Archive of the past looks to the future

Author: Nathan Zucker

If you asked most College students where they could find Henry David Thoreau's personal copy of Walden, most would probably shrug and say they have no idea. A few might guess that it is housed in a famous museum in New York, Boston or some other large American city. In fact, the treasured book was purchased by the College in 1940 and is now located in the Special Collections of Library and Information Services (LIS).

Special Collections is hardly a household name in the life of the average Middlebury student, but its carefully preserved stockpile of old books is one of the most important resources the College offers. The department has two main goals - to preserve old, rare and fragile items as souvenirs of the past and to allow more people to have access to a wide range of historical information for personal and research purposes.

Andrew Wentink is the curator of Special Collections and Archives and works alongside Danielle Rougeau, the assistant curator of Special Collections and Archives. Speaking of the relevance of Special Collections to the life of faculty and students, Wentink said, "We're not holding on to this material just to collect it. We do a lot of instruction and teaching."

Wentink and Rougeau manage the impressive array of items that the College has acquired throughout its 200-year history. Although the department has only existed in its current form since the 1970s, Middlebury has long worked to assemble an archive of the past. Beginning at the turn of the 20th century, there has been a special room at the library dedicated to rare books - stacks that have always been separate from the main volumes. At present, Special Collections is divided into five distinct acquisitions: The Abernethy Collection of American Literature, the Flanders Ballad Collection of folk music, the Middlebury College Archives, Rare Books and Manuscripts and The Vermont Collection. With such a wide variety of material available, one can simultaneously view Thoreau's personal copy of Walden while perusing The Undergraduate, the student newspaper of the 19th century. In this manner, Special Collections works to illuminate college, local and national history.

To some, Special Collections may sound stuffy, as if it is a dusty room filled with decaying books occasionally read by the few history geeks on campus. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. Wentink emphasizes that the department is mostly service-based, in that it tries to promote better teaching and research at the College. "There are a number of faculty members who have built entire courses around Special Collections materials," Wentink said.

Indeed, "maximum access" is the motto of Special Collections. The department is open for 30 hours each week, including some evenings, making it one of the most accessible collections offices in all of American higher education. Furthermore, anyone can go to the Collections and receive help with a research project - the staff is more than happy to assist students, faculty and the public in finding the materials they need.

Although Special Collections is known for its ability to bring the past to the present, its current emphasis is directed toward preparing for the future. In a world where information has become universally accessible through the Internet, the goal is not to hoard rare materials, but to share them with as many people as possible. Wentink and his team are carrying out a huge digitization project, the objective of which is to place the most important parts of the collections online.

To this end, the department recently received a $100,000 gift for Midd History Online, a venture devoted to digitizing primary source materials that show College history from 1800 through the middle of the 20th century. This will involve scanning items found both in Special Collections and at other Vermont repositories. By its end, the database will hold more than 70,000 pages of documents, including various editions of The Middlebury Campus, presidential papers, alumni journals and much more. This massive undertaking, which has been outsourced to a professional organization, should be completed by the fall of 2007. For a taste of what is to come, one can visit Midd's Digital Initiatives online, where there is already plenty of information regarding College and local history.

When asked about Midd History Online, Wentink referred to it as a "very ambitious project," characterizing it as "the first time a liberal arts college will have a comprehensive collection of these materials." He said the entire department is moving in the direction of sharing its information with the world, and Midd History Online is certainly symbolic of this attitude.

Although some College students may not realize the wealth of information offered by Special Collections, Wentink is confident that they will soon see its value. With the ongoing digitization initiatives, it will be easier for the College community to view the myriad materials available through the Collections. Additionally, considering the History professors' recent ban on Wikipedia and the resulting emphasis on primary sources, many students may find consulting Special Collections a necessity. Despite the department's hard work to preserve the past, its progressive goal of sharing information with the global community will carry it far into the future.