More Pembroke windows (sort of)

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Meg Miner

Terry Garbe of Touch of Glass recently created a lampshade that is now available for use — or just admiring up close — in Tate Archives & Special Collections’ Reading Room.

Mr. Garbe and his staff were responsible for the restoration of the Pembroke Windows that accent the library’s 4th floor rotunda. Pieces left over from that restoration still remain, but only enough for one complete shade containing many of the windows’ motifs were available.

Stop by, have a seat, enjoy the new shade and the view; and you can also ask about the other treasures hidden in Tate Archives & Special Collections!

Yet another time capsule building identified!

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Meg Miner

While looking into the history of the Alice Millar Center for the Fine Arts last week, I came across a photo taken in 1973 on the day the date stone was placed in what we now call the Joyce Eichhorn Ames School of Art Building. If anyone reading this has details on what might be in it, contact the archives because all we have is a photo!

With all that have been previously reported, we now can confirm a total of eleven campus buildings with time capsules:
Hedding Hall (1870; time capsule removed in 1966)
Science Building (1910)
Memorial Gymnasium (1921)
Buck Memorial Library (1922)
Memorial Center (1946 and 1947 dedications and 1965 addition)
Shaw Hall (1954)
Dolan Hall (1955)
Sheean Library (1967; time capsule removed in 2011)
Mark Evans Observatory (1969)
Joyce Eichhorn Ames School of Art Building (1973)
State Farm Hall (2013)

New Access to Old Sources

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Meg Miner

IWU history texts are now available in the Internet Archive! Through our membership in the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) we were able to digitize the seven published histories on Illinois Wesleyan this semester. CARLI funded the scanning and they are now available online through an agreement with The Internet Archive, a non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library.

The Internet Archive hosts this and any other content we choose to add in the future with a customized homepage available at http://archive.org/details/illinoiswesleyanuniversity, but of course all of the texts are fully searchable and discoverable through any search engine.

Tips and links for researching these and other historical IWU sources are available at http://libguides.iwu.edu/IWUHistory.

New acquisitions in the sciences

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Meg Miner

A “herbarium,” a plant specimen book, was recently discovered in a lab in CNS. This book has significance for IWU’s history: it was compiled by Alfred O. Coffin, the second African-American to graduate from IWU. Coffin received an M.A. in 1888 and a PhD. in 1889 from IWU’s non-resident degree program. He was first African-American in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D in Biology.

Alfred O. Coffin, Ph.D., 1889

A text that belonged to former Biology faculty member (1958-1978) William M. Darlington was also donated this winter. It bears an inscription dated 1898 and contains notations on plant varieties.

These two volumes and other material related to the sciences are now on display in The Ames Library. The exhibits, titled “The Sciences in Special Collections” will remain in two exhibit cases on the entry level until the end of January. After that, as is the case with all archives and special collections holdings, they will be available for use in Tate Archives & Special Collections on the library’s 4th floor.

Another time capsule

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Meg Miner

In a previous post, a list of buildings containing time capsules was provided. While looking into a request for information about the Buck family today, we came across a copy of the local newspaper, The Pantagraph, dated June 15, 1922 that described the Buck Memorial Library cornerstone laying in detail. A line reading “After the contents of the box contained in the cornerstone were read by the president of the board of trustees, benediction was pronounced by Bishop Hartzell.”

Sadly, the “Laying of the Corner-stone” program held in the archives only mentions that a “Reading of Contents in Box” was planned; no separate listing of the contents is available and no photographs of the dedication are in our files.

But with the recent creation of a time capsule for the nearly complete “New North” classroom building, we now have a total of ten campus buildings with confirmed time capsules:
Hedding Hall (1870)
Science Building (1910)
Memorial Gymnasium (1921)
Buck Memorial Library (1922)
Shaw Hall (1954)
Dolan Hall (1955)
Memorial Center (1946 and 1947 dedications and 1965 addition)
Sheean Library (1967)
Mark Evans Observatory (1969)
“New North” (2013)

October is Archives Awareness Month

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Meg Miner

You can become aware of what’s in your University’s Archives at the IWU Mini Museum Tent on the Quad during Homecoming! Stop by Saturday the 6th from 8-11:30 AM for a condensed view of IWU’s 162 year history. We’ll have artifacts, photos, Wesleyana yearbooks, event programs, Argus issues and more.

The tent is also hosting the contents of the time capsule that will be placed in the new classroom building at 10AM in a ceremony organized by Associate Dean of Students for Campus Life & Director of Residential Life Matthew Damschroder. See it before it’s sealed and then let your descendents know so they can keep an eye out for it!

Visit Tate Archives & Special Collections on The Ames Library’s 4th floor or click on the leaf to visit us online!

New research source available online

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Meg Miner

The Bulletin of Illinois Wesleyan University was published to convey news and images of the campus to alumni, faculty, staff, students and prospective students. We’ve recently concluded a preservation and access project on all available issues. The paper in many of the early issues was brittle and crumbling, so we had them professionally digitized to make them searchable online; preservation microfilm copies were also made.

This collection spans the years 1902-1986 and represents the entire holdings of the University Archives. If you have issues not shown in the collection, please contact us at archives@iwu.edu to discuss a loan or donation so we may secure copies for our historical record.

Theatre and film history collection

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Meg Miner

A recent donation to IWU’s Special Collections from Emeritus Theatre Professor Jared Brown contains primary sources, including recordings and transcripts of over 150 interviews, he used in the publication of four books:
The Fabulous Lunts: A Biography of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne (1986),
Zero Mostel: A Biography (1989),
Alan J. Pakula: His Films and His Life (2005), and
Moss Hart: A Prince of the Theatre (2006).
A complete collection description is available in the finding aid for the Jared Brown Collection of Biographical Sources.

Named places: The Ames Library

Posted on June 1, 2012 by Meg Miner

The Ames Library opened on January 9, 2002 and is named for lead donors B. Charles Ames (Class of 1950) and Joyce Eichhorn Ames (Class of 1949). They challenged their fellow alumni that if others contributed $1 million each for three years they would match it. Literally hundreds of alumni responded to that call. The Ames family has also made major gifts in Joyce Ames’ name for the School of Art and for a scholarship to support students in the fine arts.

Joyce and Chuck Ames on the day of the School of Art’s new entrance, May 23, 2012

Fresh look for the Archives homepage

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Meg Miner

The Tate Archives & Special Collections homepage has a fresh, new look. Many thanks to my student assistant Melissa for her great ideas about jazzing it up and making it more user friendly!

While outlining my hopes for the changes, I mentioned that not many current students use our collections and asked her to keep their perspectives in mind during the revision.

I’d be thrilled to have anyone’s feedback on these changes. Current students, alumni, administrators, faculty, staff and outside researchers are always welcome…inside our walls and on the Web!