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Winter 2010

A treasure trove of university history

Ever felt overrun by family photographs, scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, funeral cards, and wedding programs, or felt guilty about getting rid of them? Now just imagine yourself in the shoes of Gerald Peterson, special collections librarian and archivist at the University of Northern Iowa’s Rod Library. He is the university’s “family historian.”

The Special Collections and University Archives contains more than 10,000 books and 5,000 linear feet of material on 35 rows of shelving stacked seven shelves high. It contains just about anything that documents the history of the university, including correspondence, reports, student newspapers, yearbooks, catalogs, minutes of organizations (both student and faculty/staff), photographs and two-dimensional memorabilia such as programs and dance cards. The materials are categorized according to the university’s organization—division, college, department, etc.—and stored according to archival standards set by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.

Many of the important items in the collection are those that relate to student life, according to Peterson. The student newspaper collection includes issues for 1878 through 1884 and 1892 to present.

“The annuals are a good snapshot of what made students happy, what they cared about,” he said. “But my favorite things in the collection are the student newspapers, the whole run. They really show what student life was like.”
The collection also includes:

• correspondence of President Homer Seerley. Nearly every piece of business crossed his desk in his 42 years as president, from the payment of bills to his opinions on national education issues.
• handwritten diaries of professor David Sands Wright with an entry each day from 1870-1931.
• a heavily used, 200,000-piece photograph collection.

Researchers use the collection daily, mostly UNI students and faculty and staff, but requests can come from all over the world. More than one million visits were made to the Special Collections Web sites last year.

Work on the archives is continuous. Records are processed as they’re delivered. Materials need to be cleaned, sorted and documented for research and locating among the files. The Web site is updated with renovations, new buildings, new presidents and other changes occurring on campus.

Peterson’s career as archivist began 35 years ago when he came to UNI after earning his B.A. and M.A. in English and another master’s degree in library science from the University of Illinois. He started in the reference desk area, which was already 50-percent special collections. As the collection grew, he had the opportunity to take it over full-time.

Peterson receives calls for potential donations to the archives a few times each month. He takes a careful look at anything university related and turns items down only when they’re duplicative or just don’t fit the collection, either due to space or the nature of the donation. Most two-dimensional items are in the archives, while the three-dimensional items are forwarded to the UNI Museum. When things don’t fit either venue, he directs people to the Cedar Falls Historical Society or the Grout Museum in Waterloo.

And Peterson’s words of wisdom for the home archivist? “Don’t underestimate the value of what you have. Just because it’s been in your family for years doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value,” he said. “Think of whether or not the material will document an aspect of life people would be interested in. For example, is it the only sample of Aunt Edna’s handwriting?”

American Fiction Collection
This collection of 5,300 volumes is made up of first-edition novels written by U.S. authors who published their first novels between 1960 and 1980.

Archival and Manuscript Collections Guides to Individual Collections and Series
The Special Collections staff has created guides to many archival series and manuscript collections. The list of archives and manuscript-finding aids available as Web documents can be found at www.library.uni.edu.

Manuscripts Collection
The Manuscripts Collection is comprised of about 40 collections of material relating to organizations or individuals that are not formally a part of UNI, but come from people and organizations whose interests and history are related in some way to the university. The primary emphases are local political history and professional education associations. Content varies from a few pages to several hundred cartons and includes papers from U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley ’55, M.A. ’56.

Rare Book Collection
The 3,000-piece Rare Book Collection includes old, rare, delicate or valuable volumes of Iowa and local history, Prairie Press publications, local authors, early children’s books, historic school texts, selected books from early printers, and volumes illustrating the history of printing and binding.

Small Press Collection
The Small Press Collection includes publications from fine presses in Iowa and nearby areas, including Abattoir, Seamark, Cummington, Toothpaste, Spirit That Moves Us, Juniper, Stonewall and several others. This collection displays the talents of the finest Midwestern printers, designers, illustrators and binders over the last 30 years.

Stageberg Linguistics Collection
The Stageberg Collection is the professional linguistics collection of professor Norman C. Stageberg, a long-time member of the UNI English faculty. Included in this collection are important early editions of several grammars and dictionaries as well as later publications.

University Archives
The University Archives consists of historically valuable documentary material relating to UNI. The material, ranging from the 1870s through today, attempts to document all facets of the campus and includes catalogues, yearbooks, student newspapers, budgets, financial reports, and student magazines and anthologies. Correspondence and subject files from significant people, committees, offices and organizations are included. In addition, there are about 40,000 photographs featuring the people, activities and physical landscape of the university.

Donations
Donations of books, papers and other media in keeping with the collection management policy and within the limits of staff and spatial resources of Special Collections and University Archives are welcomed. If you have material you wish to donate, please call 319-273-6307.

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Maintained by the UNI Alumni Association
Last Modified: January 28, 2010