Log 8: June 11: Continuing to work on Barbara Dent Project, Retrieving boxes solo bringing it up for a researcher, spoke with Library Assistant III!!!! June 10th Extra Cataloging

June 11th UTEP Library

Special Collections

TiJeat Berry; Supervisor Claudia Rivers and Susannah Holliday

Working in the Special Collections on Barbara Dent. Behind me is the computer and scanner. During the time I was waiting for my supervisor to provide any changes for the day she was speaking with a researcher, and I began taking some inventory of items that were in this corner of the collection which included two computers, and historical writings about the university. This collection was gifted by Barbara Dent and had been worked on by others in the library, it was sometimes difficult to discern their script. In those instances we would a) ask for another set of eyes b) go to the computer file with the names of the folder c) put a question mark on the folder in the area in question and take a copy of the previous writing and put it at the front of the folder as a reference.

ACID and ACID Free

Another reason for this transfer was preservation purposes, due to the folders B. Denton used having acid which works against preservation purposes. Susannah, allowed me to use a marker which tests ex. Lineco pH Testing Pen for Paper or Paperboard Products which you can find on Amazon; if the mark on a folder turned yellow, it meant the acidity was high, if blue it meant the acidity was low. We had to go on a scavenger hunt to find a box/folder that would turn yellow as it seems the collection had already eliminated a large number of acid products. Additional material for archival storage includes

Mylar Sleeves	Acid free Research Boxes	Acid Free Folders	Acid free flags (no stickers or stamps
Acid free tissue paper	LARGE acid free folders for MAPs	Shelves that are not made out of wood	Acid Free document boxes

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Image 1 shows Anne who is a Library Assistant III taking down one of the document boxes which is housed on the 4th floor and will be taken to the 6th floor where researchers are waiting. You can see the links of the cage that the items are stored in. Behind Anne is a student volunteer with a cart for us to take the materials up. I was told that the department no longer sends workers to retrieve materials on their own due the the structure of the stacks which can potentially lead to injury from falling boxes.

Image 3: A section of a paper in one of the physical copies of a Special Collection Finding Aid. The finding aids include a description of materials, container list with titles and dates, rights, descriptions, and scope. Click the link below to see an example Finding Aid document on the University Library's Special Collection page.

I went with Anne to retrieve 5 large boxes and 4 document boxes from the Maria Norma Montellano collection for a researcher; one of these had a restriction note as you can see in Image 2 above. The restrictions are put on the material by the donor, in this case she stipulated that they should be restricted until after her death; there are some materials that have permanent restrictions. The reason for restrictions could be due to material being related to patients medical files or social security numbers. For the Montellano papers, as I understood it, the reason for the restriction is because she was working on information regarding HIV and the state agencies. Anne went to the donor file to determine what the restrictions were and they were indeed until after death.

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Back to Barbara Dent

There were many interesting things I learned from this collection. There was information and notes from the namesake of one of the high schools I reach at, Dr. O.C. Irving/Irving High School. And books published by UTSA about Texas from different countries; I had already known about Mexico, African-American, and Korean but working on this project I was surprised to learn about the influences of Texas from from Belgium, Greece, Poland, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, Lebanon, Syria.

Here I am holding a few of the books that were in the document folder. I admit I never knew there were a significant number of Greek, Belgian, or German immigrants to Texas. It made me look into if UTSA has published a book on the Korean culture in Texas which I know is prevalent where I am from.

A few more of the books published by UTSA, Anglo-American, Swiss, Indian Texas, Lebanon, an German Texans. I was told that if I found something I wanted to look into more in depth I was able to stop my project and explore. I plan to go back to the Special Collections and delve into these publications.

This is the folder created for these publications. The title is quite long, but it was written that way by Barbara Dent and I just transcribed it from her folder to the Special Collections. Anne, Library Assistant II, told me that they try to stick as close to what the donor wrote and their filing system as they can possibly get. On the right side of the folder is the metadata that helps with discovery. Barbara Dent's papers are in MS534 = Manuscript 534, this particular folder is folder 24 in Box 42 of her collection. The number of the manuscript, ex. MS 534, is based on what number the department is on when a new donation comes in. Anne did state that there are times when they can tell the date a donation was obtained by the MS #.

The Special Collections materials is spread across different areas in the library, on and off campus. There are six total floors in the library:

Floor	Items
1	Maps, Collections items in extra rooms
2	None
3	None
4	Maps, collection item cages
5	Collection item cages
6	Special Collections dept., theme collections

Plus an outside storage unit. This department is also responsible for all the art in the library and across the campus.