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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Fri Jul 19 20:34:09 1996
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 13:01:28 -0500 (CDT)
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 1996 10:32:44 -0500
From: Fred Heath <LIB.PO1.FHEATH@cis-gw.tamu.edu>
To: PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU
Subject: NEH Grant for Preservation of Historical Agricultural
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
NEWS RELEASE
June 15, 1996
Land Grants Join to Preserve the Nation's Heritage of Printed Agrarian
Literature
Nine land-grant libraries across the U.S. have joined with the U.S.
Agricultural Information Network (USAIN) to identify and preserve
historical literature about agricultural development and rural life covering
1820-1945. Since the nation was largely rural until after WWII, these
publications contain information about a significant sector of U.S. history.
This cooperative preservation effort will preserve agrarian literature for
future generations of scholars and farmers.
Part of the National Preservation Program for Agricultural Literature
commissioned by USAIN and published in 1993, initial work will be funded
by an $850,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Historical literature for each of the nine states will be identified and then
evaluated by a panel of scholars. Four of the nine land-grant libraries
will have funds to preserve the most valuable titles; the other five will
identify and rank the titles but not preserve volumes until additional
money is available.
This rich literature traces agriculture as it evolved from a home and family
way of life to the business enterprises which we know today. The
grant will allow for handling local and land-grant literature about or
published in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Nebraska, New
York,
Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Rural life will be the focus as
represented in many types of publications: agricultural and farm
journals, histories, grant and agricultural society documents, natural
histories, and records of rural growth and community development.
Cornell, for example, will identify and preserve pamphlets and theses of
interest to social, economic, and cultural historians. Sample titles include
"A Study of the Use of Out-of-School Environment by the Teachers of
Certain Small Rural Schools" (1928); "The Family Finances of 126
Identical
Farm Families in Northern Livingston County" (1930); "The Family in
Colonial New York: A Sociological Study" (1942); and "An Agricultural
History of the Genessee Valley, 1790-1860" (1945). Cornell will identify
and preserve an estimated 1,810 volumes.
Examples of items to be preserved at other institutions include:
-- annual descriptions of the oldest continuously held agricultural fair in
the country (the Brooklyn Connecticut Fair, founded in 1809),
-- "Florida Farm Wives: They Help the Family Farm Survive" by Masuma
Downie,
-- pamphlets from Union Pacific (and other railroads) which were
designed to sell farmlands and to attract settlers to the new West,
-- the "Pennsylvania Farmer and Gardener" (published from 1859-1864),
-- "Hoard's Dairyman" (a magazine with such impact that its publisher
William Dempster Hoard was elected governor of Wisconsin), and
-- writings from Booker T. Washington such as "Up From Slavery" and
"Working with the Hands."
Mann Library at Cornell University will coordinate and manage the effort
under Project Director Sam Demas and Project Manager Wallace C.
Olsen
(607-255-8939). The Universities of California (Berkeley), Connecticut,
Florida, Nebraska, and Texas A&M will share $55,049 for the
identification and ranking of literature about their states. Four institutions
will rank and preserve literature in the course of this two year grant:
Auburn
University ($134,862); Cornell University ($170,628); Pennsylvania State
University ($117,214) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison
($180,830) which will accomplish the preservation of an estimated 6,819
early and valuable volumes.
Contact persons at the nine institutions are:
Dale Foster
Auburn University
(334) 844-1755 fostecd@lib.auburn.edu
Norma Kobzina
University of California, Berkeley
(510) 643-6475 nkobzina@library.berkeley.edu
Fran T. Libby
University of Connecticut
(203) 486-2520 hbladm85@uconnvm.uconn.edu
John Ingram
University of Florida
(352) 392-0342 jeingr@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu
Katherine Walter
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
(402) 472-3939 kayw@unllib.unl.edu
Marjorie Proctor
Cornell University
(607) 255-7950 map21@cornell.edu
Sue Kellerman
The Pennsylvania State University
(814) 865-1858 lsk@psulias.psu.edu
Kathy Jackson
Texas A&M
(409) 862-4235 kathy-jackson@tamu.edu
Jean Gilbertson
University of Wisconsin-Madison
(608) 263-6864 gilbert@macc.wisc.edu
Susan Barnes
Assistant to the Director
Albert R. Mann Library
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
(607)254-4993
