Read This Book!

Julie Page

A view from the trenches

By Tim Johnson

Anyone who has suffered a natural disaster knows the multitude of emotions connected with such an event: feelings of loss, pain, fatigue, frustration, confusion--the list is nearly endless. Archives and libraries--and their associated staff--are no different. At least a few of us have endured (and survived) professional lives disrupted by flood, fire, earthquake, or other calamity. Among the many questions that linger after such an event is one of paramount importance to archivists and librarians: how can we be better prepared the next time such an event comes our way.

To that end, the Libraries formed a Collections Emergency Response Team. Led by Mary Miller, the Libraries' Collection Management and Preservation Strategist, this team is engaged in updating and enhancing collections emergency response procedures for the Libraries and the Minnesota Library Access Center (administered by Minitex). University Librarian Wendy Lougee charged the team "with assessing collections emergency preparedness in the Libraries, overseeing emergency planning, and fostering a culture of preparedness in the Libraries through strategic communication, education, and hands-on training. In the event of an emergency involving collections, the team will provide leadership, advice, and assistance to the Libraries during the response and recovery phases." I was invited--along with nearly a dozen of my colleagues--to be a member of this team.

Sessions led by preservation consultant Julie Page

Hands-on training is an important part of "fostering a culture of preparedness." In early September the team, along with other members of staff, participated in two days of exercises designed around collection damage assessment and salvage. Our sessions were led by Julie Page, a trainer for the Western States and Territories Preservation Assistance Service (WESTPAS). Julie is the former head of the preservation department at the University of California, San Diego and now serves as a preservation consultant. In addition to her work with WESTPAS, she is a trainer for the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (FAIC) Emergency Response for Cultural Institutions program, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and a member of the American Institute for Conservation Collections Emergency Response Team (AIC CERT).

We were instructed to wear "grubby" clothes, as we would be handling wet books and papers during our training. I was happy for the cautionary instructions. Our first day included a "stack assessment" exercise in Wilson Library. Portions of the stacks on the fourth floor were draped in different colors of crepe paper; blue indicated wet ranges of books, white indicated damp ranges. We divided into smaller teams and headed to an assigned area of the stacks. Once on site, our task was to assess and document the number damaged books, assign salvage priorities, note anything special about this portion of the collection, and create a sequence of response activities. These activities included activation of a telephone calling tree and notification of University facilities/emergency personnel, all designed to insure staff safety and a proper approach to an incident of this kind. In a debriefing session following this exercise, Julie emphasized the importance of an accurate assessment. The assessment drives much of what follows in terms of conservation treatments and other actions.

Hands-on training in salvage techniques

Will Shortz: An Evening with the Puzzle Master was presented September 12, 2013 by the Friends of the University of Minnesota Libraries at Ted Mann Concert Center. 

Ryan Mattke

The Libraries’ new Campus History web application doesn’t exactly make history come alive, but it sure is fun. Ryan Mattke, head of the John R. Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota, advises that you see for yourself.

“To see how fun this is,” he said, “you can just hit play and watch the campus grow.”

Watch the campus grow – over 150 years. That’s the standard feature that the Campus History web application provides. It’s simple, it works, and it’s fun.

But there’s much more here. Just take a few minutes and look under the hood.

For example:

* Using the application’s transparency slider, you can compare historical maps to current satellite imagery of the campus

* You can compare historical aerial imagery across time, so, for example, you can compare 1940 to present day.

* Thanks to data from the Metropolitan Council, you can observe the rise and fall of the streetcar era in the Twin Cities.

It’s more than just fun

The Campus History web application was designed to enhance research and education for the University of Minnesota community and the public. The project is a University Libraries collaboration that includes the Borchert Map Library, University Archives, and Web Development. Mattke worked closely with Erik Moore, head of University Archives, in developing the application and making appropriate links from the application to assets and resources in University Archives and elsewhere.

Along with the fun factor, Mattke said, there’s a research component. One of the main reasons for building Campus History was to help faculty and students find information.

“We do get lots of questions about what the campus looked like, where buildings were – there were lots of changes over the past 150 years,” he said.

Mattke said that faculty and students in history, the humanities, landscape architecture, and geography will find this resource useful – along with those generally interested in maps.

“Students in those areas will be able to utilize this application during the course of the work for their class,” he said.

Project involved tracing more than 500 maps

The project took about a year to complete and involved Mattke and five graduate students tracing the building footprints from about 550 historical campus maps that are housed in University Archives. The sketches are the foundation of the application, as is the building information itself.

“When you click on a building in the Campus History mapping application, you get a pop up that has information about the building, whether the name changed over time, when it was built, if it was torn down, if it was added-on to,” Mattke said. “But then you also get a link into UMedia, so you can go and see if we have, currently, any scanned photos of that building, and see what it looked like at different points in time.”

UMedia Archive is a rich media and image repository, containing assets from the University Archives, special collections, the Map Library, the James Ford Bell Library, and more. The service is provided by the University Libraries.

Mattke said that a few hundred building images are now available, but he added that a digitization project now underway will increase that number significantly.

All of the maps, building images, and underlying GIS data are available from the Libraries, either though University Archives or the Borchert Map Library.

Les Klinger loves the BBC’s “Sherlock” and CBS’s “Elementary” and believes that some traditional Sherlock Holmes scholars have mistreated the “new Sherlockians,” who have come to appreciate Holmes through modern film and television.

Learn more

Read more about the conference and listen to a radio play by the Minnesota-based Red-Throated League in a Pioneer Press story by reporter Richard Chin.

• Go to the Pioneer Press

• Visit the Sherlock Holmes Collection at the University of Minnesota Libraries

“I think the reaction to the new Sherlockians is deplorable, but I’m delighted that so many people have found us,” Klinger said, in an exclusive interview with the University of Minnesota Libraries during the “Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Place” conference, Aug. 9-11, 2013, at the University of Minnesota. Klinger gave the keynote presentation to about 150 Sherlockians in attendance at the conference.

“When the Downey films came out, for example, I was really excited to hear from people like Otto Penzler that sales of the canon were actually increasing,” Klinger said. “I think people who watch 'Sherlock' to see Benedict Cumberbatch’s cheekbones – that’s wonderful because they’ll get hooked and they’ll find the original stories."

Klinger – considered a leading authority on Sherlock Holmes and Dracula – is an attorney by day, but he's more famous as the editor of “The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes,” a three-book edition of all of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes fiction with extensive annotations. He also edited the scholarly 10-volume “Sherlock Holmes Reference Library,” a heavily annotated edition of the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, and “The New Annotated Dracula,” an annotated version of Bram Stoker's novel.

In the interview, Klinger also talked about how he got hooked on Sherlock Holmes, the history of Holmes scholarship, how he became a consultant on the Robert Downey, Jr. Holmes films, and more.

Introduction to Sherlock Holmes

While he was in law school, he said his girlfriend at the time introduced him to Holmes by buying him a copy of “The Annotated Sherlock Holmes,” edited by William Baring-Gold.

“She thought that I would like it, and, wow, was she right.” He added that what attracted him to Baring-Gold was the footnotes, something, he said, that a tax attorney could appreciate.

His expertise leads him to Hollywood

His love of Holmes grew and he became more immersed in the subject, joining the Baker Street Irregulars, and writing, editing, and lecturing on Sherlock Holmes. Considered a leading expert, Klinger was, somewhat by chance, chosen to consult on the Warner Bros. film “Sherlock Holmes,” starring Robert Downey, Jr. (2009) and the follow-up, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” (2011).

A friend introduced him to Downey, who met with Klinger and ultimately the producers chose Klinger to be a technical advisor on the first film for no pay. “The second film, they actually hired me,” he said.

As for the modern television shows on BBC and CBS, Klinger had this to say: “I love ‘Elementary’ and ‘Sherlock.’ I think they are terrific, fresh interpretations.  ‘Sherlock’ is loaded with Easter eggs … little nuggets of lines from the canon.”

In town for the Sherlock Holmes conference, Klinger said he’s enjoying seeing old friends.

“Our excuse for being here is that we’ll share some Sherlockian scholarship, but it’s really about the friendships.”

Launch of Digital Public Library of America brings greater access to local treasures

Portrait of Dr. G. A. Dahl, Mankato, Minnesota

The Nicollet County Historical Society in south central Minnesota sits on the site of the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, signed between the United States and the Dakota nation in 1851. Eleven years later, following several treaty violations by the U.S. government, war broke out in the region, which resulted in the execution of 38 Dakota — to this day the largest mass execution in American history.

St. Peter, Minnesota — a mile down the road from the treaty site — might have been the capital of Minnesota, if not for the trickery of Joe Rolette, a legislator from Pembina. In 1857, the Minnesota territorial legislature passed a law to move the capital from St. Paul to St. Peter. But Rolette — with the bill in his possession — disappeared long enough to ensure that the governor could not sign the law before the end of the legislative session.

This place is truly historic. And that history will now become much easier for the public across the nation and the world to learn about and access thanks to the recent launch of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA).

Digital Public Library of America aggregates millions of digital artifacts

The DPLA (located at http://dp.la) is a groundbreaking project that, for the first time, will make many of our nation’s significant digital collections searchable and accessible to the public from a single site. It will aggregate millions of digital artifacts from local archives, libraries, museums, and cultural heritage institutions across America and deliver them to students, teachers, scholars, and the public via a powerful search interface.

“You can’t tell the history of Minnesota or even the history of the United States without telling the story that happened here,” said Ben Leonard, director of the Nicollet County Historical Society. “We really do have unique items in the collection and the reality is that the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t know that they’re here — wouldn’t know we’re here — without the Digital Public Library of America.”

Minnesota Digital Library a key partner in DPLA

Figure skaters posing at Winter Haven, Sartell, Minnesota.Stearns HIstory Museum.

The DPLA launched on April 18, two-and-a-half years after planning began in October 2010. With total funding to date of about $7.8 million, the DPLA brings together a national network of more than 40 state/regional digital libraries and myriad large digital libraries. These include large “content” hubs, such as The Smithsonian Institution, and state and regional “service” hubs, such as the Minnesota Digital Library.

The Minnesota Digital Library (MDL) has received $350,000 in funding — $250,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and $100,000 from the Knight Foundation. The funding is being used for digitizing existing special collections, making them searchable and accessible through the DPLA, providing outreach and education to communities about the DPLA, supporting the development of new, “born digital” content, and capturing the unique and diverse stories of the communities throughout the state and region.

The MDL is supported through a statewide collaboration of Minitex, the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota Historical Society, and other key institutions. (Minitex is a joint program of the of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and the University of Minnesota.) In its role as a DPLA hub, the MDL will serve as an “on-ramp” to interested public libraries, special libraries, colleges, museums, historical societies,

Ed Bok Lee was the featured speaker at the April 17, 2013 Pankake Poetry Reading at Elmer L. Andersen Library. 

And celebrates 50 years of the Guthrie Theater

If you're a lover of dance, orchestra, and theatre, you know the magic of our Twin Cities stages. But you may not know of the magic that happens off stage, in preparation for these great performances.

Now is your chance, thanks to the thoughtful stewardship of the Performing Arts Archives at the University of Minnesota Libraries. The Libraries is hosting "Behind the Scenes: Twin Cities Performing Arts and 50 years of the Guthrie Theater" April 1 through June 28, 2013. Visitors to this exhibit will get a backstage look at the Twin Cities performing arts community, said Cecily Marcus, Curator, Performing Arts Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries.

She said that the exhibit demonstrates how much energy goes into "hiding the gears, logistics, and stagehands" as in showing audiences a well-set world, wondrously brought to life by actors, dancers, and musicians.

Take a peek behind the curtain

What: Behind the Scenes: Twin Cities Performing Arts and 50 Years of the Guthrie Theater

When: April 1 through June 28, 2013 - free and open to the public

Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library, University of Minnesota

Hours: 8:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., Monday, Tuesday and Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 6:45 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday.

"There are great pleasures to be found in peeking behind the curtain, into the rehearsal studios, costume and prop shops, offices, and boardrooms that make opening night, and every night following, possible," Marcus said. "It is there we find the genesis of an idea--for a theater that will change Minnesota, or a groundbreaking ballet company, or a revolutionary version of a well-known story--transformed through personalities, budgets, missions, director's notes, nightly performance reports, and beautiful costume renderings."

50 years of the Guthrie

As the theater world commemorates 50 years of the Guthrie Theater, this exhibit offers the public a tremendous opportunity to pore through the extensive Guthrie Archives, which have been housed at the University of Minnesota since 1967. Marcus said that the archives offer a beautiful legacy, one still being built with each season of plays and programming.

The exhibit explores much more than the Guthrie, however, offering materials from the collections of the Minnesota Orchestra, the James Sewell Ballet, Theatre de Jeune Lune, the St. Paul Philharmonic, the Minnesota Dance Alliance, the Penumbra Theatre, and the personal papers of composers.

"With the close of every season and each production, sets are struck and works of art are dismantled, but there are traces left to be preserved, studied, and displayed," Marcus said. "The Performing Arts Archives sustains these stories, many more than ever graced our stages."

Many local performing arts leaders contributed to this exhibit through commentary. They include: Philip Brunelle, Leah Cooper, Jon R. Cranney, Joe Dowling, Barbara Field, Nancy Mason Hauser, Michael Lupu, Emily Mann, Jack Reuler, and Sally Wingert.

"Behind the Scenes: Twin Cities Performing Arts and 50 Years of the Guthrie Theater" celebrates the work, and the enduring magic, of our extraordinary performing arts community, on and off the stage.