Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 29, 1990 TAG: 9006290868
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERTA GREEN SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
Today, that collection includes three substantial archives - the Appalachian collection, the Archives of American Aerospace Exploration and the International Archive of Women in Architecture.
The collection also includes documents and photographs of the Norfolk and Western and Southern railroads - much of which is still to be uncovered in railroad offices and warehouses.
"My emphasis has been on developing the manuscript collections, and the big acquisition that really propelled us ahead is the Norfolk and Western Railway collection," said Glenn McMullen, director of special collections.
"When we first approached them in 1981, they didn't think they had any archives to speak of," he said. "Now, almost 10 years later, the collection is enormous, and we're still discovering treasures buried in the railroad's Roanoke offices."
While the special collections department now boasts some 40,000 rare books in all subjects, special strengths exist in English literature from 1880 to 1940, the history of technology in the 18th and 19th centuries, science fiction, juvenile fiction, Appalachian history and ornithology.
Other notable holdings include a volume of Cicero's rhetoric dated 1483, a first-edition copy of Mark Twain's "Huck Finn" and a two-volume set of "The Natural History of Carolina" (1754) by Mark Catesby, a predecessor of Audubon's natural history books.
Rare maps, some 50,000 historical photographs, a cross-section of the first helicopter propellor blade produced with numerical control, the papers of Christopher Kraft (first director of the NASA space-flight program) and astronaut Michael Collins' congressional Medal of Honor are other highlights of the collection.
While this department is a substantial repository today, it wasn't until the 1970s that it actively began acquiring rare books and manuscript collections, according to McMullen.
"The first major acquisition," he said, "was the Dayton Kohler collection. Kohler taught in the English department from 1929 to 1970, and when he retired he sold his collection of 20th century first editions, mostly American, many of them signed, to the Tech library."
Included in this collection are first editions of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"The next stage in the building of the collection was when the library surveyed the English department faculty on what we ought to collect," McMullen said. "So this collection started as a literary collection, and it is still very strong in literature.
"At about the same time, two members of the English department, Hilbert Campbell and Charlie Modlin, were in touch with Eleanor Anderson, the widow of Sherwood Anderson. She gave us a large number of first editions and early translations of Anderson's works, all of them from his own library. In this roundabout way, then, Sherwood Anderson became one of the library's real strengths."
The collections in general, however, have developed more by design.
"We're conscious of the need to carve out an identity for ourselves that's different from other repositories in the state," McMullen said. "For instance, we wouldn't want to be a smaller UVa."
With this in mind, McMullen has set about garnering acquisitions better-known repositories haven't considered, such as the history of space exploration and science fiction magazines.
"Our science fiction magazine collection is huge," McMullen said. "We have 5,000 issues which represent virtually complete runs of over 200 titles of magazines published between 1926-88 in the U.S., England and New Zealand.
"They're in excellent condition. The original owner collected them for the cover art, so many of them have never been opened."
Another specialty is juvenile fiction. Purchased from the widow of a high school teacher in Charlottesville, the hundreds of volumes are the work of about a dozen Victorian adventure writers.
"The stories are gung-ho, didactic, jingoistic," said McMullen, commenting that these adventure books reflect the imperialism of Victorian England, which is part of what makes them representative of the era.
A typical scenario would be a boy traveling to the colonies and subjugating the natives, which in the 1880s and '90s was considered a good thing to do.
But adventure tales are not all the department has to offer.
"The history of technology is a field that is emerging on its own out of the shadow of the history of science. Tech has a strong program in it and teaches a good bit of it," McMullen said. "Our collection contains several thousand volumes of rare books, the papers of some landmark figures and also some interesting artifacts.
"We've also begun collecting more ane more Appalachian materials," McMullen added. "The Appalachian photographs and artifacts of photographer Earl Palmer are an important recent acquisition, for example. We now have many of them on exhibit."
The NW collection includes railroad documents and photographs from the Southern Railway, which merged with NW in 1984.
"The combination of the two makes us one of the top centers for railroad history in the country," McMullen said. "If we had not originally approached Norfolk and Western about their archives, much might have been lost or destroyed."
The railroad collection, which includes more than 30,000 photographs acquired last year, some from the 1890s, is one of the most popular among researchers, McMullen said. But he stresses that much of what the railroad has in "cold storage" is yet to be unearthed and cataloged.
"The Norfolk and Western acquisition has meant making regular trips to their `cold storage' building, which has no lights and which is labyrinthian. It's been a process of going through really dark room after really dark room, each filled with mounds of paper. There are probably still some rooms we haven't been in."
Most of the manuscript acquisitions come to special collections as gifts, McMullen said, and the department is always on the lookout for new collections.
"Many local residents have old letters or other items that document the history of this area," McMullen said, "and placing them in a library will ensure that they will be preserved for future generations."
Hunting for new acquisitions, however, is just part of what goes on here. The staff reports that about 20 people a day use the collections during the school year, while summers are the time for out-of-town and out-of-state researchers.
Last year, the first international scholar came to use the manuscripts. A graduate student at the University of Geneva came to use collections in the International Archive of Women in Architecture. She is completing her dissertation on European women architects.
"This spring we hosted a conference for 40 manuscript curators and archivists from different repositories in the state. It was interesting to exchange ideas - and, of course, there's some friendly competition among libraries," McMullen added with a smile.
He is quick to give credit to his staff, which has worked with him to keep the collections as remarkable as they are.
Laura Katz oversees the International Archive of Women in Architecture, John Straw handles the University Archives, and Catherine Wingfield-Yeatts assists administratively.
Special collections, on the first floor of the library, is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
by CNB