Oracle Online

Tucked away in the depths of the Bush Library basement is a room filled with documents chronicling the university’s history. The word “archive” tends to bring to mind a damp, dank corner of a basement, with dust and cobwebs strewn over yellowing stacks of papers and ancient, heavy books. But this archive room, at the end of the corridor on the east side of the basement, is bright, clean, and orderly, filled with rows of boxes containing thousands of mementos from Hamline’s past. There are dated correspondence letters, old Liners, Oracles, president’s papers, photographs, and more.

There is an impressive amount of well-organized content, which shows that the archives are in much better shape now than they were 25 years ago.

Candy Hart, Hamline’s archivist, points out that until 1976, Hamline didn’t even have real archives and that the first archivist to begin cataloguing the wealth of information didn’t arrive until 1991.

Thelma Bates held this 10-hour-a-week job until the 2000-01 academic year, when a massive fire in Bush Library halted progress. Bates chose to reduce her hours and Hart, coming from a 14-year career with the Minnesota Historical Society, stepped in, having just completed a master’s degree in archives and library studies at the College of St. Catherine.

Hart didn’t begin her duties completely alone. Professor Emeritus George Vane had been volunteering time in the archives since 1991 and regularly provided assistance to Hart.

Vane still works in the archives today, and he is currently in the process of cataloguing the photographs, which he says is the university’s largest archived collection. Vane says he has already sorted around
13,000 photosčonly one-third of the overall collection.

The only thing the archives don’t tend to have is visitors.

“Most people don’t know we exist,” laughs Hart.

Most of their business comes from the university relations department, and many of their more recent requests are related directly to the 150th anniversary events. Other business comes from outside sources looking for information about genealogy or general history.

One of the biggest projects the archives have been used for in the last year is the “150 Lives” project, a compilation that celebrates the lives of 150 people from the Hamline community. Vane sat on the selection committee to help determine who would be featured in the publication, which is set to come out this December, and was also a valuable resource in researching every one of the 150 lives.

Professor Kate Bjork, who taught the course Historical Methods last year, speaks of the archives as “a great resource for the university.”

“We really do have a very interesting repository of information there,” she said.

It is that storehouse of information that keeps Hart and Vane more than occupied for the 10 or so hours a week the archives are open. In fact, time has proven to be the biggest constraint in working with the archives. Hart says she knows there is more than enough material to keep her occupied for the rest of her career, and Vane and Bjork agree that they’re consistently playing catch-up. As a professor whose students need access to the archives, Bjork says the archives are not as useful and valuable as they could be, but only because it’s difficult for researchers to get to the information they’re asked to find. One solution to this problem would be a full-time archivist, Hart says. That way, the archives could also employ student workers and interns from the archiving program at St. Kate’s, which would ensure that information could be compiled and catalogued more quickly.

Another issue facing the archivist is that of space. Formerly a staff lounge, the room that houses the archives is filling up quickly. It is equipped with rolling stacks that Hart and Vane say are a big help, but the room is already at two-thirds capacity and the archivists will eventually need more space to expand their database. As the campus continues to discover and make use of the archives, the need for more space is going to arrive sooner rather than later, and until Hart and Vane have more than one computer to use for cataloguing, the work isn’t going to go any faster.

As of now, the only hours the archives hold are from 8-10 a.m., Monday through Friday, and 1-3 p.m. on Wednesdays. Hart says that if someone needs to use the archives, it is also best to e-mail or call ahead of time so that she and Vane have an idea of what to look for. Between projects, they go on steadily sorting, compiling, and organizing. All in a day’s work.