Kate Cielinski (EL 227)
GREENSBURG, Penn. -- Located in a darkened corner on the ground floor of Reeves Library is the Archives, an office dedicated to the preservation and organization of Seton Hill University’s (SHU) recorded history. The cramped space is stocked floor to ceiling with assorted boxes, age-worn papers, and yellowed photographs all waiting to be treated by the Archives’ coordinators, William Black and Sr. Mary Alma Vandervest.
“You should have seen this place before we moved into Maura,” Vandervest said. Before receiving a second office in Maura 327, Black and Vandervest had to shuffle boxes of archived material out of their office on a daily basis just to make walkways.
Since 1954, the Archives have been responsible for gathering, preserving, and filing documents about Seton Hill students and faculty. Vandervest started working for the Archives in 1988, and she began to bring order to what had been a neglected area of campus. Using her past experience in the field of library science, she started to organize the school’s history. While considering her work in the Archives, Vandervest said “I just find it fascinating to see how history has changed.”
With the more recent help of Black who came to SHU three years ago, the Archives is beginning to take shape. Since Black’s arrival, the Archives has received several grants from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. These grants have allowed the Archives to purchase shelving units and acid-free storage boxes. These items will help to preserve the historical documents found in the Archives.
The Archives is home to a variety of materials, the oldest of which date back to the 1890s. Within its walls are numerous university records, including student and financial records to concert programs and meeting minutes. Slides, cassette tape recordings, and releia, historical objects such as class rings and figurines are also stored in the Archives.
For those wanting to catch up on their newspaper reading, an extensive collection of The Setonian has been preserved in bound collections. Black also enjoys sifting through older issues of the campus literary magazine, Eye Contact, because it allows him to “study the content and see the changes mirrored in society.”
Vandervest said that anyone is welcome to request materials from the Archives. However, as Black noted, some documents, such as student records, may be restricted for a 75 year period for legal reasons. Despite these few restrictions, anyone can use the Archives by consulting with Black and Vandervest and searching its file card system and computer cataloging program, Micromarc for Integrated Format.
Amy Slade, editor-in-chief of The Setonian, regularly uses the Archives when searching for material for the school paper. In the past, she has printed pictures of former Seton Hill students and old school policies. For an upcoming issue, she plans to search the Archives for photographs of past “Christmas on the Hill” events. Slade values the Archives because she thinks that studying its material is “very important.” “Even though we’re a small school, it helps to prepare for the future,” she said. Vandervest added “Without knowing history, you make a lot of mistakes.”
Yet before these materials can be studied, they must undergo a preservation process that insures them a longer shelf-life. Before papers can be archived, they must be cleaned and removed of all staples, paper clips, and rubber bands. After cleaning, the papers are de-acidified to ensure that they will resist damage from age and light exposure. They are then filed in acid-free folders and boxes before Black, Vandervest, and the Archives’ work study interns can file documents in boxes. The boxes are labeled according to department and then shelved chronologically.
Kate Cielinski is a junior majoring in creative writing and literature at Seton Hill University.
Posted by Reporter at November 22, 2003 11:30 AM