Celebrating Archives!

The Special Collections Research Center in the NCSU Libraries joins other archives and libraries across the state in celebrating North Carolina Archives Week, October 22-28, 2007. As part of the celebration, Special Collections announces a variety of new resources.

Hundreds of University Archives photographs are now online documenting the history of NC State's basketball and football programs and the College of Textiles. Included are photos from the teams under Everett Case, Kay Yow, and Jim Valvano, including pictures from the men's basketball championship years. The textiles images show a wide variety of research and equipment used as the textile industry evolved during the twentieth century.

This online image database of University Archives photographs also includes pictures of administrators, faculty, noteworthy visitors, campus facilities and buildings, research, events, and student activities and organizations. These historic images date primarily from the early 1900s to the 1970s. To access these images, go to the Special Collections home page and click on ?University Archives photograph database.?

The heavily used NCSU Course Catalogs are also available online. Thirty-seven volumes of the NC State University course, undergraduate, and graduate catalogs from 1919 to 2007 have been digitized and made available through the NCSU Libraries website. Additional volumes will be added in the future. In addition to providing information about courses offered over time, the catalogs are an important resource for finding information about departmental histories, faculty, even facilities and student groups. The early catalogs even list the names of enrolled students and have a register of alumni. Additional digital collections of primary resource materials, and information about them, can be obtained through the Digital Collections portal .

In addition to the online resources, Special Collections continuously acquires archival and manuscript collections and makes them accessible to NC State students, faculty, and other researchers. Recent acquisitions include papers of architect G. Milton Small; biological and agricultural engineering faculty William H. Johnson, Charles W. Suggs, and Frances (Billie) Richardson; and botanist B. W. Wells. This past summer, the North Carolina company Council Tool donated its records. The business is owned by a family including several generations of Wolfpack alumni. Established in 1886, it initially made turpentine harvesting equipment. It is now a major manufacturer or firefighting tools. Other recent additions to the University Archives have included records from NC State's News Services, the College of Engineering, the Cooperative Extension Service, the Department of Plant Pathology, the College of Textiles, and the College of Design. [More information on individual collections.]

North Carolina Archives Week is an annual, week-long observance of the agencies and people responsible for maintaining and making available the archival and historical records of our nation, state, communities and people. NC Archives Week is part of a larger celebration of American Archives Month during October.

For more information, please contact the Special Collections Research Center at (919) 515-2273 or via the web .

Photographs, top to bottom:

Celebrating the 1983 ACC Basketball Championship: players Derek Whittenburg (front left), Thurl Bailey (back), and Sidney Lowe (front right).

Textiles school students and faculty, 1930s. Professor John Hilton standing fourth from right and Dean Thomas Nelson standing second from right.

Textile equipment, 1950s.

Credit for all photos: Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries