Making Archives: A Look Behind the Scenes

Making Archives: An Inside Look at the Work to Preserve Southern Memory
On exhibit Feb. 9 - Apr. 30
Wilson Library (4th floor), UNC-Chapel Hill
Exhibit information: (919) 962-1345 or ask here

On Feb. 17, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Wilson Library will open the normally off-limits stacks of its archives for public tours. This backstage pass will introduce visitors to the process of transforming raw materials into research gold.

photo of library staff

UNC archives staff process the papers
of Sen. Sam Ervin, 1976

The program, "Open Stacks: Behind the Scenes in the Southern Historical Collection, Southern Folklife Collection, and University Archives of Wilson Library," will begin at 5 p.m. on the fourth floor. The event is free and open to the public.

Staff from the collections will guide visitors through the restricted stack areas and will display treasures stored in the archival vault. There will be letters in the hand of presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, another penned by poet Langston Hughes, and one signed by Albert Einstein. Meeting records and maps from the 1790s will describe the founding of the University.

This open house will complement the exhibit, Making Archives: An Inside Look at the Work to Preserve Southern Memory, which will be open Feb. 9 to April 30, also on the fourth floor of Wilson Library.

The free, public exhibit will feature photographs, documents, and artifacts spotlighting the work of UNC's manuscript archivists in preserving the history of the South. Photos will chronicle the journey of archival materials beginning with their arrival at UNC. One mid-20th-century photograph shows staff unloading material in the rawest form — stored in whiskey boxes. Also on exhibit will be samples of archival items ready for use, such as Civil War era diaries and papers from the collection of author and UNC alumnus Walker Percy.

Biff Hollingsworth, collecting and public programming archivist for the Southern Historical Collection, says the exhibit honors a great library of "Southern human records."

"We save these items from decay, from being forgotten, and we make them available," he said. "Researchers and students say it's like magic, but it's really the hard work of lots of people behind the scenes."