May 27, 2014
by special collections & archives
Comments Off on DamNation and Katie Lee

DamNation and Katie Lee

It’s been a little over a month since DamNation made its world premiere at the SXSW film festival in Austin, Texas. DamNation, a documentary film, explores the sea change in our national attitude from pride in big dams as engineering wonders to the growing awareness that our future is bound to the life and health of our rivers The film features historic moving images from the Katie Lee Collection housed in Special Collections and Archives.

Katie Lee, bathing in a water hole, Glen Canyon. Image courtesy of Tad Nichols Collection NAU.PH.99.3.1.15.22

For the few who may not know, Katie is a musician, entertainer, environmentalist activist, river runner, writer, and a longtime Southwest desert rat. Katie first floated into the red-rock labyrinth of Glen Canyon (now Lake Powell) nearly 60 years ago. Since her first visit to Glen Canyon, it has remained a very dear and special place for Katie. Tragically, the grandeur and beauty of this riparian canyon was drowned in the name of “progress.” To learn more about Katie Lee and her collection at Cline Library, please check out “Naked Truth: The Katie Lee Exhibit”. To further explore the beauty and controversy surrounding Glen Canyon, Special Collections and Archives has a wonderful resource page that highlights additional collections, images, reports, and tribal issues, Click here

May 22, 2014
by special collections & archives
Comments Off on Throwback Thursday!

Throwback Thursday!

Where is this place, and what is it today?

The images dates from 1935, and its in Flagstaff.

Answer: This is the Dean Eldridge Taxidermist and Museum. Today this is the famous Route 66 icon, the Museum Club located at 3404 E. Route 66 in Flagstaff. The image is from the Warren Family Collection and is photo number: NAU.PH.412.5.9

May 21, 2014
by special collections & archives
Comments Off on Cline Library, SCA and Historypin.com

Cline Library, SCA and Historypin.com

As a result of a presentation at an archival meeting back in January, we’ve been deeply pondering and exploring ways to use social media to drive some Internet-based traffic back to our SCA site and the 100,000 (or so) pieces of digital content we provide access to there. Historypin.com seems like a natural. It is a British site that promotes imagery that reflects local history. It is map-based, and so users can browse around the world for image and document data, or they can search by place name. In joining Historypin, we are in the company of quite a few libraries, museums and archives loading quality material to the Historypin map. Our initial offering to Historypin revolves around two collections on our “channel” [http://www.historypin.com/channels/view/53522/#!photos/list/]. The first is an artificial collection called “Route 66 in the Southwest” that features images from a variety of photographic collections (including: A. H. Clark, Libby Coyner, R. Sean Evans, David F. Finney, Fronske Studios, Gary Gustafson, Joseph Muench, Kathleen Schmand, John Running and Tyler Wade), and covers the Kansas to California geography of the road, circa 1930s-present. Our second collection is comprised of river-running images on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon drawn from the Margaret Eiseman Collection covering Navajo Bridge to Lake Mead, circa 1953-1974. The Eiseman material is compelling as it includes imagery of Georgie Clark, Mexican Hat Expeditions and the Eiseman’s own dory-based 42 day marathon runs. It covers a significant period in river running history starting with the pontoon boats of Clark, the cataract boats of Gay Staveley and Mexican Hat, and the very growth of river running as an industry that pitted private parties like the Eisemans and their dories against the commercial operators for space on the river and the beaches throughout the canyon. For now, we have loaded a representative sample for the collections from our digital archives, linked appropriate related oral histories to a few images and we are now going to sit back to see what happens over the next 6 months or so. We’re in our sixth week on Historypin, and have almost 600 hits on our 150 images- or about 14 hits per day. We’ll keep you posted on our social media adventures.

May 15, 2014
by special collections & archives
Comments Off on Congratulations to the Class of 2014 and the Class of 1964!

Congratulations to the Class of 2014 and the Class of 1964!

Graduation is a time for celebration and reflection. This past weekend NAU celebrated the Class of 2014 graduation, which included over 4000 students.

Friday, May 9, 2014 commencement at the Skydome on the campus of Northern Arizona University. Photo: Alumni Relations, David Slipher

In addition to the festivities for the Class of 2014, NAU’s Alumni Relations invited graduates from the Class of 1964 to visit campus to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Special Collections and Archives was honored to host a dinner for the Class of 1964, also known as the Golden Graduates.

The Golden Grads on the steps of Old Main. Class of 1964 from Arizona State College. Photo: Alumni Relations, David Slipher

Twenty-seven Golden Graduates (and their guests) joined us after the Friday afternoon graduation ceremony for a tour of the “new” library (their library was in the Gammage building) and Special Collections and Archives, followed by a dinner in the Special Collections and Archives Miriam Lemont Reading Room. The Golden Graduates received gifts from Alumni Relations that included a copy of Northern Arizona University: Buildings as History and copy of their commencement programs. After dinner, the Golden Graduates had a chance to share memories from their time at Arizona State College (ASC became NAU in 1966).

Dean and University Librarian, Cynthia Childrey, speaking to the Golden Grads in the Miriam Lemont Reading Room in Special Collections and Archives. Photo: staff

Many stories were shared. Some of our favorites involved late night panty raids, the meeting of spouses, football practice with Coach Max Spillsbury, band practice in the snow, inquiries about Althea Ragsdale (the Gammage Library librarian), 50th wedding anniversaries that we being celebrated concurrently, and the general sense that Arizona State College was instrumental in the development of everyone in attendance. Several of the graduates shared that their children were also graduates of NAU. One special guest, Loya (Bryant) Nolan (class of 1941), was in attendance with her daughter, Kathleen (Nolan) McWhorter (class of 1964). It was an honor to meet them both.

Kathy (Nolan) McWhorter (class of 1964) left; her mother, Dorothy (Harrison) Montegomery (class of 1941) right. Photo: Alumni Relations, David Slipher

Kathleen (Nolan) McWhorter (class of 1964) left; her mother, Loya (Bryant) Nolan (class of 1941) right. Photo: Alumni Relations, David Slipher

During the tour of Special Collections and Archives, the Golden Grads were shown two new collections that are available via the digital archives: Louie’s Legacy and Pine/Lumberjack newspaper digitization project. Louie’s Legacy (http://library.nau.edu/speccoll/exhibits/louies_legacy/index.html) is a repeat photography project documenting history of North Campus buildings. This past year, Special Collections and Archives digitized all the extent copies of the student newspaper – The Pine (1914-1946) and Lumberjack (1946-present). The paper will be available to via the Colorado Plateau Archives (http://archive.library.nau.edu ) the public by late summer.

It was a wonderful evening and a reminder of how significant the time spent at NAU is to those who attend. On behalf of the Cline Library and Special Collections and Archives, we would like to congratulate the graduates from both classes – 2014 and 1964 – and wish them the best of luck and continued success.

May 1, 2014
by special collections & archives
Comments Off on Welcome to the Cline Library Special Collections and Archives Blog

Welcome to the Cline Library Special Collections and Archives Blog

Entrance of Special Collections and Archives, Cline Library (staff image)

We are excited to welcome you to the blog of Special Collections and Archives at the Cline Library! Special Collections and Archives (SCA) collects, preserves, and provides access to a vast array of material from diaries, letters, journals, photographs, movies, maps, reports, and oral histories that document two distinct collecting areas – the history of Northern Arizona University and the human and natural history of the southwest corner of the Colorado Plateau.

In our blog we will share highlights from our collections, new acquisitions, and newly available collections, as well as news and events. We hope it will raise awareness of the breadth of material, resources, and stories that we have the honor of stewarding.

We welcome your comments, experiences, and feedback related to the blog, the department, our collections, and our services.

Exhibit area of Special Collections and Archives, Cline Library (staff image)

Peter Runge, Head of Special Collections and Archives