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Recently the Archives and Special Collections initiated a project to convert the 16mm movie films in the Educational Media Film Collection to digital formats. We hope to digitally copy 5-10 films per year. These movie films were originally part of the Educational Media Center on the USD campus. Some of Ed Media’s 16mm films were […]

Here is a sample of the books about Denmark and the Danish culture in the Chilson Collection and the Mahoney Music Collection. Crichton, Andrew. Scandinavia, ancient and modern: being a history of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway: comprehending a description of these countries, an account of the mythology, government, laws, manners, and institutions of the early […]

In addition to books, magazines, pamphlets, and ephemera, the Mahoney Music Collection also contains unpublished material such as the John Gould’s Violin Instrument Appraisals – 1945-1984. This collection is 2 linear feet of violin appraisal and identification forms. The Gould material is a “wealth of day-to-day material covering years in the life of an important […]

Within the Mahoney Music Collection, is a wonderful collection of illustrated Lyon and Healy catalogs. The Lyon and Healy Company was started in 1864 in Chicago by George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy. They began with a sheet music store but soon expanded into instrument selling and manufacturing. In 1871, “Healy developed a new […]

Atlas photographique de la lune by Loewy and Puiseux, a French atlas of the moon, is the largest book in the Archives and Special Collections. It is 83 cm by 63 cm (33 in. by 25 in.). This is a big book. The images of the moon were photographed through the Observatory of Paris’ telescope […]

Preliminary List of USD Campus Projects 1997-2011 For my first project as a volunteer at the University of South Dakota archives, I compiled a list of building projects that occurred from 1997-2011. This list will be added to for use in the Buildings, Other Structures, and Utilities collection at the archives. The main resource for […]

In contrast to photograph degradation that occurs as a result of improper storage, the two problems I will discuss today start in the dark room. The first, sulfiding, affects the half tones of black and white prints, turning them from various shades of gray to yellow and brown. In addition, sulfiding can spread throughout a […]

The Artistic Diversity of the Mahoney Music Collection […]

Lately I have been assigned to the exciting task of carefully vacuuming books and wiping the shelves clean in the Chilson collection. It is a task that would be boring if there weren’t so many interesting books on every shelf. I’ve been working my way through beautifully illustrated Native American children’s books, histories of Wounded […]

Well, all of the University Herbarium specimens collected by W.H. Over have been photographed and put back into their proper folders/cabinets. Altogether, we photographed 1,154 specimens! Now we are working on metadata and digital specifications in order to upload the photos, batch by batch, onto the Digital Library of South Dakota. We’ll start the upload […]

The earliest atlas of Dakota Territory in the Chilson Collection is Andreas’ Historical Atlas of Dakota published in 1884. Andreas’ atlas has county maps showing physical and cultural features, though the majority of the atlas is general thematic histories, county histories, biographies, and business descriptions. During the late 19th century, many state and county land ownership […]

William Henry Over was a natural historian who lived in Vermillion from 1913 to 1956. While in Vermillion, he served first as the Assistant Curator and then full Curator for the University Museum. He studied numerous subjects relating to the natural world, including botany; however, until recently, little was known about Over’s work with plants. […]

From Cleata B. Thorpe’s Education in South Dakota 1861-1961: Teachers will fill lamps, clean chimneys and trim wicks each day. Each teacher will bring a scuttle of coal and a bucket of water for the day’s use. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs for the individual tastes of children. Men teachers may take […]

Gilbert C. Fite, Ph.D., a noted historian and USD alumnus, passed away on July 13, 2010. Dr. Fite, in 2002, arranged for the donation of his professional papers to the Archives and Special Collections. His son, James Fite, completed the donation in early 2011. The papers of Dr. Fite are a trove of correspondence, research […]

Last Friday, Doris and I were sent out into the world with an expensive camera as a part of a class that Sarah was teaching about using said expensive camera. It was daunting, mostly because I’m really clumsy so I was afraid of dropping and breaking the camera, but also exciting because I had never […]

The Delzell Education Center sits where a small lake once existed? According to the Dedication for the School of Education Building (1963), Due to the type of soil it was necessary to drive 271 wooden pilings to a depth of about 35 feet. These wooden pilings, which are creosoted and approximately the size of large […]

Today we got a lesson in photography. Sarah, the digitization and photographs associate at USD, taught us how to use the Archives’ Pentax digital camera to take high-resolution photographs for our student projects. She introduced us to the camera and helped us figure out everything from changing the lens cover to setting the light manually. We struggled at first but, […]

This article, published in Volume 7 of The Volante (Issue 3, December 1893, pp. 41-42), poetically describes the personal and philosophical significance of photography. The author E. Frank Peterson explains that as “we gaze upon that faded picture we forget our present environments, we live again in the blissful past, and again we pluck the […]

Herbert S. Schell was appointed the first University Archivist in 1968. He was largely responsible for organizing The University of South Dakota’s historical records into the USD Archives. Between 1968 and 1971, his extensive letter-writing campaign added the professional and personal papers of many prominent South Dakotans to the Richardson Collection. Schell joined the USD History Department in 1925. From 1936-1964, he served as the director and dean of the Graduate School.

Are any of your favorite books set in an archive or a rare book library? Do they involve characters doing archival research? Here are a few of my favorite fiction books that feature archives or rare books.