The Center for Archival Collections had an event that showcased each archive collection they have Wednesday, March 25.
The manuscript collection, Historical Collection of the Great Lakes, Rare Books and Special Collections, National Student Affairs Archive, University Archive and Northwest Ohio Resources collections were shown.
“I thought that the event was fun, interesting and educational,” said Janet Hutchinson, a community member.
Susannah Cleveland, chair of archival collections, said, “It was a wonderful thing showing a tiny bit of their collection to us, [and] marvelous how each of the staff’s collection was related to one another.”
There were three round tables and three long tables that they set each collection on.
On one table was the Rare Books and Special Collections. This included books that predated the 1900s. One of the books that was there was Shakespeare plays that was the third folio. There was an excerpt from a Belgian book that if one was to look closely at it, one could see the faint red lines.
“The red lines were to keep the writing straight,” said Libby Hertenstain, cataloger and metadata librarian.
Another tables was about Lillian Gish and the Gish film theater.
“This is one of the largest collections in the northwest,” said Conservator Eric Honneffer.
On the last of the round tables was the National Student Affairs Archive.
“The one thing that many people do with this is they research traces of issues of the campus. For an example, one could research about race issues,” said Steve Charter, head of archival collections.
The three long tables had three separate collections on them.
On one of the tables was the Manuscript Collection, which contains a Civil War medal.
“The highlight of the collection is the Medal of Honor, which we can’t buy nor sell this but [it] can only be given to people,” said Marilyin Levinson, curator of manuscripts.
On another one of the tables was the University Archives, which had a lot of photographs showing the many buildings around campus. The photographs span from the beginning of the University to current times.
“Our primary mandate is the University Archives. We are required to have them because they are records of our campus,” said Levinson.
On the last of the tables was the Historical Collection of the Great Lakes, which has five volumes of newspaper clippings tied to the Great Lakes.
Both Hutchinson and Cleveland said that they liked all of them, but Cleveland went on to say that she liked how the collections were similar to each other, yet still had difference.
Each of these collections can be used for the purpose of research for on- and off-campus users. They are located on the fifth floor in the Jerome Library and the hours are Monday 8 a.m.-9 p.m. and Tuesday through Friday 8 a.m.-5 p.m. There will be a research application and call slip to fill out in order to conduct research.