This article appeared in the Volume 4, Issue 3 Winter 2024 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Kellen Carpenter, Digital Scholarship Librarian, Western Carolina University Currently, the digital assets of Special Collections at Western Carolina University (WCU) and the University of North Carolina and Asheville (UNCA) live together on the website of the Southern Appalachian Digital Collections Partnership alongside the bold mission statement that declares: “The Southern Appalachian Digital Collections Partnership was founded in 2019 to host centralized online access to unique regionally focused digitized materials that document the history and culture of Southern Appalachia.” It’s a mission statement that…
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Fifty Years of Appalachia at the Nunn Center for Oral History
This article appeared in the Volume 4, Issue 1 Spring/Summer Winter 2023 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. by Kopana Terry The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023. Under the Special Collections Research Center umbrella at the University of Kentucky Libraries (UKL), the Nunn Center is one of America’s largest oral history archives, with over 18,000 interviews from more than 700 unique projects. Here, oral history projects documenting American civil rights, industry, health care, veterans, the India-Pakistan partition, survivors of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, religion, small towns, legendary sports figures, Kentucky governors, and the commoner…
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UNC Asheville adds Bill and Alice Hart Collection
This article appeared in the Volume 3, Issue 3 Winter 2022 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Gene Hyde Earlier this year, UNC Asheville’s Special Collections received the largest private donation in their history when Bill and Alice Hart donated their extensive private library to UNC Asheville. Containing more than 1200 monographs and 26 linear feet of ephemera and other materials, the William A. Hart, Jr. and Alice Huff Hart Western North Carolina Regional Library, known as the Bill and Alice Hart Collection, is the crown jewel of UNC Asheville’s Special Collections. Bill and Alice Hart curated and developed their collection…
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Collections at the University of Tennessee: Great Smoky Mountains, Wilma Dykeman, Marilou Awiakta and others
By Jennifer Benedetto Beals This article appeared in the Volume 3, Issue 2 Fall 2021 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. The Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives includes rare books collections, manuscript collections, the university archives, and the Modern Political Archive (housed in the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy). In 2017, the department was renamed in honor of a long time and generous supporter of special collections. Acquisition efforts are focused on topics of global interest with regional significance. Priorities continue to evolve in order to support changing academic needs and the goals of the University…
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Featured Collection: Appalshop Archive
This article appeared in the Volume 3, Issue 2 Fall 2021 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. Appalshop Archive, Whitesburg, KY By Leo Shannon The Appalshop Archive preserves art and media from central Appalachia with a focus on the work created by Appalshop, Inc., a non-profit documentary organization located in the eastern Kentucky community of Whitesburg. The organization was launched in 1969 by the Community Film Workshop Council, a War on Poverty jobs training program to help young people in economically distressed areas find work in the growing national media industry. Instead of leaving eastern Kentucky for industry jobs, the Whitesburg…
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Featured Collection: The Appalachian Studies Artifacts Teaching Collection – Loyal Jones Appalachian Center, Berea College
This article appeared in the Volume 3, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2021 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Christopher A. Miller, Associate Director and Curator, LJAC; College Curator, Berea College In recent years, the role of artifact collections in colleges and universities has been evolving. It is not that museums, galleries, or artifact collections are new on campuses. Nor is it new for students to occasionally encounter cultural artifacts. For a long time, a visit to a campus museum, a tour of some exhibits, and talk from a curator were a low-key break from the classroom. However, artifacts in the classroom are…
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Appalachian Studies Association Records at Berea: An Overview and Reflections on Research
This article appeared in the Volume 2, Issue 3 Winter 2021 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. Editor’s note: The Appalachian Studies Association’s official records are housed at Berea College. As many reading this probably know, these records were used extensively in the research of the 2003 article, “Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going? A History of the Appalachian Studies Association” (Appalachian Journal Vol. 31, No. 1 (Fall 2003)), written by Howard Dorgan and students in his “Colloquium in Appalachian Studies” course at Appalachian State University. We thought it would be interesting to pair Lori Myers-Steeles’ article about the ASA…
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Featured Collection: Marshall University Archives and Special Collections, Huntington WV
This article appeared in the Volume 2, Issue 3 Winter 2021 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. By Elizabeth James Founded in 1972, Marshall University Archives and Special Collections has collected materials documenting the rich history of Appalachia, especially the West Virginia and the Huntington areas, for nearly fifty years. While the archives considers all of its more than 850 collections important, standout collections include the WSAZ media archives documenting news in the greater Huntington area between 1955 and 1995, oral histories documenting Appalachian traditions and experiences, the Nelson S. Bond Collection of science fiction writings, and the records of numerous…
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Featured Collection: Cincinnati’s Urban Appalachian Community Coalition Revives Historic Foster Library
This article appeared in the Volume 2, Issue 2 Fall 2020 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. Cincinnati’s Urban Appalachian Community Coalition Revives Historic Foster Library for a New Generation of Urban Appalachian Scholars, Activists and Enthusiasts By Shannon Gillie, Jeff Dey, and Michael Maloney “Urban Appalachians are not transplanted mountain people trying to live a mountain life in the City; they are a new community who have built a new life in the City. “– Jeff Dey Tucked in a multipurpose room in a Cincinnati neighborhood building are six bookshelves. They are tall and nondescript, but they house an intriguing…
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Featured Collection: Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University
This article appeared in the Volume 2, Issue 1 Spring/Summer 2020 issue of the Appalachian Curator. Click here to view a PDF of the full issue. The Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University By Jeremy A. Smith The Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University preserves the written words, images, and sounds that document life in southern Appalachia. Since its beginning in 1978, the Archives has sought to support original research, educational engagement, public outreach, and artistic creativity. Over the past forty-two years, the Archives has grown into one of the leading repositories in the world for preserving and providing access to southern Appalachia’s history and culture. Today…
