Tag Archives: University Archives

Black History Month spotlight: Marian Spencer  

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Our final spotlight of Black History Month is a well-known figure in Cincinnati’s history of civil rights and activism, Marian Spencer. Born in Gallipolis, Ohio in 1920, Marian Alexander was a graduate of Gallia Academy and went on to study English literature at the University of Cincinnati. During her time at the university, she was involved in campus life and was an active member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. While here, she also met her husband, Donald Spencer. After college, the couple settled down and had two sons, Donald and Edward. 

"Every child should at least have a chance to get a good education."

Spencer’s sons were actually what sparked her passion for civil rights and equality. When the boys were young, they wanted to go to an event at Coney Island Amusement Park but were disappointed when they showed up and were escorted out because it was a segregated event. Spencer, along with 28 other witnesses filed a lawsuit and won the case to desegregate the park.  

Following this event, Spencer dedicated herself to fighting for civil rights and equality in the Cincinnati area. She spent time as the NAACP Cincinnati Chapter president, served on Cincinnati’s City Council and was a representative of Ohio’s Democratic Party at a national level. Even more than this, Spencer was passionate about equality in education and played a pivotal role in the 1974 Bronson case, which was a catalyst in desegregating Cincinnati Public Schools. Other organizations Spencer worked with include Housing Opportunities Made Equal, Planned Parenthood, Cincinnati Human Services Task Force and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission Ohio Advisory Board.  

You might recognize Marian Spencer’s name by the street that’s named after her downtown, the dormitory that’s named after her or perhaps by her well-known scholarship here at UC. To learn more about Marian Spencer’s life and work, visit the digital exhibit: 

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To see the full collection of Marian and Donald Spencer Papers, visit the University Archives at UC’s Archives and Rare Books Library.  

Black History Month spotlight: Theodore Berry

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In celebration of Black History Month, we are highlighting African American figures who were influential in their efforts to further civil rights, education and leadership in the city of Cincinnati and America.

Our first spotlight is Theodore Berry. A native of the area, Berry was born in Maysville, Kentucky in 1905. As a young adult, he attended the University of Cincinnati where he received his BA and Law degree, and later in life, his Doctor of Laws.

After his time at UC, Berry served as president for the Cincinnati Chapter of the NAACP, served as morale officer in the Office of War Information, acted as lead defense attorney for the Tuskegee Airmen and served four terms on Cincinnati’s City Council. After an unsuccessful campaign for a fifth City Council term, Berry became a representative for future president John F. Kennedy. Once Kennedy was in office, Berry continued to pioneer civil rights by bringing the NAACP into the White House and serving on its National Board of Directors.

Berry during his time as director of federal Community Actions Programs and assistant director of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

In 1963 Berry was elected for a fifth term on City Council and ended his time there when President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him director of Federal Community Action Programs and assistant director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Nine years later, Berry was sworn in as the first African American Mayor of Cincinnati. Berry retired from political life in 1975 and passed away 25 years later in 2000.

Through his life and work, it’s easy to see that Theodore Berry was a figure who was revered, trusted and that he made a big impact on Cincinnati and beyond. We are proud to honor him this month and always.

His papers, including correspondence, photographs, news clippings, reports, studies and minutes of meetings are located in the Archives and Rare Books Library. To learn more about Theodore Berry, visit the digital exhibit:

The Collection

Changing of the GRS

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Change happens. It’s a fact of life. For lots of reasons. Recent changes to the General Records Schedule, the document providing direction for the disposition of records generated by UC personnel, show that it’s no different for records retention. While slight, the changes were still essential to executing the records management program. What is as important as change happening is that these changes be documented for and shared with relevant stakeholders. Fortunately, at UC a process exists for that. It occurs in three phases: the reason behind the changes, how the GRS is updated, and communication of the changes.

General Records Schedule Archives and Rare Books Library Records management
Continue reading →

UC Libraries seeks University Archivist and Head, Archives & Rare Books Library

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The University of Cincinnati Libraries invites applications for the university archivist and head, Archives & Rare Books Library. The successful candidate will be responsible for the development and management of services and collections of the Archives and Rare Books Library, which includes rare books, manuscripts, the University Archives, and other archival and special collections. Additionally, as university archivist, the position is responsible for promoting use and engagement with collections documenting the history of the University of Cincinnati and providing leadership oversight of University Records Management Program.

This full-time, faculty tenure-track position has a salary range of $85-110K plus stipend and is covered by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), UC’s collective bargaining agreement. UC faculty librarians have access to annual funding to support conference attendance and professional development needs.

This position operates under the principles of the UC Libraries Strategic Framework: NEXT Directions, which aims to increase the Libraries’ impact by: creating paths to education innovation and student success; contributing to the university’s research, learning and teaching agendas; and by creating partnerships within UC, the wider Cincinnati urban community and at national and international levels.

This work requires a substantial investment in people, a renewed commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and a continued focus on and acceleration of digital transformations as the Libraries continues to fulfill its mission and achieve the vision to become the globally engaged, intellectual commons of the university—positioning itself as the hub of collaboration, digital innovation and scholarly endeavor on campus.

The full position description and application are available on the university’s career website.

UC Libraries closed Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 6

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All UC Libraries locations are closed Monday, Sept. 6 for Labor Day. The Libraries will reopen as scheduled Tuesday, Sept. 7.

Have a safe and relaxing holiday.

And for more information on labor, check out the exhibit Working for a Living, featuring the University of Cincinnati’s Archives and Rare Books Library labor collections.

working graphic

Read Source, the online newsletter, to learn about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries

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sourceRead Source, the online newsletter, to learn about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

In this issue of Source, Dean Xuemao Wang takes time to reflect as work begins to transition back on campus and we showcase UC Libraries innovation and impact during the pandemic. In addition to articles highlighting collections such as Albert Sabin’s papers and Obed Wilson’s library, this issue also marks the commemoration of the first national Juneteenth holiday and features an interview with the authors of the recent University of Cincinnati Press book, Bicycling Through Paradise. As our 19th year of publication comes to a close, we feature a retrospective of past covers and a look back at the 2009 Edible Books event.

Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the website. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.

 

Documenting COVID-19 in University Archives

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At the Archives and Rare Books Library, we recently began using Archive-It to preserve important university websites. The average life span of a webpage is between 44 and 100 days. Web pages are notoriously fragile documents, and many of the web resources we take for granted are at risk of disappearing.

As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, we are using Archive-It to capture various UC domain webpages dedicated to the pandemic’s impact on the university community. This kind of rapid response web archiving will ensure we preserve a historical record of this monumental event at UC for future researchers. You can currently view the UC COVID-19 website archive, which is being updated on a daily basis.

So far, we have collected several gigabytes of data, and over 20 websites, including each college’s COVID-19 page. Since some pages update more frequently than other, we schedule crawls (i.e. the process of archiving a webpage) of pages like https://www.uc.edu/publichealth.html on a more frequent basis in order to capture all of the changes.

The Archives and Rare Books Library is not the only archival repository documenting the experience of COVID-19. Dozens of other institutions, including many other Ohio college and university archives, are also collecting and preserving this fast-moving event. One of the largest COVID-19 collections so far is a collaboration between the International Internet Preservation Consortium and Archive-It, which has now collected more than 2,763 websites in 30 languages about the worldwide response to the pandemic.

There has been growing interest over the last several years in developing ethical frameworks around documenting crises within the archives profession. In response, the Society of American Archivists created a Tragedy Response Initiative Task Force that has developed a comprehensive set of guidelines based on archivists’ professional ethics and values. Previous examples of online archiving projects of crises and traumatic events include the September 11 Digital Archive, Hurricane Katrina Digital Memory Bank, and Documenting Ferguson. Given the global reach of COVID-19 and the advances in web archiving and digital projects, the pandemic is likely to become one of the most well-documented global events in recent history.

Would you like to suggest a website that we should include in our COVID-19 UC web archive? Please email us to suggest new UC sites to preserve in our COVID-19 web archives. Please note that at this time, we are currently only crawling public-facing webpages directly related to the UC community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

The Benjamin Gettler Papers Processing Project Now Complete

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By:  Alex Temple, Benjamin Gettler Papers Project Archivist

The Benjamin Gettler papers processing project has come to a close, but I wanted to write one more entry about efforts to ensure the lasting usability of the collection.  As I’ve explored and processed the collection, I found a broad range of material making up the scope and content.  Each item in the collection is important, but some items can actually harm others, and storage methods that work for one item will not necessarily work for another.  Therefore, each item has been assessed for it’s individual preservation needs, including how to store it so it would not affect the safety of the rest of the collection.

Jellybeans from President Reagan's desk in the Gettler collectionRegarding the paper documents, some are emails printed from an inkjet or laser printer as recently as 2013, while other documents are stock certificates dating back to the 1890s.  Regardless of their age, generally all paper-based objects need to be housed in a stable and protective environment, such as acid-free folders, and stored in a room with a relative humidity of 30-50% and temperature between 35-65°F, all of which the University of Cincinnati Archives & Rare Books Library provides.

Of course, not everything was as straightforward as placing into a new, preservation-quality folder.  I have written previously about items Gettler had taken from his visit with President Reagan at the White House, largely about some jellybeans.  Miraculously, these jellybeans had survived for nearly 40 years.  To make their longevity less of a miracle and more of a science, we deferred to The Preservation Lab, a joint lab of the University of Cincinnati Libraries and the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.  They vacuum-sealed the jellybeans, and brilliantly constructed a box for them that allowed them to be displayed alongside a note from Ben’s wife Dee.  The candy is now protected from being squashed, chewed on, or getting wet.  And just as importantly, the rest of collection is less likely to be adversely affected by the composition of the jellybeans, such as sugars and dyes. Continue reading →

Read Source to learn more about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

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sourceRead Source, the online newsletter, to learn more about the news, events, people and happenings in UC Libraries.

In this issue of Source, Dean Xuemao Wang writes about his new role as vice provost for digital scholarship, which ties in with the article Introducing the Research @ Data Services Team.

The Libraries special collections are featured prominently in this issue with news of an exciting, surprise gift to the Neil Armstrong Commemorative Archives, promotion of a lecture series celebrating the digitization of the Albert B. Sabin Research Notebooks, and an announcement of a new UC exhibit featuring the Special Collections of four UC Libraries.

This fall brings new faces and new publications from the University of Cincinnati Press, along with the conclusion of the university’s Bicentennial celebration, which university archivist and head of the Archives and Rare Books Library Kevin Grace uses as the occasion to recount a gift from William A. Procter that was instrumental to the libraries.

Lastly, we announce that the Cecil Striker Society Annual Lecture is now our first fully endowed annual lecture.

Read these articles, as well as past issues, on the web at http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/source/ and via e-mail. To receive Source via e-mail, contact melissa.norris@uc.edu to be added to the mailing list.

Benjamin Gettler and the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees

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By:  Alex Temple, Benjamin Gettler Papers Project Archivist

I’ve mentioned before that Benjamin Gettler served on the Board of Trustees for the University of Cincinnati, but I haven’t really talked about how he got there or what that means.  In short, the Board of Trustees is the governing body of the University of Cincinnati.  There are 11 members total, who are recommended by the Ohio State Senate and appointed by the Governor of Ohio.  Among other responsibilities, they select and appoint the university president, set the university budget, and grant all degrees from the university.  The trustees set the framework for students’ experience at the University of Cincinnati, as they also are responsible for setting the tuition and approving university rules, curricula, and programs.  Gettler himself was key to the creation of the Judaic Studies Department.

Gettler was first recommended as a trustee to Governor George Voinovich by legislator Stanley Aronoff in October of 1992.  Aronoff lauded Gettler’s commitment to the Republican Party (Voinovich was a Republican governor) and business prowess, but it wasn’t until November of 1993 after a second recommendation from Bob Taft, that Voinovich would finally appoint Gettler.  Taft’s recommendation better highlighted Gettler’s qualifications as both a University of Cincinnati alumnus and significant donor.  Taft also praised his experience in law, finance, community service, and business in addition to his supportive activities with the Republican Party in local, state, and national issues.  He also put his own reputation on the line by making the recommendation out of personal familiarity with Gettler. Continue reading →