Bentley Historical Library

Bentley Historical Library

The Bentley Historical Library is a historical library located on the University of Michigan's North Campus in Ann Arbor. It was established in 1935 by the regents of the University of Michigan. Its mission is to serve as the official archives of the university and to document the history of the state of Michigan, as well as the activities of its people, organizations and voluntary associations. The library is named after Alvin M. Bentley, a former U of M regent and US congressman, whose widow, Arvella D. Bentley, endowed the library.

In 1935, the Regents of the University mandated that the Bentley Historical Library serve both as a historical collection for the State of Michigan and as the archives of the University of Michigan. The meaning of this charge has evolved over time along with the growth of the university, the evolution of record keeping, and the ever-changing questions important to historical scholarship. The Bentley Library through its staff and constituents has worked to mold its operation in a way that is consistent with the work and aspirations of a great international, diverse, and multidisciplinary university—a university that is, in its essence, a reflection of the greatness and aspirations of the State of Michigan.

HISTORY

Founding

Before there was a Bentley Historical Library, there was the Michigan Historical Collections and before that, as remembered by associate professor of history Lewis G. Vander Velde, there was little more than “a creative idea, a very small research grant and a goodly supply of optimism.” The Faculty Research Fund grant awarded to Dr. Vander Velde in 1935 allowed him to locate and collect materials relating to the history of the state of Michigan. Dr. Vander Velde had long been concerned that many historical records relating to the history of the university and of the state were being discarded or poorly maintained for want of a permanent home. He found a sympathetic advocate in University President Alexander G. Ruthven. In addition to the grant money, President Ruthven, also concerned about university records, appointed Dr. Vander Velde to serve as secretary of a Committee on University Archives that was to collect and preserve manuscript and printed material relating to the history of the university. In neither area – the state or the university - was there a dearth of material to be collected. In recognition of what Vander Velde and his research associate Elizabeth Sparks Adams had accomplished in a brief period of time, the Regents in 1935 formally designated the Michigan Historical Collections as a research institution of the university. By this regental action, the dual mission of the new unit was ratified: to collect, preserve, and make available important historical records of the state of Michigan and to serve as the archives of the University of Michigan.

Facilities

The Michigan Historical Collections were originally housed in a modest space in the old University Press building and later in a Michigan Room of theWilliam Clements Library. In 1938, with the completion of the Rackham Building on campus, the university provided Dr. Vander Velde and his research associate with a suite of offices in the basement of the new structure. Here the Collections would remain for thirty-six years until the Bentley Library was built.

Statistics are one way of measuring the success of a program. Another criterion is by charting physical expansion. As the Rackham office space filled up, the university responded with the offer of temporary space in a warehouse on Fuller Street. This new space was by then desperately needed to house several collections of business records, most of which consisted of elephantine business ledgers and journals. In 1955, these volumes were moved to the fourth floor of the University Library’s Central Service and Stack Building on North Campus. When the library needed this space, these collections and others were moved to an unheated former barracks located near a runway at Willow Run Airport. At the same time, additional rooms in Rackham were offered to the Michigan Historical Collections and gladly accepted. These included additional offices, a former lobby coat closet, a basement room off of the Bureau of Government Library, and a small windowless storage room on the 3rd floor. Even more space was needed with the receipt of the George Romney papers. Gubernatorial papers were considered too important to be housed far from the reading room. As a result these papers were temporarily stored in an underground passageway adjacent to the mechanical/boiler room of Angell Hall.

Dr. Vander Velde and his successor Prof. F. Clever Bald were able to locate temporary storage spaces, but it was left to Dr. Bald’s successor, Prof. Robert M. Warner, to initiate the fund-raising campaign that would enable the Michigan Historical Collections to have a home of its own. During his first years as director, Dr. Warner worked tirelessly to raise the necessary funds for a new building. With the assistance of many friends of the Collections and a generous gift of Mrs. Arvella Bentley, a structure designed to house the riches of Michigan and University of Michigan history, became a splendid reality in 1974. Designed by Jickling, Lyman & Powell of Birmingham, Michigan, the library occupies a spacious and beautiful site on the North Campus of the University of Michigan. Not only did the new building provide considerable space for the Michigan Historical Collections to grow, but the luxury of new quarters, especially in comparison to the Rackham Building, made new program initiatives possible, allowed more interaction with university classes, and brought closer to fruition a more active participation of the library in the management of university records.

The construction of the Bentley Library meant that the holdings of the Michigan Historical Collections could be consolidated. Even so, stacks that seemed abundant in 1974 were quickly filling up with historical records and by 1980, it was again necessary to think about expansion of the Bentley site. Although the Bentley Library was designed to accommodate easily the construction of additional stack cubes, funding for this expansion was problematic. Thus it became necessary to seek offsite storage. In 1980, acting library director, Dr. Richard Doolen was able to acquire substantial storage space across the street from the Bentley Library in a building vacated by the University Library. This was the same facility – the Central Service and Stack Building – occupied briefly by the Michigan Historical Collections twenty years earlier. Within a decade, the library’s active collecting programs for state and university history filled these stacks with historical records. In the early 1990s, the university then provided an unused classroom suite for additional storage in an operational fire station up the street from the Bentley Library.

By 2000, the Bentley Library was keeper of nearly 30,000 linear feet of material, housed in three facilities, all nearly full. Fortunately, as it had been in the library’s formative years, the university was supportive of the work and contributions made by the Michigan Historical Collections (formally renamed the Bentley Historical Library by regental action in 1993). In 2001, with little or no space remaining, the Regents of the University of Michigan authorized the long planned-for 36,000 square foot addition to the library building. Completed in late 2004, the new stacks provide additional capacity as the collecting of historical materials continues into the 21st century. Moreover, the addition provided long needed administrative space for the University Archives and Records Program and a new conservation lab.

Acquisitions

The fundamental intellectual challenge for the staff of the archives over the years has been to identify historical documents and records whose significance warrants long-term retention in the archives. Since its establishment in 1935, the library’s archivists have identified thousands of linear feet of valuable archival records created by individuals, voluntary associations, corporations, and the University of Michigan and then have transferred those documents and collections to the Bentley. The range of topics covered by these research resources is vast and documents the human condition and the natural environment. While mere numbers don’t capture the richness and quality of the library’s holdings, the annual acquisition figures do suggest how the work in this functional area varies from year to year. The chart below shows the linear feet acquired annually over the last two decades. The bold line indicates the total number of linear feet received from both university sources as well as historical (i.e., non-university sources), with the other lines showing a breakdown between these two sources. The total annual input has been as low as 600 linear feet in 1984-85 and as high at 3,421 linear feet a few years later in 1987-88. Those years when there is a spike in our acquisition level usually indicates that we have brought in large historical collections, usually gubernatorial papers or collections like the massive Penn Central Railroad.

Alvin M. Bentley At their meeting on December 17, 1971, the Regents of the University of Michigan accepted a gift of $500,000 from Mrs. Alvin M. Bentley for a building to house the Michigan Historical Collections. “It is appropriate,” Robert Warner noted, “that the building would be named for this former congressman and regent for he was a serious student of history.” Mr. Bentley had received both his A.B. and M.A. degrees at the U-M in history and was pursuing a doctorate at the time of his death in 1969. The life and career of Alvin Bentley contained elements of both tragedy and triumph. In 1954, he was seriously wounded when three Puerto Rican nationalists in the visitors’ gallery of the U.S. House of Representatives fired into the chamber, wounding five members of Congress, including Rep. Bentley. He survived to continue his career. In 1960, he tried unsuccessfully to win a seat in the United States Senate. Thereafter he channeled his energies into other areas of public service. In 1961, he established the Alvin M. Bentley Foundation and pledged $1,000,000 to further “science, education and charitable projects.” It is that foundation that funds the program at the University of Michigan that provides full scholarships to select distinguished graduates of high schools in Michigan. During 1961-1962, he was a valuable member of the state constitutional convention serving as chairman of the committee on education. Four years later, he was appointed to the U-M Board of Regents and served until his death in 1969. His contributions as a public servant were many, but his lasting legacy is the historical archives that bear his name.

Other major gifts

The gift of Mrs. Bentley was crucial to the construction of the library. So too were the contributions of many other individuals and organizations. Significant contributions came from Governor G. Mennen and Nancy Williams, the Free and Accepted Masons of Michigan, the family of Roscoe O. Bonisteel, family and friends of Floyd Starr, friends of Governor Wilber M. Brucker, the family of Senator Prentiss M. Brown, friends of Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, Delta Sigma Delta dental fraternity, the Whiting Foundation, friends of James Fairbairn Smith, and family and friends of Governor Chase S. Osborn. As a token of appreciation for these gifts, the library designated various offices and meeting rooms within the public portion of the building as memorial rooms containing photographs or portraits of the individuals and organizations recognized.

Courtyard The courtyard of the library was designed to be hidden from street view and only accessible from interior doors off of the reading room and the conference room. The courtyard landscape design, a signature feature of the building, was originally made possible in 1975 through an anonymous gift. It was subsequently redesigned in 1998 to add more greenery through a gift of the Roscoe Bonisteel Foundation of Ann Arbor. Anchoring the view from the reading room windows is a Richard Hunt sculpture in two pieces, entitled Historical Circle and Peregrine Section, donated to the library in 1975 by Hobart Taylor, Jr. in memory of his father. The seasonal changes in the courtyard landscape along with the occasional visits from local deer, rabbits, and foxes, make research in the library a unique experience.

The Executive Committee of the Library Under the Regent’s bylaw governing the Michigan Historical Collections and subsequently the Bentley Historical Library, oversight is placed in an executive committee. Though there are no ex-officio positions other than the director, over the years the library has been fortunate in the composition of that committee. There has been regular representation from the presidents and provosts of the university as well as from the deans of the graduate school and other schools and colleges. From 1972 to 2001, the committee was chaired by Professor Sidney Fine of the History Department. He was followed by Earl Lewis, professor of history and dean of the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies. The committee continues to oversee policies regarding gifts, access, and the general administration of the collections. In matters of budget and other details the library has, since 1938, reported to the office of the Provost.

Friends of the Library From its earliest days, the library has enjoyed support from a community of friends interested in its work. U-M alumnus Earl D. Babst of New York City, a former chairman of American Sugar Refining Co., was one of the earliest of these supporters. Mr. Babst provided the Library with its first endowment fund. In 1964, Robert Warner and several longtime associates of the Collections formally organized the Friends of the Michigan Historical Collections. Regent Roscoe O. Bonisteel served as its first president. Though its major focus through 1974 was to secure a new building, thirty years later the Friends organization continues to play an important role in the work of the library. Funds generated each year through annual dues are used to assist in the conservation of the library’s books, photographs, and manuscripts and to support activities involved in augmenting its holdings. Of increasing importance to the library is the development of endowment funds for the care and preservation of the collections as well as for the printing of publications. Over the past thirty years the library’s endowment has grown to $3 million, the income from which supports conservation and preservation program of the library as well as innovative program initiatives.

It is important to note that beyond those who contribute each year to the annual fund of the library, there have been more than 6,000 individuals and organizations over nearly seven decades who have donated precious historical records to the Bentley Library. The library has no funds to purchase material. The breadth and value of its collections rest on the extraordinary generosity of all those many donors and on their sensitivity to the importance of history.

MICHIGAN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

Responsible for all collecting activities relating to the history of the State of Michigan, the library in its first decades collected as widely and as broadly as possible. Dr. Vander Velde believed (probably correctly) that if the MHC did not collect a body of papers or records then nobody else would. Given the fact that local history materials were not always as prized as they are today, it was inevitable that valuable documents would be destroyed if the MHC did not provide a home for them. As a result, the MHC became the willing recipient of scores of Michigan-related manuscript and archival collections. Today, because of the library’s original all-encompassing collecting mission, the Bentley Historical Library has become the home for a rich body of historical documentation—the papers of public figures, clergy, educators, soldiers, farmers, and businesspeople, as well as the records of church, civic and cultural organizations, philanthropic and reform groups, women’s organizations, citizen action groups, and many others.

The library stacks contain many treasures donated over the past seven decades. Of course, there are diaries and letters of soldiers from Michigan who served in the Civil War. On one shelf is a portfolio containing the founding documents of the University of Michigan, including the 1817 draft of the “act to establish the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania.”. On another shelf are volumes of field notes (some with original drawings) of Douglass Houghton resulting from his geological survey of the state from 1837 to 1841. There are boxes filled with hundreds of letters from prominent individuals: presidents, literary figures, captains of industry, social reformers, celebrities of all sorts, and even a few rogues and otherwise infamous. These letters provide a fascinating mosaic of state and national history. Here are just a few examples. In 1899, Susan B. Anthony wrote to the Anti-Saloon League urging their support of a woman suffrage amendment; Mathew Brady in an 1849 letter to Alpheus Felch hoped that he could add this congressman’s portrait to his National Gallery; Gerald R. Ford in 1931 wrote to U-M football coach Harry Kipke thanking him and mentioning his anticipation in attending the university. Biographers and historians would find much to amuse and enlighten them in these boxes: Robert Frost accepting a position to teach at the University; John Dillinger writing tauntingly to the chief of police of Port Huron; and Adlai Stevenson, in a handwritten letter to Margaret Price, talking about the Democratic Party closes with this salutation: “Horrors! What a mess! But what a Party!!” Here also is the original draft of Hemingway’s “Snows of Kilimanjaro” with the editorial notations of Arnold Gingrich, publisher of Esquire Magazine, where the short story first appeared. Then there are the note cards used by Lyndon Johnson when he made his Great Society speech at the university, and just beyond that, the original draft of the inaugural address of Stevens T. Mason, Michigan’s first governor. The list of treasures held by the Bentley is seemingly endless.

By the early 1980s, as the Bentley Library building was quickly filling up with new collections, the staff began to look more systematically at what had been collected in the past and what should be collected in the future. Library staff conducted a collection analysis, assessing the state of its collections in terms of size, number of collections, and subject areas represented in the collections, as well as projecting what might be worth collecting in each subject area. After studying the results of the collection analysis, the staff agreed that the library needed a clearer collecting focus and policy. Beginning in 1985, the library began to devote its collecting energy toward important collections in several targeted subject areas. These areas are reevaluated periodically, with new targets being added and older ones moved to lower priority. The highest collecting priorities include a mixture of building on our traditional strengths (such as state-level politics); developing new aspects of areas we have long collected (e.g., African American churches, to complement earlier collecting of mainline Christian denominations); and developing new areas with great research potential (for instance, family life, the environment and gay and lesbian issues).

What the future holds, there is no way of knowing. Library staff can no more look ahead to what the character and content of the library’s holdings will be toward the end of this century than Dr. Vander Velde could foresee the library as it is today. One thing seems clear. The holdings of the Bentley Library in this first decade of the 21st century reflect the research and hard work of staff members, like Dr. Vander Velde, who loved history and were conscientious and occasionally passionate about collecting and preserving the raw materials of history. Over the years collecting efforts of the library have been coordinated by the field representative, a position occupied by Elizabeth Adams, Henry Brown, Ruth Bordin, Robert Warner, Richard Doolen, J. Fraser Cocks, Kenneth Scheffel, Christine Weideman, Catherine Abernathy, Suzanne Steel, and Leonard Coombs. Whether in digital format or paper, the success of future collecting will require a continuing dedication that has characterized each of those who have occupied the field position.

President Gerald R. Ford Papers In 1964, the library began collecting the papers of a Republican congressman from Grand Rapids who had assumed the minority leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives, Gerald R. Ford. Over the next decade Ford’s congressional staff shipped yearly installments of his papers to the library for processing and safekeeping. On August 9, 1974, Gerald R. Ford became president of the United States and the collection of his papers took on new importance. Throughout 1975, Robert Warner planned for appropriate housing of the Ford papers under the terms of the Presidential Libraries Act. The designs for a separate building next door to the Bentley Library were approved in 1978. Coincidentally, Dr. Warner left his post at the Bentley Library in 1980 to become Archivist of the United States just in time to accept the new Gerald R. Ford Library as part of the National Archives in 1981. Although the Ford Papers were in its charge for a brief period, the Bentley Library is proud of its decade-long stewardship of these significant materials.

The Governors of Michigan On December 31, 1960, the library received 742 linear ft. of papers of Governor G. Mennen Williams. With this large accession of gubernatorial papers, Gov. Williams became the first of the post-World War II governors to donate his papers to the Bentley Library directly upon leaving office. The Gov. Williams papers are significant for the accomplishments of his administration and for his leadership within the state and national Democratic Party. With the recent accessioning of the papers of John Engler, the library has now acquired a continuous run of gubernatorial records from the administrations of the last six governors. This succession of records begins in 1949 with the first term of Governor G. Mennen Williams and is followed with the files of governors John Swainson, George Romney, William Milliken, James Blanchard, and John Engler.

These six gubernatorial collections complement those of twenty-two earlier governors whose papers are held by the library. These collections, received over the years through family donations and bequests, begin with Michigan’s first governor, Stevens T. Mason. The papers of nineteenth and early twentieth century governors, although decidedly smaller than their modern counterparts, are significant for their insight into the formative period of state government. The papers of Gov. Mason, for example, document Michigan’s government in its transition from territory to statehood. Unfortunately, Gov. Mason’s vision for the state was interrupted by bank closures and other economic travails. These and other issues are reflected in some of his correspondence and in manuscripts of his various messages to the state legislature. Prominent in early to mid-twentieth century state history were governors Chase Osborn and Frank Murphy. Gov. Osborn was perhaps Michigan’s most literary governor. As a former newspaperman, he authored travel books, an autobiography, and a study of Hiawatha and Native American folklore. More than the papers of a governor, the Osborn’s papers describe the development of economic resources of the Upper Peninsula, party politics during the progressive era, and the governor’s interest in conservation issues. Similarly, the papers of Frank Murphy are worthy of mention for their full and revealing documentation of the career of a man, who in addition to being governor, served as mayor of Detroit, governor-general of the Philippines, U. S. Attorney General, and justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. The Murphy papers were received from family members and have been the source of biographical studies, articles and monographs on Detroit and Philippine history, the Flint sit-down strike, and studies of landmark Supreme Court decisions. According to historian Sidney Fine, the Bentley Library’s accumulation of gubernatorial papers is an unmatched resource for the study of state government in the last half of the twentieth century.

The Earl and Florence De La Vergne Collection The Bentley Library’s most important donation of books and maps documenting the earliest periods of Michigan’s history is the collection of Earl and Florence De La Vergne. Earl De La Vergne was a Detroit area businessman and book collector who returned to his hometown of Harbor Springs after he retired. Mr. De La Vergne became interested in Michigan history during his time as a student at the University of Michigan. He applied his historical interest to building a fine collection of early maps of the Great Lakes region and a comprehensive library of both early and modern books documenting the places he loved. A longtime friend of the Michigan Historical Collections and the Bentley Historical Library, Mr. De La Vergne helped build the library’s holdings of books, maps, and manuscripts from 1940 until his death in 1982 by donating materials from his own collection. A passionate collector at heart, he also worked with library staff to locate other collections in the Harbor Springs area.

In addition to his periodic donations during his lifetime, Mr. De La Vergne bequeathed to the Bentley Library his entire collection, totaling almost 2,000 volumes, 120 maps, and 70 prints. The collection comprises a major source of research material relating to the history of Michigan and the Great Lakes region, concentrating on the French and British periods, the Territorial period, Indians, missionaries, L’Arbre Croche and Harbor Springs, and Mackinac.

Michigan Newspaper Project Newspapers have long been recognized as important resources for historical and genealogical research. The Bentley Library has been an active participant in the Michigan Newspaper Project, a part of the national project sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities to identify and preserve our country’s newspaper heritage. Since planning began for the Michigan project in 1992, representatives of the Bentley Library have helped guide the work of the project. The inventory and cataloging phase of the project identified some 3,700 newspaper titles published in Michigan. The microfilming phase, which began in 2002, will film a selection of titles with the most research value. Leonard Coombs represents the Bentley Library on the project’s advisory board.

Conservation and Preservation

The Bentley Library takes seriously its commitment to not only collect but also preserve and conserve the treasures that have been put into its care. Although the library has always been dedicated to the preservation of its manuscript and archival holdings, the balance between what needed to be done and what could be done, especially in our early history, was rarely achieved. For many years, Ida Brown performed valiant service rebinding the torn and patching the tattered. Her work is still seen in many of the volumes on our shelves. With her retirement in 1970, the library was without any of her skills learned over a lifetime. Then in 1974, in a fortuitous merger of need, available space, and talent, the library obtained the services of James Craven to work full time in what was initially a basement storage area, but what would become in short order a state of the art conservation lab. Mr. Craven had been with the U-M bindery for more than twenty years prior to coming to the Bentley Library. Jointly employed by four campus units – the Bentley, Clements Library, Special Collections Library of the University Library, and the Rare Book Room of the Law Library – Mr. Craven has brought unique skills and an innovative mind to the conservation and preservation needs of the university and his work is recognized and appreciated throughout the wider university community.

In 1978 Mr. Craven was chosen by the Bureau of History of the State of Michigan to do restoration work on the contents of the cornerstone of the Capitol in Lansing. In the history of the Bentley Library, this is the only set of documents to be delivered via state police escort. And in 1994, Mr. Craven was called on by the state to undertake extensive restorative work on the original 1835 and 1850 state constitutions.

Mr. Craven has also been mentor to students wanting to learn the basics of conservation. Many of these individuals went on to work in other colleges and universities, including Brown and Dartmouth, but one of his first students, Ann Flowers, remained at the Bentley Library assisting him as needed. She is also responsible for the library’s microfilm preservation program. Through her efforts, the library has a growing bank of microfilmed collections that save wear and tear on the fragile originals and can be loaned out to distant libraries when a trip to the Bentley is inconvenient for a researcher. Among the most requested microfilmed collections are diaries and letters of Michigan Civil War soldiers. In 2003, the department completed a comprehensive survey of the library’s audio, motion picture, and video holdings. This survey will act as a prelude to the selection and digitization of the library’s most at-risk audio-visual treasures.

UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

Origins

Decades before university records were recognized elsewhere for their historical value, Dr. Vander Velde began already in the 1930s to search for documents throughout the University of Michigan campus that would illuminate the institution’s past. At the same time as he was defining a collecting scope and strategy for the history of the state, “Dr. Van” was also looking inward, within the university’s administrative and academic offices, with the help of a Committee on University Archives and a typewritten survey for distribution throughout the campus. In its survey letter of April 1936, the new committee asked that each contacted unit supply the committee with “such essential details as the years covered, where they are kept, and how (i.e. in files, boxes, etc).”

The response was immediate. Early accessions included Regents proceedings dating back to 1845, score cards and the university athletic association’s constitution of 1891, early presidential and faculty papers (including President Angell’s own scrapbook), class memorabilia, Jasper Cropsey’s sketchbook and his painting of 1855 of the university, Alexander Jackson Davis’ plan for the university from 1838, sketches of campus by Wilfred B. Shaw, the dedication program for the Baird Carillon within Burton Tower, and an assortment of ephemera including sheet music of “The Yellow and Blue,” all duly noted by date and donor in the first accession book.

The 1936 survey instrument and the resulting accessions together characterize the aim and success of the university archives program throughout the twentieth century. Subsequent directors were just as strategic as the first, with Director Robert Warner and Curator Ruth Bordin advising in the book The Modern Manuscript Library in 1966 that, “to collect successfully, there must be a plan, not a spur of the moment inspiration but a carefully-drawn, thoughtful program that implements the main purpose of the library.”

University Archives and Records Program

As of the 1970s, the university’s size and modern administration were producing vast streams of documents beyond the core activities of research, teaching, and learning. In 1979, the Bentley launched what came to be known as the “University Archives and Records Program” (UARP). Forty years after the first survey was distributed across campus, another survey was created, with its emphasis a more modern one relating to costs, accountability, risks, and efficiencies. Findings from the survey substantiated the archivists’ intuition and experiences, that the university’s administrative records had indeed become more complex, voluminous, and varied in their origins, distribution, and purposes. One finds in earlier communications a consistency to the archives’ approach to appraisal and transfer of records as “an individualized approach,” within the university’s “autonomous structure,” whereby records management occurs through “individualized work” and “consensus decision making,” with an emphasis on “central administrative units, primarily the executive officers, and records of the various university deans.” Over the past two decades through the efforts of archivists Julia Young, Marjorie Barritt, and Nancy Bartlett, the Bentley Library has established regularized procedures for the holding and transfer of inactive records from the administrative offices in the Fleming Building. In 1992 the library secured space in the basement of that building for a records holding center that is operated jointly with the Executive Offices of the University of Michigan. During those same decades, the library conducted extensive review and transfer of records of the university’s schools and colleges, most notably: the Graduate School; Literature, Science, & the Arts; Law; Medicine; Architecture; and Information.

Documenting the University of Michigan From the earliest days of the Michigan Historical Collections, faculty papers were considered essential as a source for understanding the intellectual life of the university community. The papers of faculty members such as Henry Carter Adams, Charles Horton Cooley, Elizabeth Crosby and Leslie White are among the most consulted collections in the library. The rhythms of academic careers have evolved over time, incorporating new technologies for research and communication, encouraging multi-institutional collaborations, and searching for funds for intensified research. There has emerged a greater distinction between scholarship and university administration, and patterns of mobility from one university to another. Past practice of the archives could rely on the faculty’s pattern of lifelong loyalties to Ann Arbor with preserved documents on stable media typically at the ready for transfer from faculty offices and homes to the archives at the end of a career. These earlier records contained a seamless continuity of leadership between academic units and administration in an era, especially prior to mid-century, when senior faculty wore several hats at once. Archaeologist James B. Griffin (1905-97), for example, was professor, curator, administrator, mentor, and consultant in an era when senior faculty’s names were practically synonymous with the units they led. His 215 linear feet of papers at the Bentley mirror all the roles he played.

A newer identity and patterns of productivity of Michigan’s faculty have required the Bentley’s archivists to engage with these creators of documents at a much earlier phase, even at mid-career for some designated faculty. Before any initiative to document an individual faculty member is undertaken the following criteria concerning his or her academic achievements are considered by the archivists as a team: significance of work, quality of documentation, likelihood of use by future scholars, accessibility over time, degree of identification with the University of Michigan, representation of the under-documented, and extent of leadership among academic peers.

Digital Records initiatives The most dramatic intensification for the entire UARP staff is the archival appraisal, description, and preservation of digital records generated by the university. The presidential papers of James Duderstadt offered a wonderful opportunity for the UARP staff to develop a model for the archival preservation and promotion of use of records generated, used, and retained digitally. In this case, President Duderstadt generously devoted considerable time and invaluable resources to conferring with the Bentley Historical Library staff on the nature of his collection. In a series of meetings, he provided critical information on the technical attributes of his files, the methods he employed for organizing and naming his files, and the relationship of individual files to each other. In 1996-97, he contributed 2,144 computer files (160.5 megabytes) and an additional eight linear feet of paper-based records to the Bentley. Archivists Nancy Deromedi and Kathy Steiner processed the Duderstadt papers and digital files side by side, analyzing their complementarities and describing them in one finding aid, which is itself available online through the library’s website (at http://www.umich.edu/~bhl/EAD/index.html ).

Subsequent to that early initiative digital records began flowing into the Bentley Library. In 2005 the provost’s office contacted the library to announce that a pilot program was underway to transfer the promotion and tenure process in select schools to an entirely digital operation. This would mean that all documentation would be assembled digitally, circulated digitally, and then stored for posterity in digital form. Bentley staff joined in an effort to analyze relevant issues and the process of information flows to the point that now promotion and tenure records are “stored” at the Bentley on secure servers. Out of this experience the staff of the University Archives and Records Program worked in a variety of information environments to transfer born digital records to the custody of the archives amounting in the terabytes. In 2008 the UARP staff began to talk with the California Digital Library to engage their services as a place for the storage and management of web content. This fee based service proved a more efficient service that replicating the program on the UM campus. By 2011, the library has accessioned more than 600 websites. Also in that year the UARP staff was very important in assisting the director of the library in making application to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for grant support to design a methodology for the archiving of electronic mail. The grant of $290,000.00 was awarded in the fall of 2010.

All this activity though concentrated in UARP for many years, began in 2009 to spill over to all aspects of the library’s work. The reference division received increasing requests for scanning of documents and images to the point that by 2011 three scanning stations were established in the library. The Michigan Historical Collections began receiving an increasing amount of material in digital form. Because of these technical pressures on the library’s operations, a new division was formed in 2011 called Digital Curation under the leadership of Nancy Deromedi. This division would have the responsibility for working with issues that derived from the particular nature of digital and born digital archival material.

Bentley Partnership with the U-M Athletic Department For years, the U-M Athletic Department had been besieged with questions about the history of the university’s sports programs and student athletes. Journalists, television producers, scholars, former U-M athletes and their families, and sports buffs all sought information or images about Michigan athletics. In June 1990, former U-M Athletic Director Jack Weidenbach and Sports Information Director Bruce Madej met with Bentley administrators to discuss launching a pilot project to ensure the preservation of Athletic Department records, photographs, game films, programs and other historical materials on Michigan athletics. These records complemented the Bentley’s existing collection of materials on U-M sports, much of which was collected over the years from U-M offices, coaches, alumni, and fans. Mr. Weidenbach and Mr. Madej also sought to move the responsibility of replying to researcher requests from the department to the library, which was functionally organized to take on this task.

The pilot project lasted two years, during which time Bentley archivist Greg Kinney undertook an extensive records survey of all Athletic Department offices and storage areas, identified and transferred historical materials to the Bentley, and processed the records so researchers could have access to them. The project succeeded so well that in March 1993 the Athletic Department and the library agreed to a permanent partnership, with the Athletic Department paying for one-half of an archivist’s salary and the Bentley Library preserving and enhancing access to the department’s administrative and historical records. Through this joint venture, the Bentley now holds one of the preeminent college sports archives in the nation. Academic researchers, students, fans, and media representatives all have access to the rich documentary resources about collegiate sports at Michigan.

Student Collections Students and alumni hold a place of honor in the archives. Their presence is immediately visible in the reading room since the registration desk itself is a student desk of the nineteenth century. Their voices linger, secure in the archives. Hear Judson Collins of the very first graduating class, the class poet for the very first graduation:

“And dark the glow Which fitful clouds in their wandering way They intercept the light of love cast all Around. Enough of this. How joyous yet How swiftly gliding were the days Which we have spent together and the year Seems as a pleasant dream—fading from sight.” Judson Collins, 1850

Students have ever since memorialized their experiences—both fond and rebellious, serious and whimsical, intimate and exuberant—in letters, diaries, photographs, scrapbooks, posters, recordings, and their very own publications. Among the earliest records are those of the student societies of the 1840’s and 50’s that explored issues of the day and kept meticulous minutes of their proceedings. Then there are the more than 1,500 medical school theses of the mid-nineteenth century that are a much-consulted source on medical practice. Raoul Wallenberg, an alumnus, wrote to his alma mater after graduation with a fondness and respect for the advice former faculty would still so generously give. Websites have become the latest version of student scrapbooks, with the College of Engineering Solar Car Teams’ sites among the first digital accessions transferred to the archives. The collective memories of early female students have been recently compiled both online and in print in a volume, entitled Women’s Voices, carefully prepared by two of the library’s volunteers, Doris Attaway and Marjorie Barritt.

Publications and Printed Publications are the most sizable legacy of the founding of the university, with the private libraries of co-founders John Monteith and Father Gabriel Richard at home in the archives. As soon as printers were established in the area, the university was ready with content to be published and distributed. Regents proceedings, annual reports, campus directories, bulletins containing degree requirements, yearbooks, faculty research, and student publications have accumulated steadily since 1837. These materials are of value as they maintain the university’s profile, measure its successes and limitations, and promote campus esprit.

There are also exhibits of the creative talents of students, including Arnold Gingrich, James Earl Jones, Jessye Norman, Margaret Bourke-White, Mike Wallace, and many more who went on to such impressive careers in publishing, journalism, photography, and performance.

The very definition of “publication” today encompasses not only the printed page but also digitally delivered images, sound, and text. This radical departure from a predictable accumulation, volume by standard volume, of series dating over 150 years in duration poses one of the most significant challenges to the university archives. As of the mid-1990s, the university embraced digital delivery for much of its administration, coursework, research, and news dissemination. While addressing such formidable issues as the appraisal, description, preservation, and promotion of use of digital publications, the UARP staff continues to maintain the “individualized approach” in working with the university’s central administrative offices and academic units to ensure the smoothest possible transition into the era of digital archives.

REFERENCE AND SERVICES

Providing effective reference service to all patrons in the busy reading room of the Bentley Historical Library is a one of the library’s most important functions. Today, the library’s reference staff consists of two full-time archivists, two part-time reference assistants, and numerous student employees. Prior to the mid-1960s, when daily research visitors numbered two or three, and letters received would often be answered on the same day, reference was everybody’s responsibility. There was no one staff member assigned desk duty. Divided responsibility of course has had its drawbacks especially as the library’s holdings became known through the Warner/Brown Guide to Manuscripts in the Michigan Historical Collections of the University of Michigan (1963). As the reference traffic grew, so too did the realization that there should be someone assigned to the work of assisting researchers and answering reference queries. Accordingly, in 1967, Janice Earle was hired as the first full-time reference archivist. She was replaced in 1968 by Thomas Powers, who held the reference position for a brief period before becoming curator of manuscripts. Mary Jo Pugh succeeded him in 1969.

Mary Jo Pugh epitomized to many what a reference archivist should be: professional, knowledgeable, and an advocate for effective access tools. Through her writings, Ms. Pugh virtually defined the notion of reference service in a research archival repository. Hallmarks of this philosophy have been equal service to all users no matter the nature of their questions, active promotion of use of the archives to University of Michigan students and faculty, and careful processing of duplication requests and copyright permissions. Above all, she challenged those on the staff responsible for cataloging materials and creating finding aids to do more in order to better meet researchers’ needs. Her work combined with that of her successors, Nancy Bartlett, Anne Frantilla, Kathleen Marquis, and Karen Jania, has resulted in a continuity of knowledgeable, effective and efficient service to the many researchers who rely on the resources of the Bentley Library.

Statistics on growth Over the years, the Bentley Library’s reference division has experienced tremendous growth in terms of researcher activity. While the absolute number of in-house users has increased by 25% between the late 1970s and the early 21st century, research requests from remote users have swelled dramatically over the last decade. The growth in usage by researchers who visit the Bentley and those patrons who submit research requests via phone, fax, letters, e-mail, and web requests has caused us to expand the staffing for the reference division to meet our user demands. In addition to raw numbers of researchers, the intensity of use can be measured by looking at the services they request; for example: numbers of photocopies ordered, number of photographic duplications requested, number of archival boxes retrieved from the stacks, requests received from remote researchers, or number of university classes making use of the library’s holdings.

In the 18 years spanning 1985 to 2003, the number of photocopies ordered by researchers increased by more than 260%. Similarly, between 1985 and 2000, the number of photographic reproductions made in response to patron requests grew by almost 350% from 769 reproduced images to over 2,600 images. The increased call for photographic orders reflects a trend experienced by many archives across the nation and can be traced to at least one major influence: the creation of the World Wide Web. The web has allowed people to easily share information electronically through digital means. The web, though, is dependent upon interesting or useful content that will draw visitors to specific websites. While textual materials at first dominated the web, increasingly it has become a haven for visual images. The Bentley has encouraged its users to visit and use the library’s website by mounting thousands of digitized images from its visual holdings. The existence of these images online has resulted in the rapid growth in photographic orders as the graph to the right demonstrates.

Digital Catalogs (RLIN/MIRLYN) The digital revolution has enhanced the capacity of the Bentley Library to communicate more efficiently with users through the library's websites and e-mail. In 2004 as a part of the project to add space to the building, the reading room was completely wired to permit use of laptop computers at each table. Moreover, each table was provided with Internet access. The library’s first foray into the electronic world occurred in 1985 when the library cooperated with several peer institutions to help develop and implement machine-readable cataloging records. The eighteen-month project to enter collection-level descriptions of the library’s manuscript and archival holdings into the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) replaced the library's card catalog system. RLIN, a national database operated by a consortium of universities and other institutions known as the Research Libraries Group, contains bibliographic and related information on archives, manuscripts collections, books, serials, maps, scores, visual material, and machine-readable records. Later these descriptive records were also loaded into OCLC, another bibliographic network. The RLIN and OCLC databases have allowed researchers at institutions from across the country and around the world to have remote and on-site electronic access to information about the library’s holdings. In February 1994, the library began entering its RLIN records into MIRLYN, the online public access catalog at the University of Michigan. By June 2000 all of the Bentley’s descriptive records had been entered. With the advent of the web-based version of MIRLYN, any individual, anywhere in the world, can access the bibliographic information of the entire holdings of the Bentley Library.

Website The Bentley presence on the web began in 1995, as the result of a student project. Bill Landis, who was a graduate student in the U-M School of Information and Library Science, created a visual tour of the campus using the 1906 Rummel lithograph as his point of departure. This interactive lithograph allowed users to view and read about various campus buildings as they appeared during that time period. Shortly after the Landis project, a team of Bentley archivists developed the first official website. The World Wide Web provides the Bentley staff with a powerful tool to reach user communities and present information about the library’s programs, policies and holdings to U-M administrators and staff and to scholars, students, family historians, church historians, Civil War buffs, and other users of archival records. On the web, the library continues to inform potential users about the library’s archival mission, provide guidance about archival holdings, explain reference policies and services, report on new acquisitions, offer online assistance to units whose records are transferred to the Bentley Library, and mount digital exhibits. Use of web applications at the library has provided an effective means to connect users and historical records, to encourage an unprecedented level of outreach to researchers, and to promote collaboration among archival institutions, including cross-institutional sharing of archival information in a digital environment.

EAD (Encoded Archival Description) After the library’s successful retrospective conversion of catalog information, Bentley archivists sought other opportunities to enhance researcher access to library holdings. The library became an early adaptor of coding archival finding aids into a searchable electronic database. In collaboration with the University Library’s Digital Library Production Services unit, the library is marking up finding aids using Encoded Archival Description (EAD), an SGML-based resource. This encoding standard permits sophisticated searches and displays and provides detailed information about collections over the web. These finding aids have since been linked directly to the MIRLYN entry for the collection. Thus far, more than 700 of the library’s finding aids are encoded and available online for examination through the library’s homepage or MIRLYN.

Bentley Image Bank Early in 1999, administrators of the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library, the Bentley Library, the Digital Library Productions Services and Library Technical Services of the University Library each selected members of their staffs to meet together to develop a strategy for the conversion of, access to, and electronic merging of visual resource collections that they believed would have enhanced and complementary value to the participating repositories and to the campus community at large. This group began implementing this vision to digitize certain categories of visual materials for the BHL and the Art, Architecture and Engineering Library, which have complementary holdings in the area of architectural history and the work of individual architects. The committee's proposal was the first step in a long-term collaboration involving many units across the campus that possesses visual resources. Underlying the cross-campus effort is the belief that there are different units on campus that maintain collections of visual materials and that, through technology, access to the different collections can be consolidated or brought together in a centralized system. The Bentley's contribution to this overall database of visual images is now known as the Bentley Image Bank. The image bank contains approximately 4,000 images that are accessible through the library’s website.

Promoting Research on the State of Michigan and the University of Michigan In 1990, the Bentley Historical Library established a fellowship program to encourage research and publication based on the library’s holdings. Funding for this program was generously provided by gifts from and on behalf of Ruth Bordin and Genevieve Gillette, and by a grant from the Alvin M. Bentley Foundations in honor of the foundation’s longtime board member Mark C. Stevens. The named fellowships that constitute this program, the Bordin/Gillette Fellowship and the Mark C. Stevens Fellowship, provide financial aid to support travel to Ann Arbor and to underwrite research related expenses. Since its inception, the program has awarded travel fellowships to nearly 100 established scholars and dissertation-level doctoral candidates.

The rationale for the program grew out of a conviction that the history of the state of Michigan and the University of Michigan were underrepresented in scholarly literature. While many scholars and doctoral students had mined the library's rich research resources for their articles, monographs and dissertations, the Bentley staff knew that the holdings were capable of sustaining the scholarly interests of a much larger research community, whether those interests centered strictly on the state of Michigan or were part of multi-state studies. The scholarly output of the Bordin/Gillette Fellows and the Stevens Fellows has time and again validated the initial assumptions in forming the fellowship program. Faculty and doctoral candidates from dozens of universities across the nation and around the world have come to the Bentley Library to conduct research on diverse topics such as U.S. diplomatic policy in East Asia, rural tourism, the political economy of U.S. tax policy, American identity in the colonization of the Philippines, curriculum “wars” in 20th century American schools, capital and political culture in the Old Northwest, literary re-imaginings of the Northern forest, religious disestablishment, water policies and politics in cleaning up the Great Lakes, and American medicine and the changing definition of disease. A complete listing of fellows and their projects can be found on the Bentley website.

Notable Publications Over the nearly seventy years since the founding of the Michigan Historical Collections hundreds of books, articles, and dissertations have been completed using the resources now housed in the Bentley Library. In the early years the research upon which these writings were based focused primarily on local history and the history of the state of Michigan. However, as the years progressed and the discipline of history became more conceptually far-reaching and diverse, the range of topics resting on the holdings of the library has become quite varied. The holdings of the library have been central to a wide variety of studies national and international in scope. Scholars have come to the library to explore issues relating to gender, diversity, and the changing role of the military, policies in higher education, international relations, social and economic policy, and the environment.

Some of these works have come from U-M faculty, most notably the many important works by Prof. Sidney Fine of the Department of History, who wrote on the sit-down strike, on the 1967 Detroit riot, and, most notably in a three-volume work, on the career of Frank Murphy. In more than a dozen volumes and in many articles, Prof. Fine had substantive reason to cite the resources of the Bentley Library. Some researchers visited the library for biographical studies of Gerald L. K. Smith, Chase Osborn, Senator Philip A. Hart, and Civil War soldier Charles B. Haydon. Others published thematic monographs. For example, Olivier Zunz mined the library’s demographic sources for his ethnic studies of Detroit neighborhoods. His study was released by the University of Chicago Press as: The Changing Face of Inequality: Urbanization, Industrial Development, and Immigrants in Detroit, 1880-1920. Others have examined the library’s environmental collections, and gubernatorial and senatorial papers for various studies. Brian C. Kalt, for instance, used the papers of Senator Hart and other collections for his Sixties Sandstorm : The Fight over Establishment of a Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, 1961-1970.

Other publications have resulted from the Bordin/Gillette and Mark C. Stevens Research Travel Fellowships (described elsewhere in these pages). Recipients of these awards, often engaged in multi-state studies, have been encouraged to include Michigan, and thus the resources of the Bentley Library, in their research. Others grant recipients have come because of the “critical mass” of complementary sources on a given topic. One, Thomas Sugrue, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was awarded the Bancroft Prize of the American Historical Association for his book The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit that relied heavily on such Bentley sources as the Detroit Urban League records, collections of African-American churches, and the papers of different public figures. Another, Martin Hershock, professor of History at the U-M Dearborn, cited scores of small and mid-sized Bentley Library collections that were important to the research for his The Paradox of Progress: Economic Change, Individual Enterprise, and Political Culture in Michigan, 1837-1878.

Other notable volumes include: Ruth Bordin, Frances Willard: A Biography, (1986) and Woman and Temperance: The Quest for Power and Liberty, 1873-1900 (1981). Kristin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars (1998). Leslie Tentler, Seasons of Grace (1990). Glenn Jeansonne, Gerald L K. Smith, Minister of Hate (1988). Terence Kehoe, Cleaning Up the Great Lakes: From Cooperation to Confrontation (1997). George S. May, Michigan: An Illustrated History of the Great Lakes State (1987). Jeffrey Mirel, The Rise and Fall of an Urban School System: Detroit 1907-81 (1993). Nancy Rubin, American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Merriweather Post (1995). Jane Smith, Patenting the Sun: Polio and the Salk Vaccine, (1990). Suzanne E Smith, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit (1999). JoEllen Vinyard, For Faith and Fortune: The Education of Catholic Immigrants in Detroit, 1805-1925 (1998).

Some works made extensive use of the library’s photographic holdings. Here we include but a few examples. Ruth Bordin, historian and longtime associate of the Bentley Library complied A Pictorial History of the University of Michigan (1967) and Washtenaw County, An Illustrated History (1988) based heavily on MHC images; George May, Eastern Michigan University professor of history, used scores of Michigan-related images in his two-volume Pictorial History of Michigan (1967-1969); and Marilyn McLaughlin in 1995 published Ann Arbor, Michigan, A Pictorial History based largely on Bentley Library materials.

Other Uses of the Collections In addition to the many established scholars who come to the library to use its wide range of collections, many others consult the holdings for a variety of purposes. Most notably are the many students, mostly but not all from the University of Michigan, who have come to work on papers and projects assigned by their professors and instructors. The collections have informed a broad range of activities from historical study to the role of historical images in advertising. U-M staff have also used and continue to use the collections for administrative purposes to document past decisions or to provide analytical information. Staff also uses the wealth of historical images and documents as a way to recover the history of departments and programs. Researchers who come from the fields of law, public relations, journalism, and other walks of life come to the library to seek photographs and other materials for documentaries, free-lance articles, church histories and other projects. Citizens of the State of Michigan and beyond come to research their family history or the history of their home. Many come to trace their University of Michigan roots or connections through the extraordinary records of early alumni of the University.

Exhibits - Actual and Virtual When the Michigan Historical Collections was located in the Rackham Building, there was little space to display choice items or to mount a thematic exhibit for the general public and the university community. Small, table-sized exhibits were presented, but for a limited time only. Perhaps the first exhibit was presented in the Michigan Room of the Clements Library. Here, Dr. Vander Velde put out for display some time in 1936 or 1937 university items such as student letters and diaries, some photographs, and volumes of minutes of early faculty meetings. On the wall of the Michigan Room for this exhibit was the painting done by Jasper Cropsey in 1855 of the U-M campus. On special celebratory occasions, the library was able to mount exhibits within one of the Rackham display galleries or in other university buildings. Examples of these more elaborate exhibits included enlarged copies of university-related photographs to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the founding of the U-M (1967) and an exhibit commemorating the centennial of the admission of women to the U-M (1970). With the move to new facilities in 1973, the Bentley Library had more space for on-site exhibits, as well as for larger off-site exhibits intended for wider audiences. Exhibits in this period included celebrations of the Presidents of the University of Michigan (1980); a commemoration of the founding of the Michigan Historical Collections (1985); “‘Goin north’: Black Detroit and the Great Migration” (1991); and an on-going display on student life at the U-M Welcome Center.

The internet, the World Wide Web, and the digital revolution of the late 1990s has made possible the mounting of virtual exhibits. Accessed through the library’s homepage, researchers and other interested individuals may examine photographs and documents on such disparate subjects as images of the Huron River over the years, the seals of the University of Michigan, U-M men and women in the Olympics, and the football rivalry between the U-M and Ohio State. With the Internet, there is no such thing as not enough space or distance from the exhibit. For most people, these exhibits are at hand, just a click or two away.

ACADEMIC PROGRAMS AND SPECIAL PROJECTS

As a department of the University of Michigan, the Bentley Library has worked to integrate its work and holdings into the broader academic purposes of the university. Through a variety of academic programs the library has proven to be an important base for the pursuit of a variety of intellectual questions. What follows in this section is a sample of some of the many initiatives undertaken since 1935.

Michigan History The library has over its entire history emphasized its responsibility to make known its resources and to encourage research. The library’s bulletin series has been the principal means by which the Bentley Library has informed the public about individual collections and research themes. The first bulletin published in 1947 was entitled Glimpses of early Dutch settlement in Michigan as revealed by selections from manuscripts in the Michigan Historical Collections. Since then, the library has issued nearly fifty bulletins on a variety of topics ranging from biographical sketches of Arthur Vandenberg and Chase S. Osborn to essays on the admission of women to the University of Michigan and the participation of Michigan men in the Civil War. More substantial monographs have also been issued. In 1948, Michigan and the Cleveland era was published beginning a succession of books that include the Making of the University of Michigan 1817-1967 (1967) by Howard Peckham, revised and updated three decades later by Nicholas H. Steneck and Margaret L. Steneck.

Publication is not limited to print. The library has participated in several microfilm publication projects including, from 1975 to 1978 the massive Temperance and Prohibition papers project in conjunction with the Ohio Historical Society and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. At that same time with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the library was able to microfilm a nearly complete run of the Detroit daily Abend-Post. Later in 1982, the NEH provided the library with preservation and access funds to microfilm the papers of Frank Murphy. These are just a few of many microfilm projects undertaken over the past 30 years.

Most unusual, though, was the Immigration Sources Project conceived by Robert Warner and funded through an NEH grant awarded in 1975. Four researchers were selected, each to travel to one country (Poland, Ireland, Finland, and the Netherlands) to conduct surveys in archives for letters written by Michigan residents and sent to relatives in back their “home country.” The results were published by the Bentley Library in 1979.

Now in the new century documentation projects tend to focus on the web. In 2002, the library in collaboration with the Ann Arbor District Library and the U-M’s University Library initiated a project – “Making of Ann Arbor” – to create a website that brings the history of the city to a broad audience through digitized historical documents such as letters, postcards, maps, atlases and photographs drawn form the Bentley collections as well as published histories of Ann Arbor. This project has provided the Bentley with opportunities to interact with an array of users, especially young students, who would not normally use the Bentley Library.

Archival Education Program

In 1971, in conjunction with the U-M School of Library Science (now known as the School of Information), the staff of the library led by Robert Warner inaugurated a graduate seminar on the administration of archives. Students came to the library once a week for a semester-long course on the varied functional operations of the Bentley Library. In 1978, Francis Blouin was appointed assistant professor in the school to oversee the archives education program. It was during these years that the Bentley Library was at the center of national discussions about the nature of archival education and the appropriate requirements for the archival component of a Masters Degree. Course offerings in the School were expanded to include a fall introductory lecture course and a winter practicum. The practicum seminar integrated specific projects undertaken at the Bentley Library with broader discussions of issues relating to the administration of modern archives. These courses were also cross-listed with the Department of History and served as the foundation for the department’s Master’s program in the administration of historical archives. In 1981, when Dr. Blouin was named director of the Bentley, a succession of library staff members continued to staff the existing course offerings and an expanded curriculum that included a seminar on archival issues. These early programs emerged as a model within the archival profession for graduate education.

In 1995 the school appointed Margaret Hedstrom to restructure the program with an eye toward emerging technological challenges. This redefinition took place within the context of the transition of the School of Library Science to the School of Information. Over the next years the number of full-time professors in the archives education program expanded to three, two of whom Prof. Elizabeth Yakel and Prof. Paul Conway had taken the courses offered in conjunction with the Bentley Library at the early stages of their post graduate education at Michigan. The library maintains close ties to the SI program and has regularly taught a special seminar that has served to link the theory and practice in the conceptualization and administration of modern archival institutions. A growing number of archival graduate students have come to the library for paid work experience and for special projects. They work primarily in the library’s reference division and in processing collections (both historical manuscripts and university records). In reference, the graduate students assist in the reading room with in-house users, but they also respond to the requests of remote researchers. In both of these areas, students learn about the Bentley’s philosophy of service to the university community (students, faculty, administrators and staff) and to a wider public of scholars and citizens interested in Michigan history. Working in the collections division, students gain an in-depth understanding about the complex nature of historical and contemporary records and the tools archivists use to appraise, arrange, describe and preserve archival documentation.

Mellon/NEH Fellowships for Study of Modern Archives

In 1983, with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the library began a program of offering fellowships to archival professionals that would enable those selected to come to Ann Arbor for one to four months in order to pursue research related to professional issues. Given the press of day-to-day responsibilities, Francis Blouin and William Wallach, the co-directors of the program, argued that release time spent away from the office would encourage the most creative minds in the archival and related professions to formulate their ideas and convey those through publication. During its fifteen years of existence, the fellowship program fostered systematic research on problems relating to the archival management and scholarly use of modern documentation. Over the years, we received additional funding from the Earhart Foundation of Ann Arbor, two supplemental grants from the Mellon Foundation, and two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Division of Preservation and Access.

From 1983 through 1997, the program funded a total of 122 fellows, who worked on 84 individual and team-based projects. The research fellows funded through the program significantly enriched the extant body of archival literature relating to problems in the selection, use, understanding and administration of contemporary records. The Fellows funded by this unique program published more than 70 articles and monographs, many of which became staples in the curricula of archival education programs in the U.S.

James M. O’Toole, professor of history at Boston College, stated that the Bentley’s fellowship program has “produced much original and creative thinking about the problems of archival theory and practice” and that “the work done by fellows at the Bentley includes many of what are now considered the seminal works in the contemporary professional literature.” Another archival educator, Richard J. Cox, professor of archival studies at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote, “This single program has been the source of some of the most original and provocative archival thinking and writing [on archival issues].”

Public Goods Post Doctoral Fellowships

In 2001 the Bentley was asked by then Provost Nancy Cantor to join with select museums, libraries and other academic programs on the campus to form a group called the Public Goods Council (PGC) of the university. This was a way of recognizing the important contributions of these units to the academic mission of the University of Michigan as a whole. One initiative coming from that group was a postdoctoral program funded for five years by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and located at the Bentley Library. Through this program the PGC selects scholars to come to the university to teach in the undergraduate program using the resources of the PGC libraries. The fellows have a primary appointment within the department where that person’s teaching takes place. The program is enormously important to the Bentley because it integrates the library directly into the academic program of the university and makes the library a full academic partner based on the intellectual strengths of library holdings. At the time of this publication the program is in the third year and has welcomed six scholars to the campus offering a variety of courses located in eight academic divisions of the university

Sawyer Seminar on Archives and Social Memory

During the academic year 2000-01, William Rosenberg, Alfred Meyer Professor of History, and Francis Blouin offered a yearlong seminar on “Archives, Documentation, and the Institutions of Social Memory.” The seminar, funded under the Sawyer Seminar program of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, was the principal offering of the Advanced Study Institute of the International Institute at the U-M that year. The Mellon grant was supplemented with contributions from a number of university units. During the course of the year more than 65 scholars were brought in from universities and archival institutions across the nation and from abroad. They provided perspectives on issues relating to the role of archives as repositories for collective memory and as institutions that shape memory. Among those who participated were David Lowenthal of University College (London), William Kirby of Harvard University, Dakpesch Charkabarty of the University of Chicago, Beatrice Bartlett of Yale University, Joan Schwartz of Queens University, Terry Cook of the University of Manitoba, and Hayden White of Princeton University. The seminar was conducted principally for the students enrolled in the course. Due to widespread interest in the topic on campus, sessions regularly had as many as 50 additional observers. The theme of the seminar has been chosen as the basic theme for the quadrennial meeting of the International Council on Archives in Vienna in 2004.

The Vatican Archives Project

In 1984 with seed funding from the Horace H. Rackham Fund, Francis Blouin embarked on a trip to Rome and Paris to explore possibilities for international collaboration on archival projects. While visiting the Vatican Archives in Rome, he noted that the access system seemed difficult to penetrate. With the encouragement of the prefect of the Vatican Archives, Rev. Josef Metzler, and the prefect of the Vatican Library, Rev. Leonard Boyle, Dr. Blouin along with Bentley archivists Thomas Powers and Leonard Coombs embarked on a project to apply the basic principles of the access system at the Bentley Library to that of the Vatican Archives. With a small grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research and an invitation to be visiting scholars at the American Academy in Rome, the three traveled to the Vatican to test the idea on the Vatican’s diplomatic records. With additional funding from the Getty Grant program, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Lilly Endowment Inc., the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Homeland Foundation of New York, and the American Friends of the Vatican Library, a full-scale project was launched to integrate into a single database basic series-level information on the holdings not only of the Archivo Segreto Vaticano, but also of the archives of Propaganda Fide, the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the Archivio di Stato di Roma (Papal States period), and miscellaneous related holdings at other repositories such as those at Trinity College (Dublin) and the Archives Nationales (Paris). Project staff received unprecedented access to the Vatican Archives stacks that allowed them to carry out their work.

The principal result of the project was Vatican Archives, An Inventory and Guide to Historical Documents of the Holy See, edited by Francis Blouin, Leonard Coombs, Claudia Carlen, Elizabeth Yakel, and Katherine Gill and published by Oxford University Press in 1998. For their work, the Society of American Archivists awarded the volume its C. F. W. Coker Award for best finding aid in 1999. The journal Choice named it a best academic book for 1998. As part of the overall project, the descriptions of the Vatican holdings as revised by Dr. Blouin and his team were entered into the database of the Research Libraries Information Network (RLIN) where they are available to scholars around the world.

At the time Vatican Archives was published, the archives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) was closed to research. Not long after the publication of the Oxford volume, it was announced by the Vatican that the CDF archive would be opened to research for the first time since its founding in the early sixteenth century. In February 2003, with funding from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, Francis Blouin, while a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome, worked with Peter Horsman of the Archiefschool in The Hague, to inventory its holdings that included extant records of the post-Reformation Inquisition and of the Congregation for the Index of Forbidden Books. The Bentley Library published the results of that effort in 2004.

South African archival initiative

In recent years the University of Michigan has had an ongoing relationship with various educational institutions in South Africa. During the summers of 1998 and 1999 Bentley assistant director William Wallach and archivist Brian Williams along with students from the School of Information traveled to South Africa to advise on and assist in the organization and preservation of records relating to the liberation movement in South Africa. The archival holdings that were the focus of the project included records of the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), housed at the University of Fort Hare in Alice in the Eastern Cape. This university was the alma mater of Nelson Mandela and other leaders of the ANC, PAC and other liberation movements. The two Bentley staff members visited UFH in March/April 1998 to assess the archival needs at Fort Hare, develop plans for processing the archival records of the Pan Africanist Congress and other historical record groups, and to carry out a pilot processing project. On this project, they worked closely with UFH assistant archivist trainee Ms. Noludwe Lupuwana. Mr. Williams returned to South Africa in May/June 1998 and May/June 1999 to supervise the work of University of Michigan students from the School of Information, who implemented the plan developed by Mr. Wallach and Mr. Williams. Between visits to South Africa, Mr. Williams, SI students and other Bentley staff developed electronic finding aids for the processed collections and made them available on the UFH website. The U-M work with the University of Fort Hare was funded by a variety of sources including the USIA and the Kellogg Foundation.

France Exchanges

Over the past twenty years the Bentley Library has been involved in a number of projects and exchanges with the archives community of France. This began when Nancy Bartlett of the staff was selected to attend the Stage Technique Internationale d’Archives of the Archives de France in 1985. In 1992 Francis Blouin, William Wallach along with Ms. Bartlett conducted a two-session seminar with faculty members from the École nationale des Chartes, the Grand École in France for the preparation of archivists and records professionals. The focus of the seminar was the application of the principles of diplomatics to electronic records. The first session was held in Ann Arbor, the second in the summer of 1993 was held at the École in Paris. The results were published in The American Archivist in Fall 1996 as a special issue on “Diplomatics and Special Records.” The same content was published in French in the archival journal La Gazette des Archives in 1996. Since 1990 the library has hosted a student nearly every summer from the Institut Nationale du Patrimoine in Paris. Students have come for one or two months to study the American tradition in archival service. While at the library they have undertaken a variety of projects. For example, Béatrice Olive, who visited in 1999, worked on a description of the manuscript journals of Gabriel Richard, a French missionary and a founder of the 1817 University of Michigania in Detroit. The journals, written in French, are kept at Sacred Heart Seminary Library in Detroit. In the fall of 2003 Nancy Deromedi of the staff addressed the Stage Courant of the Archives de France. She spoke on electronic records issues.

Russia Exchanges

Over the years the staff of the Bentley Library have worked in partnership with members of the faculty of the Center for Russian and East European Studies (CREES) to explore the implications of rapid political change for archival practice. These exchanges began in 1987 when Francis Blouin and Edwin Bridges of the Alabama Department of Archives and History were selected to be the first archivists from the USA to visit the archives of the Soviet Union under the U.S./USSR program of cultural exchanges. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the library and CREES established a relationship with the newly established Russian State University for the Humanities. That university was an outgrowth of the Moscow Historical and Archival Institute. Several exchanges took place, with some funded by the Earhart Foundation of Ann Arbor, designed to discuss issues of access and organization of archival material. Beginning in 1999 the library staff, working with U-M Prof. William Rosenberg (History), began a series of presentations at the European University in St. Petersburg.

China Exchanges

Since 1989, the Bentley Historical Library has enjoyed a very unique and enriching relationship with the State Archives Administration of China. Senior administrators, educators, editors, and even sizeable delegations of young archival professionals have all visited the Bentley for conferences and seminars, working meetings on joint publications, and research on archival administration and theory. Their visits have ranged from just a few precious days to as long as several months. Certainly among the most memorable experiences for several on the Bentley staff have been the official exchanges between the State Archives Administration of China and the Bentley. In 1999 and 2001, the Bentley hosted as many as thirty Chinese professional archivists for a series of daily seminars on American archival principles and methods. By the end of these three-week seminars, our Chinese visitors had not only absorbed a tremendous amount of information about the American archival method, they had also prepared very astute final reports on their intensive seminar experiences. Two small delegations of Bentley staff have had the privilege of visiting China as guests of the State Archives Administration of China. During their visits to China in 2000 and 2002, Bentley staff were invited to offer lectures on subjects as varied as archives and the law in America, advances in appraisal of digital records, and the Western approach to paper conservation. This last topic was presented by Bentley conservator James Craven, whose remarks in Beijing were so well received that they were subsequently reprinted in a recent Bentley bulletin. The Bentley staff eagerly await the next delegation of Chinese visitors, whose arrival is scheduled for shortly after the opening of the new wing of the Bentley in Fall 2004. In the meantime, the Bentley is further promoting the remarkable history of relations between the University of Michigan and China –dating back to 1847 – through its online exhibit chronicling this past, in both English and Chinese, in a website prepared by Zheng (Jessica) Lu, a University of Michigan graduate of the School of Information, former Bentley Historical Library graduate student assistant, and native of China.

Denmark Exchanges

Through a program jointly administered by the United States Information Agency and the American Library Association, Nancy Bartlett was awarded a six-month fellowship appointment in 1994-95 at the Danish Emigration Archives, in Aalborg, Denmark. Having conducted a year of research on emigration history in Denmark as a Marshall fellow in 1979-80, Ms. Bartlett was prepared to conduct a thorough survey of the Danish Emigration Archives during this subsequent visit. With the dual goals of a published guide and an archival database, she examined existing finding aids and translated, standardized, and synthesized their contents in a database. A published guide was also produced, entitled A Guide to the North American Collections of the Danish Emigration Archives. In 2002, Francis Blouin presented “An American Perspective” at the European Expert Seminar on Methods of Digital Archival Description, as a guest of the Danish State Archives.

The Bentley and Professional Associations

1. The International Council on Archives In 1989, the Bentley Library hosted the Second European Conference on Archives (using the UNESCO definition of Europe, Ann Arbor was eligible!). Over thirty countries were represented. The discussion focused on the convergences and divergences in the archival traditions between North America and Europe. Jean Favier, Director General of the Archives de France, presided. In June 1999, the Bentley hosted a delegation from the International Council on archives. The new secretary general of the ICA visited the library in recognition of the extensive international work contributed by members of the Bentley staff. Nancy Bartlett of the Bentley staff has been most closely associated with the ICA. From 2001 to 2004 she was editor of the principal journal of the ICA , Comma. Under her direction the journal published a series of important special issues focusing on themes such as: Archives in China, Archives in Russia, Archives in Central Europe, and Archives in the Nordic States. Francis Blouin served on the program committee for the quadrennial Congress of the ICA held in Vienna in 2004. Both Dr. Blouin and Ms. Bartlett have served on a number of ICA committees.

2. The Society of American Archivists The Bentley Historical Library has long been associated with the Society of American Archivists. Until 1975 the society had no permanent home or paid executive staff. Various institutions volunteered space and help. From 1972 to 75 the headquarters were in Ann Arbor with Bentley director Robert Warner serving as executive secretary to the organization. Over the last four decades staff members have served the society in a variety of capacities. Robert Warner was president of the society. Francis Blouin and William Wallach, fellows of the Society, served on the governing council as a well as on a variety of committees. Nancy Bartlett, Nancy Deromedi, Brian Williams, Mary Jo Pugh and many others have served on committees of the society. Nancy Bartlett was recipient of the society’s Kegan award in 1988. Members of the staff regularly present papers at the annual meeting. In many cases their work has been published in The American Archivist, the principal journal of the SAA.

3. The Midwest Archives Conference Staff members of the library have been active in the regional association of archivists that is known as the Midwest Archives Conference. William Wallach and Frank Boles both served on MAC’s governing council. Brian Williams, Nancy Deromedi, Greg Kinney, Bill Wallach, Karen Jania and many others have presented papers on their work at the fall and spring meetings of the Conference and have served on related committees. Also many members of the staff have published papers in Archival Issues, the journal of the Conference.

4. The Michigan Archival Association Robert Warner, Francis Blouin, and Mary Jo Pugh have served as president of the Michigan Archival Association, one of the first state archival organizations in the U.S. Karen Jania is currently MAA’s vice-president and on the executive board. Brian Williams has also served on the board. This state organization is the principal forum for exchange and cooperation among the many important archival institutions in the state. Many staff members have served on its various committees and task forces.

5. The Historical Society of Michigan Lewis Vander Velde, Robert Warner, Francis Blouin, and Elizabeth Adams of the staff have served as president of the Society – so, too, did Alvin M. Bentley. This long and close association was affirmed in 1974 when the Society chose the newly opened Bentley Historical Library as the site of its 100th annual meeting.

CONCLUSION

This brief survey of activities of the Bentley Historical Library is to provide a sense of the breadth of its program and activities. What is particularly striking about the history of this library is the consistency in the energy and creativity of its staff and many friends. In reflecting on the accomplishments of the first year of the collections in 1936, Lewis Vander Velde noted that “the achievements of 1935-36 are highly satisfactory, not only from their intrinsic merit but for the evidence they furnish of opportunities for the future.” That observation could be made with equal confidence for each of the seventy years that has followed.

External links

• Bentley Historical Library Home Page