In recognition of 2009 American Archives Month, the staff of the Special Collections Department at Louisiana State University will host an afternoon symposium on Thursday October 29, 2009, from 3-5 p.m.  Chords of Memory: Archives at Hill and Beyond, will feature a panel of community scholars and writers discussing the role of archives and historical records in their professional and creative pursuits.  The panel includes Dr. J. Michael Desmond, Mary Ann Sternberg, Dr. Suzanne Marchand, and Dr. Richard White, followed by a Q&A session and refreshments.  The symposium will be held in the Hill Memorial Library Lecture Hall in Baton Rouge.

Desmond will describe his use of archival resources at Hill Memorial Library Special Collections for a recently completed architectural survey project of the original LSU campus, sponsored by the Getty Foundation.  Sternberg, the author of Winding Through Time: The Forgotten History and Present-Day Peril of Bayou Manchac (2007) and Along the River Road: Past and Present on Louisiana’s Historic Byway (2001), will offer a perspective on the non-professional uses of archives in popular historical research.  Marchand, author of German Orientalism in the Age of Empire (2009), will offer insights into conducting research at European archives repositories.  White, author of books on Huey Long, Theodore Roosevelt, and the forthcoming Will Rogers, A Political Biography (2010), will discuss archives and the writing of biography.

American Archives Month is a collaborative effort by professional organizations and repositories around the nation to highlight the importance of records of enduring value. Please join Special Collections in celebrating the American record and the often unheralded efforts to preserve our cultural resources and historical legacy at the national, state, and local levels.

For more information on the symposium, contact Brad Wiles at 225.578.7714 or bwiles1@lsu.edu

On Tuesday, September 29, at 5:00 p.m., Professor Geza Vermes will deliver a public lecture, “The Story of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Miraculous Discovery and True Significance,” in the Hill Memorial Library lecture hall. 

Dr. Vermes is Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University. He has edited the Journal of Jewish Studies since 1971 and in 1991 was appointed director of the Oxford Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish  Studies. He is a Fellow of the British Academy (1985) and of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities (2001).  He is the author of more than a dozen books on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism, Christianity, and the life and religion of Jesus.

Sponsored by the LSU Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies and the LSU Libraries, this lecture is free and open to the public. A reception and book signing will follow.

Maida Owens (Director, Louisiana Folklife Program), Jennifer Abraham (Director, T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History), Joel Gardner (Guest Speaker), and Elaine Smyth (Head, LSU Libraries’ Special Collections), visit during the reception following Gardner’s talk.

Joel Gardner, oral historian, spoke at Hill Memorial Library on November 30. Discussing the two strands of oral history — the folklore documentary strand, which regards oral histories as “performances”; and the academic approach, which seeks to document historical facts through personal experiences of those who are interviewed – Gardner pointed out that Louisiana had an important role in the early development of both. John and Alan Lomax pioneered the use of oral history to document the lives and performances of Louisiana musicians such as Leadbelly and Jelly Roll Morton. LSU professor T. Harry Williams used oral history in his Pulitzer-Prize-winning biography of Huey Long, thus legitimizing the use of the technique for academic historians. Gardner noted that the Williams Center has been extremely successful, compiling a remarkable 3,000 hours of oral histories in just 15 years.

After the talk guests toured the exhibition “Have You Heard? The Past in First Person from the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History.”

In conjunction with the opening of the LSU Libraries’ Special Collections exhibition, “Have You Heard? The Past in First Person from the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History,”oral historian Joel Gardner will speak on Friday, Nov. 30, at 6 p.m. in Hill Memorial Library’s lecture hall. A reception will follow the talk. The exhibition and talk are free and open to the public.

Gardner has directed several oral history projects and programs in Louisiana, served as copy editor of Louisiana Folklife A Guide to the State, and was actively involved in the founding of the Williams Center. He is the author of Oral History for Louisiana (1981), Looking Back: A Guide to Genealogical Research in Louisiana (1983), and Built in Louisiana: A Social History of Louisiana Carpenters (1985). He has interviewed dozens of people in all walks of life on topics ranging from television production to sports to publishing. In 1987, he founded Gardner Associates to conduct oral history research for corporations and institutions in the Delaware Valley.

An outspoken advocate of oral history, Gardner will speak on its importance as a tool to preserve and document culture and history, especially in Louisiana, with its strong tradition of story telling and folklore. He will discuss the work of pioneering oral historians, such as John and Alan Lomax (interviewer of legendary folk musicians, including Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, and Jelly Roll Morton), as well as T. Harry Williams, who used oral history in his Pulitzer-Prize winning biography of Huey Long.

The exhibition “Have You Heard” showcases a diverse selection of oral history interviews collected by the T. Harry Williams Center for Oral History, covering topics such as LSU history, World War II, the Houma Indians, Hurricanes Betsy and Katrina, the Flood of 1927, folklife in the Atchafalaya and Louisiana politics.

This Saturday, November 3, is the annual Louisiana Book Festival at the State Capitol and surrounding areas. Several of this year’s authors researched their works here at Hill Memorial Library. Among them are the following:

Irene S. Di Maio, professor of German at Louisiana State University. She will be speaking on her book Gerstäcker’s Louisiana: Fiction and Travel Sketches from Antebellum Times through Reconstruction from 10:00 to 10:45 AM in the John J. Hainkel, Jr. Room with a book signing to follow.

Gary D. Joiner, assistant professor of history at Louisiana State University in Shreveport and the director of the Red River Regional Studies Center at LSUS. He will be speaking on his book Little to Eat and Thin Mud to Drink: Letters, Diaries, and Memoirs from the Red River Campaigns, 1863–1864 from 2:15 to 3:00 PM in Senate Committee Room F with a book signing to follow.

Mary Ann Sternberg, Baton Rouge resident and nonfiction writer. She will be speaking on her book Winding Through Time: The Forgotten History and Present-Day Peril of Bayou Manchac from noon to 12:45 PM in House Committee Room 6 with a book signing to follow. Ms. Sternberg will also participate in the panel discussion Forgotten bu not Forsaken from 3:00 to 4:00 PM in Senate Committee Room A.

Carolyn E. Ware, assistant professor of folklore and English at Louisiana State University. She will be speaking on her book Cajun Women and Mardi Gras: Reading the Rules Backward from 3:00 to 3:45 PM in the John J. Hainkel Jr. Room with a book signing to follow.

In between meeting with the authors make sure you stop and visit LSU Libraries in Booth #1! Special Collections will be giving away bookmarks and postcards and there will be a raffle with such prizes as a stuffed tiger, an LSU Press book and a framed Andrew D. Lytle Photo (pictured below).

The Louisiana Book Festival runs from 10 AM to 5PM on November 3, 2007 at the State Capitol and surrounding areas in Baton Rouge, LA. We look forward to seeing you there.

Our thanks go out to the authors listed above for their permission to feature them on our blog.

For more information on the exhibition “An Unnatural Metropolis,” click here.