Clarke Historical Library student Andrea Howard is now a Visiting Processing Archivist

by Marian Matyn

Andrea Howard interned for Archivist Marian Matyn in the Clarke Historical Library during Spring term 2014. During her internship, she spent most of her time on the Aladdin Housing Company collection, sorting through the personal records of Aladdin founder William Sovereign and his son, Will Sovereign, Jr. Andrea said, "I loved finding unexpected things, like photographs of pilot Jeanette Lempke, William Sovereign’s wife, and her trailblazing flights in the 1920s. I knew pretty quickly that I’d also found a new career path."

Fast forward about 9 years, Andrea has earned a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. After a brief stint as a Local History Librarian in Ohio, she is currently a Visiting Processing Archivist at Grand Valley State University. Andrea stated, "Drawing directly from my processing experience at the Clarke, I am currently working to process a large collection of zoning and urban planning materials. I’m excited to contribute to the field in the next couple of years by becoming involved in professional archival organizations and giving conference presentations. "

"Sometimes I wonder where I would be if I had not been flipping through a course catalog my senior year, looking for a history course and noticing the archives internship option for the first time," Andrea reflected. "My internship at the Clarke taught me fundamental archival principles and skills and kindled my love for archives, but it did so much more than that. I developed a lasting friendship with Marian Matyn; I regularly turn to her for advice and encouragement and highly value her opinions and insights. That internship was also the only hands-on, official archival internship I had before entering the job market. I know that the experience I gained at the Clarke was instrumental to my job search success. If you are on the fence about interning in the archives, I say go for it! You never know what you might find."

We are excited to see how Andrea's career has taken shape and wish her much success in the future!

Good Luck, Christa Clare!

by Bryan Whitledge

Since Christa Clare joined the Clarke Historical Library, a lot has changed: the Clarke moved from the fourth floor of the Park Library to the first floor with a (not so) brief layover at Rose Arena, dozens of staff members as well as members of the Clarke’s governing board have come and gone, hundreds of students have earned some extra money working part-time in the Clarke, thousands of books and records have been acquired, and tens of thousands of researchers have made use of the library. Through all of the changes, Christa has been central to the success and excellence of the Clarke.

A good many of the Clarke’s regular visitors and supporters would count Christa as a friend. Her warm smile and genuine kindness have been available to everyone who has walked through the doors—attendees of speaker series events, CMU employees coming into the library on business, Clarke board members coming for the semiannual meeting, donors dropping off materials to add to the collections, new student employees on their first day, and more. Countless relationships with donors, benefactors, and supporters have started with Christa’s friendly, “Hi, how are you today?” offered to anyone who has walked into the Clarke. It is no overstatement to say that there has been no better person to welcome visitors, to converse with people about anything and everything they wished to talk about, and to make everyone feel like the Clarke was an excellent place that would take care of history and make it available to everyone.

For the staff, Christa has meant more to our success than she will ever know. As with many offices and workplaces, most people have little idea all of the little cogs, widgets, and levers that are needed to make the Clarke machine move. Christa has been relied upon to keep the machine running by handling a multitude of behind-the-scenes tasks. Because it would be impossible to list all of her contributions, we have offered up a very small sampling of all that she has provided and has helped with during her time at the Clarke (in no particular order): 

gathering, sorting, and keeping track of all sorts of financial reports, helping hire students, purchasing new books, purchasing old books (but new to us), tracking acquisitions, creating lists of donors, providing the address of an old colleague, covering the reading room when we are short-staffed, purchasing supplies, processing payments, adding bibliographic information to the catalog entries, making sure student staff get paid, reporting broken… everything—lights that won’t turn on, copy machines that won’t act right, HVAC systems that are too hot or too cold, phone lines that won’t operate, etc., managing our memberships in dozens of historical organizations, arranging for catering, giving us a band-aid in the all-too-frequent event of a paper cut, and being a sympathetic ear and a friendly conversationalist. 

We’ve counted on her to relay our messages that we would be absent. And we’ve all come to expect that she will wish us well and hope we feel better before she hangs up the phone.

Getting the job done is great, but Christa takes it one step further—she infused her personality, compassion, and zest for life in the Clarke’s work culture. Every staff member, including every single student employee, has received a birthday card signed by the entire staff each year… and if a person’s birthday falls during the winter break or when a student is away during the summer, you can bet that Christa will put a stamp on it and make sure the birthday celebrant gets their card. Not as joyous, but possibly more meaningful, she also has made sure that sympathy cards were circulated for a colleague who suffered a loss or illness. These small gestures have gone a long way to make staff members feel welcome and valued.

When it comes to a making the most of life, Christa walks the walk. It has not been unusual to come to work in the morning and see a container of cookies awaiting the students—why? Because Christa woke up and thought fresh homemade cookies would brighten our day. She has shared the bounty of her garden with the staff because, why not? When she feels like fresh flowers will spruce up her space, she brings in fresh flowers. And for those who say they don’t have a green thumb, Christa never gives up on the aspiring horticulturalist and continues to bring in cuttings and shoots and offers some helpful advice.

The Clarke staff as "Scrabble" for Halloween, 2012

Everyone has shared a laugh with her, and a lot of those laughs start with ideas for social events. The Clarke’s Halloween costumes at the annual staff potluck were second-to-none… for a long time, at least… and she was always the ring-leader master-minding the whole operation. You can guess who wiped away the competition in the winter ugly sweater contest. And you know who has been behind-the-scenes making sure there were plenty of chairs, napkins, cups, and, most importantly, good attitudes at a barbecue for graduating students. Just when the winter doldrums were really settling in for everyone and she could tell, Christa would suggest that the staff hold a tea exchange and tea party to lighten our spirits. It was just what we needed.

Similar to how one book or one box of records is only a sliver of everything that the Clarke holds about Michigan history, this is merely a sliver of how meaningful Christa has been to Clarke and to the lives of the staff members. We wish her the absolute best in her retirement.

Carrie Marsh Announced as New Clarke Director

Carrie L. Marsh has been named the director of the Clarke Historical Library of Central Michigan University. She begins her duties on February 14. The announcement was made by Kathy Irwin, dean of University Libraries. A nationwide search was conducted after the August 2021 retirement of Frank Boles, who served as Clarke’s director for more than 30 years.

Marsh comes from The Claremont Colleges Library in Claremont, California, where she has served as director of Special Collections and Libraries since 2014. Her tenure in the Claremont consortium included library assistant director and head of special collections, reference librarian for the Denison Library, and special collections librarian for the Honnold/Mudd Library.

Marsh is a proud CMU alum, earning a B.A. in English and Art History in 1984, followed by a Master’s in Literature in 1986. She was a student assistant for the Park Library during her undergraduate and graduate studies. She has a Master’s in Library Science with an emphasis on special collections librarianship from the University of Arizona.

“Carrie has excellent management experience, has a track record of developing successful partnerships with college faculty, and has demonstrated a thorough understanding of DEI needs and opportunities in archives and special collections. I look forward to working with her as she advances the mission and vision of the Clarke Historical Library,” said Irwin, who led a search committee that included current faculty, library staff, and members of the Clarke Historical Library Board of Governors.

Among Marsh’s professional achievements: a collaboration that began in 2012 with Laura Stalker, former deputy director of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, to teach a course for the California Rare Book School about history, theory and practice of special collections librarianship, and, a key role in writing and collaboratively implementing a $333,574 three-year Digitizing Special Hidden Collections from a Council on Library and Information Resources grant with Pomona College and five Southern California libraries (public and academic) and the National Archives and Records Administration in Riverside, California. The “Digitizing Southern California Water Resources” project digitized materials from federal, state, and local governments, water companies, local agencies, engineers, and individuals involved in water development in the Southern California region from the 19th through the 20th centuries.

The Clarke Historical Library, founded in 1954 by a gift from Dr. Norman E. Clarke, Sr., collects, preserves, and promotes nationally recognized collections that include the history of Michigan and the Old Northwest Territory, the history of Central Michigan University, and selected topics including children's literature, campaign biographies of U.S. presidential candidates, the history of angling, and historic Michigan newspapers. The Clarke serves the needs of the CMU community, fosters scholarly activity through its collections and exhibits, and strengthens community partnerships through an active outreach program. Learn more online at Clarke Historical Library.

Kids and Culture

By Victoria Fisher

Radio station CFX’s “Kids and Culture” event, which introduces kids to cultural venues around Mount Pleasant, kicked off on Saturday, January 16, with CMU Libraries and the University Art Gallery. The first in a series of events that will take place at various locations throughout the year, “Kids and Culture” featured numerous activities for all ages. The University Art Gallery posed the question of how we can take better care of our planet and allowed for the kids to respond through art.

In Park Library’s Baber Room, paper and pictures were available for kids to make books. From old calendars and bits of ribbon, kids creatively pieced together a unique story that was all their own, giving them the chance to express their own stories and ideas. McDonald's provided delicious refreshments.

The Clarke Historical Library brought out books from their children’s collection for a fun and interactive storytelling with Clarke student assistant Victoria Fisher. Throughout the storytelling, kids were asked to make predictions, reflect, and share some of their own experiences. Books ranged in topic from the legend of the dreamcatcher, to imaginary friends, to a book titled "Stanley Goes Fishing" by Craig Frazier – tying in with the Clarke’s current exhibit, The Michigan Angler.

Whether participants took advantage of every location or just one, it was a Saturday morning enjoyed by all.

 

Victoria displaying "Stanley Goes Fishing"

The Clarke Hosts Upward Bound Summer Intern

by Bryan Whitledge and Casey Gamble

This summer, for three weeks in July, the Clarke Historical Library had the opportunity to host an intern from Detroit Collegiate Preparatory High School at Northwestern (DCP), Victoria Spencer. Students from DCP participated CMU's Upward Bound program, an initiative "to support and encourage promising students to prepare for successful college careers​." During their time here at CMU, students took classes, engaged in volunteerism, relaxed and enjoyed student life at Central, and worked in a CMU campus job.

Victoria looking through historic CMU building photographs

Victoria originally hoped to be placed in a job with the Multicultural Academic Student Services Office or with Study Abroad. Instead, she was placed with the Clarke. She was not disappointed with the placement because she liked the idea of working with books. Little did she know that during her time at the Clarke she would not touch one book; rather, she would work with historic images of the buildings of CMU's campus.

Victoria’s job at the Clarke was to scan historic photographs of CMU buildings -- both those that no longer exist and those that stand today. She also was asked to write up brief descriptions of the images so they can be added to a database in the future. Her work is a major piece of a larger project in the Clarke to make information about the history of every CMU building available on-line. While working with the historic photos, Victoria became skilled with the scanner and scanning software. She also gained experience manipulating the photos in Photoshop.  And, most importantly to the archivists and librarians in a historical library like the Clarke, she quickly learned the histories of buildings and could identify both past and present buildings and well as approximate dates of the images based only on the photographs!

Drawing of the New Administration
Building, now known as Warriner Hall,
circa 1925

As Victoria noted during the closing event for Upward Bound, “With this opportunity, I have learned skills that I can use in my future career. Because of this opportunity, I have learned that small roles can prepare you for bigger roles later. My experiences this summer have made an impact on my future endeavors.”

We enjoyed having Victoria around this summer, not only for her excellent work, but her wonderful personality. We wish her the best in her senior year at Detroit College Prep.

Photos of Victoria courtesy of Jessica Thompson and the Upward Bound staff

Mid-Michigan Digital Practitioners meeting at CMU

by Marian Matyn

Central Michigan University hosted the third Mid-Michigan Digital Practitioners (MMDP) regional meeting in the Park Library on September 18, 2014. Fifty people attended. We enjoyed meeting, networking, collaborating, and sharing digital project experiences and information. The attendees are mostly archivists and librarians behind the scenes who are responsible for the various technical and digital efforts involved in getting information in various formats into searchable digital repositories, developing project processes for converting reel-to-reel tapes or microfilmed newspapers for digital repositories, dealing with storage and access issues of digital information, or the conversion of data, or changing from one major storage/access system to another, and numerous other issues and concerns.

National Digital Newspaper Conference

by Frank Boles

Annually, the awardees responsible for the National Digital Newspaper Program meet at the Library of Congress to discuss projects and possibilities in this nationwide effort to bring millions of newspapers online and make them freely available to the public. The Clarke Historical Library is the focus of the project in Michigan, and thus Kim Hagerty and Frank Boles spent several days in Washington last week, discussing online newspapers with their colleagues from more than thirty states.

Marian Matyn on WCMU

Over the summer, Marian Matyn, Archivist at the Clarke Historical Library, was interviewed by Sarah Adams of WCMU, the Public Radio affiliate from Central Michigan University about the history of the Skerbeck Carnival. Matyn provided some interesting information about the history of the Skerbeck Carnival, which was one of the many attractions featured during the 4th of July Bay City Fireworks festival, and provided great entertainment during the holiday weekend.

Matyn told of the history of the largest family-owned-and-operated carnival in Michigan and the part they played at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, where they really discovered what would “wow” the crowds. To read the WCMU news release about Matyn’s interview and the Skerbeck Carnival, please follow this link. And if you are interested in the history of Great Lakes circuses and carnivals, contact the Clarke Historical Library with any questions.

Michigan in Letters featured on Michigan Radio

Image from Stateside website
http://www.michiganradio.org/

John Fierst, Librarian at the Clarke Historical Library, was recently interviewed by Michigan Radio's Stateside program about the blog, Michigan in Letters. The Michigan in Letters blog, created by Fierst and CMU Libraries Documents on Demand Coordinator Susan Powers, is a means of highlighting the manuscript collections at the Clarke through the in-depth investigation of documents, one or two pages at a time.

Central Michigan University Recognizes the Clarke Staff for their Generosity

by Frank Boles

The Clarke Historical Library staff was recognized for its contributions to CMU’s Annual University Campaign (AUC) at a University-wide ceremony on April 2. The AUC is an opportunity for the faculty and staff of the University to "invest in the continued success of CMU." Faculty and staff are asked to volunteer monetary donations to the campus unit of their choice. To sweeten the deal, the University contributes $1 for every $2 donated to the AUC. Last year, we posted a similar Clarke Historical Library News and Notes blog entry about the same recognition bestowed upon the Clarke staff.

Just like last year, we were recognized for having the highest percentage of donors for a CMU unit with less than twenty-five employees. This marks the fourth year in a row that this award has been won by the Clarke staff. Insofar as we can determine, this also represents the longest continuous period that a unit has won this award.  

So hat's off to the Clarke staff for their goodwill and generosity, whether as part of the Annual University Campaign or in their daily approach to everything they pursue!

Generosity of Clarke Staff Recognized by University

by Frank Boles

At a ceremony on April 19, the Clarke staff was recognized for its contributions to CMU’s Annual University Campaign (AUC). The AUC is a fundraising event in which CMU employees are asked to voluntarily give back to the University. Employees are allowed to direct their contribution to specific units on campus. As an added incentive the President’s office matches each dollar pledged with an additional fifty cents.

This year the Clarke staff was recognized for having the highest percentage of donors for a CMU unit with less than twenty-five employees. Although the award itself is significant, what is particularly noteworthy is that this is the third consecutive year the Clarke Library staff has been awarded this honor.

Part of my job is asking people for things. Whether it is a bunch of books in the attic or a sizable number of dollars, much of what the Library accomplishes is due to the public’s generosity. In a typical year at least one-third of our newly acquired material is donated. Annual giving and spendable funds from our endowment accounts make possible at least an additional one-third of our acquisitions, with this percentage likely to increase dramatically over time. The spendable income from the endowments and annual giving also support a wide range of other Library activities and services, including speakers, exhibits, reference, and digitizing activities.

Dependent as we are on our many friends for so much of what we do, it is nice to be able to share with them that those of us who work in the Library also understand the need for non-university funding and that we believe so much in what we do that what we support the Library’s activities with our gifts.

Today, my thanks go first to the people I work with for their generosity, and then to you, for your generosity. Together, we make a difference.

American Presidential Elections

autograph of President Eisenhower
autograph of President Washington
autograph of President Franklin Roosevelt
[editor's note: The Clarke Historical Library News and Notes blog has a new way of delivering our postings to you via RSS feeds or e-mail subscription. Please take a second to look at the subscription options on the right side of this webpage. If you already subscribe to the blog, please resubscribe using our new options.

Thank you from the Clarke Historical Library staff]

American Presidential Elections

by Frank Boles

The Clarke Library celebrated President’s Day, February 20, with an exhibit of presidential autographs, lent to the library for the celebration, and a presentation by myself about presidential elections.

A few points made during the presentation included:

• Going negative, whether by the candidate or more likely the candidate’s surrogates be it a partisan newspaper or a well-funded super-PAC, is an old game first observed in the election of 1800. It may not be a particularly uplifting part of presidential campaigning, but its presence does not necessarily indicate the hopeless downward spiral of the nation.

• Sometimes both the candidates are seriously flawed, such as in the election of 1884, but the system has coped with the problem before and survived. If in the end voters aren’t thrilled with either alternative, there will be a next time.

• There is no magic technology to improve elections. When pundits suggest that somehow the internet will renew the process, it probably isn’t true. In the twentieth century the nation has been there and done that with both radio and television, and it didn’t work.

• Primaries may be endless exercises in trivial retail politics and these days with more debates than even the most committed political junkie can listen to, but they have become the indicator we use to test the viability of each person who seeks the job and, in however clumsy a way, to pull the selection of presidential candidates away from party professionals and place it into the hands of the voting public.

In conclusion, I offered the audience two quotes that sum up how one can look at presidential elections. A pessimist might agree with E. B. White who wrote in 1944 that,

“Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.”

However, an optimist is more likely to listen to the pragmatic if slyly phrased wisdom of Winston Churchill, who in 1947 said,

"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.”

Clarke Staff Wins University Award for Annual Giving

 by Frank Boles

Every year the faculty and staff of Central Michigan University are offered the opportunity to support the University through the “Campus Campaign.” The University’s employees are asked to make a financial contribution to CMU; to give back a bit of what they earn to help support the institution’s goals and aspirations.

The campaign is important at many levels. At one level, the University can use the money. One can debate the wisdom of public policies that have led to a continuing and deep decline in the amount of state funds made available for higher education, but the impact is not debatable.  Tuition has increased substantially and funding for higher education has become much more dependent on public generosity. At another level, if we are going to ask others to help us, we have to show that we ourselves believe so much in what we do that we are willing to lead by example. It is easy to ask someone else for money.  However, “the ask” is much more convincing if we as individuals have already donated to the cause we are asking others to support.

Thus, I am very pleased that the Clarke staff has been recognized for having obtained the highest percentage of donors among CMU units with fewer than twenty-five employees to the recently completed 2010 Campus Campaign. The accomplishment is even more notable in that the Clarke staff also received this award for the 2009 Campus Campaign.

My thanks go to the individual Clarke staff members who, despite hard times, supported the Campus Campaign. Like the University as a whole, the Library can use the money. More importantly, gifts from staff members demonstrate our commitment to what we do every day.