This is the sixth year of celebrating American Archives Month at UMBC! This year we're looking deep into our institution’s shared history with the physical space that we occupy today. On display in the Library Rotunda are photographs, artifacts, and clippings from the Stabler family papers (Collection 27), which were donated by the descendants of Edmund Stabler, a long-serving superintendent of the Baltimore Manual Labor School. An online exhibit about the School will also be available this month. Both of the exhibits were curated by recent UMBC graduate Nichole Zang, with assistance from Special Collections graduate student assistant Tucker Foltz and Archivist Lindsey Loeper. Nichole’s History M.A. thesis informed the work on display; a copy of her thesis, “Holy Temples to Dark Rooms: The Origins of Baltimore’s Juvenile Reform Movement of the Nineteenth Century,” is also available in Special Collections.

American Archives Month is a collaborative effort by professional organizations and repositories around the nation to highlight the importance of records of enduring value. Archivists are professionals who assess, collect, organize, preserve, maintain control of, and provide access to information that has lasting value, and they help people find and understand the information they need in those records. - Society of American Archivists, www.archivist.org

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Special Collections Invites Applications for Undergraduate Research Award

The Friends of the Library & Gallery is inaugurating a $500 award for undergraduates to do research in the library’s Special Collections.  Projects that make substantial onsite use of the Special Collections in any area ranging from the photography collections to the biological sciences archives, and from the rare books to the science fiction holdings are eligible for consideration by the committee charged with judging the applications.  Applicants must submit a project statement, a writing sample, and a letter of recommendation for them and their project from a faculty mentor.  The applications and accompanying materials must be submitted to Chief Curator Tom Beck by November 12, 2015 for funding during the spring semester 2016. 

Lois Kuhn Romeo, Chair of the Friends Council, said that the group is delighted to offer support to student researchers in Special Collections.  “UMBC is nationally recognized as an innovator in undergraduate research, and the Friends wishes to recognize talented students by giving them support in doing their research,” Ms. Romeo remarked.  Acting Director of the Library & Gallery Joyce Tenney said: “The Special Collections have excellent holdings and superb staff that will be pleased to give the Friends award winners the benefit of their expertise.”  

Questions may be sent to Tom Beck by telephone (x53827) or email (beck@umbc.edu).