondence of the secretary of the Confederate Treasury.
• George Washington Baker Papers - letters by a Lieutenant who served with the Army of the Potomac. He participated in and wrote home about his experiences in Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina.

University Archives, Notable New Record Groups:

• Board of Trustees (Consolidated UNC) Health Affairs Committee Records.
• Assistant to the Provost for Finance Records.

University Archives, Notable Record Group Additions:

• Board of Trustees (UNC-Chapel Hill) Minutes.
• Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs Records.
• Office of the Chancellor Records: Paul Hardin Series.
• Office of the Assistant/Associate Provost for Educational and Support Services Records.
• Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Records.
• Office of the Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Records.

The Department also entered into a partnership with North Carolina Central University by accepting responsibility to store, preserve, maintain, and make accessible NCCU's outstanding African American Resources Collections. In April we moved nearly a half million manuscripts, oral histories, and video tapes documenting the development of Soul City, the North Carolina Mutual Insurance Company, and the Triangle African American community from the Hayti Center in Durham to Wilson Library.

COLLECTION ACCESS

During FY1997-98, we processed 116 new collections and/or additions to existing collections representing 773.5 linear feet (465,532 items) for the Southern Historical Collection. Notable collections processed include:

• Rice Ballard Papers.
• Jeffery Beam Papers.
• additions to the Josephus Daniels Papers.
• Edna Mill Records.
• Glencoe Mills Records.
• additions to the Frank Porter Graham Papers.
• additions to the J.G. de Roulhac Hamilton Papers.
• major addition to the John Kimberly Papers.
• Martin Lancaster Papers.
• addition to the C.G. Memminger Papers.

Access to collections improved in other significant ways. Lynn Holdzkom, the Department's cataloger, completed a project linking bibliographic records in the Library's online catalog to the full text version of the collection guides (where they exist in electronic form). She also started a project to expand collection listings on the department's website. In cases where we do not have full inventories in electronic format, Lynn has generated a summary description from the bibliographic records and mounted it as a HTML file on the Department's collection inventory site: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv.html

We also enhanced the methodology used for mounting inventories on the web by employing Encoded Archival Description (EAD). The EAD Document Type Definition (DTD) is a standard for encoding archival finding aids using the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). We were able to implement EAD through the work of Jackie Dean, a recent UNC-Chapel Hill SILS graduate who we hired on a three-month contract, and with the assistance of our colleagues at Duke. David Romani and other members of the Academic Affairs Libraries Systems Office also supplied key technical support. Thanks to their help, all future collection inventories will be created using EAD. A sample inventory can be viewed at:

http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/inv/b/Ballard,Rice_C.html

The Library's Documenting the American South project made full texts of several manuscripts available online. Included is the diary of Belle Edmondson, which can be viewed at:

http://docsouth.unc.edu/edmondson/edmondson.html

Also available is the diary of Meta Morris Grimball:

http://docsouth.unc.edu/grimball/grimball.html

With a revision of its website, we improved access to portions of the Southern Folklife Collection. Collections inventories and a searchable database listing North Carolina Resources can be accessed at:

http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/sfc1/index.html

While not implemented this year, databases listing commercial recordings and field tape will be available in FY1998-99.

PRESERVATION

We completed preservation microfilming for eleven collections (206 reels) this year. The collections filmed were:

• A.M.E. Church, N.C. Conference Records, #4825.
• Rice Ballard Papers, #4850.
• Clayton Family Papers, #4792.
• Paul Green Papers, Series 6.1. Diaries, #3693.
• Luther Hodges Papers, Series 5.1. Scrapbooks, #3698.
• Isaac Jarratt Papers, #3514.
• McColl Family Papers, #4776.
• Ackland Art Museum, Clippings, 1959-1964.
• N.C. Botanical Garden, Clippings, 1954-1987.
• University Development Program, Alumni Loyalty Fund Scrapbooks.
• Manuscripts Department, Research Agreements, 1990-1995.

Thanks to support from the Randleigh Foundation, we hired a part-time assistant who worked on Department materials under the direction of the Library's conservator, Jan Paris. The assistant performed item-level conservation work on some of the Department's manuscripts at greatest risk.

STAFF

We had a number of staff transitions during 1997-1998. Department Assistant Enola Guthrie retired after many years of service in January. We replaced her with the very capable Thomasia (Masie) Jones. Michael Taft left as Sound & Image Librarian in May for the Vermont Folklife Center. At the end of FY1997-98 former curator David Moltke-Hansen returned to Library full-time to work on several Manuscripts Department and library-wide development projects.

In June we sent forward a proposal to create a Library Technical Assistant I position for the Southern Folklife Collection. This position would be funded by Department endowment funds.

Respectfully submitted,
Timothy D. Pyatt
Curator
September 1998