New Spaces: Special Collections and Archives

One of the greatest areas of improvement between the existing library and newly renovated library will be the spaces for Special Collections and Archives. These unique and valuable collections will be brought from disparate locations with an inconsistent environment to an intentionally designed space that will have appropriate preservation conditions (controlled for light, temperature, and humidity), adequate space for processing collections, and built-in exhibition cases to display select materials to the public.

Special Collections and Archives will move to the northwest corner of the upper level of the building. In addition to staff offices, a digitization lab will support the ongoing work to make select materials virtually accessible from anywhere in the world through the FHSU Scholars Repository.

The Larry and Lyn Fenwick Reading Room will provide a serene space to engage with the collections while supporting in-depth research and focus. Upon entering, a staff member from Special Collections will greet visitors at the desk and retrieve requested materials from the “vault” where the Special Collections and Archives are kept. The room exudes a palpable sense of history, as first-edition monographs of the Wizard of Oz sit behind glass, their pages whispering classic tales about a girl who discovered she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Cases of curated materials also line the walls of the reading room adding an element of academic prestige while inviting visitors to immerse themselves in the intellectual treasures within the collections.

The Vault will be a climate-controlled area for housing the Special Collections and Archives. There will be a large window from the Exhibit Gallery that peeks into the vault giving visitors a glimpse of the types of unique materials that are stored there, such as:

• Great Plains Research – housing primary source materials, and popular and scholarly sources about the economic, political, educational, agricultural, and cultural histories of the Great Plains (central and western Kansas specifically) which includes a collection of Little Blue Books from the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company
• Ethnic Studies – containing material that directly relates to the settlers of central and western Kansas while documenting heritage and culture from the Volga Germans, European Immigrant Communities, and Black Homesteaders
• Military History – housing primary and secondary source materials about the Second World War and American involvement in Southeast Asia
• Classic Children’s Literature – containing multilingual editions of Little Red Riding Hood, classic adventure fiction, works by Maureen Daly, and the Stratemeyer syndicate mystery series
• Rare Books – including Saur and Elector German Bibles, Gilded Age literature from Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, and Adam Smith, and American Literary Pamphlets such as a unique set of H.P. Lovecraft’s work
• University Archives – preserving photographs, yearbooks, memorabilia, university records, and faculty and student scholarship that capture the historical, cultural, and intellectual experiences of Fort Hays State University

In addition to giving the materials from Special Collections and Archives the gold standard of preservation conditions, visitors to the library will have multiple opportunities to encounter these timeless collections in the newly renovated library.