Section III:
Special Collections & the Brooklyn College Archives

 
  • Special Collections & the Brooklyn College Archives
    "2002 was a banner year for collecting but has left us with a huge backlog of new collections that need to be processed. " Marianne LaBatto, Associate Archivist

    The Special Collections/Archives Web Page
    Edythe Rosenblatt is the Archives' resident HTML coder. Without her speed, dedication and attention to detail, it would be impossible to produce the online versions of our many collection finding aids. Finding aids added to the Archives and Special Collections Web site include those for the Elmer Lucterhand, Beatrice Seigel, Women's Studies, and Charles Glicksberg collections. Digital photos were added to the finding aid for the Reed Family Papers. Over the course of the summer 2003, staff plan to redesign the Archives and Special Collections Web site, using the color scheme of the new Library. Ms. Rosenblatt has also designed and produced an informative handout for the large number of visitors and classes that now come to Special Collection, owing to its new central location.


    The Digitization Project
    This initiative, targeting our photograph collection, is proceeding nicely. Thus far staff have burned seven CD's-worth of images. A high-quality oversized scanner enables us to capture even odd-sized images. Academic IT staff Howard Spivak, Alex Rudshteyn and Nicholas Irons are consulting about the database product needed to organize for these photographs.

    Charged with identifying a PC that would meet the specifications of the digitization project, Library Systems staff showed considerable creativity. Off-the-shelf computers exhibited either compatibility problems or inferior performance. The solution? Build-it-ourselves. Staff constructed two PCs to support the project at less than the cost of an off-the-shelf model.

    Collections of Particular Interest, 2002/2003

  • The William Alfred Collection
    In the past year Special Collections Assistant Edythe Rosenblatt has worked almost exclusively on the William Alfred Collection. The manuscript collection has been fully processed, and we are now working on an inventory of Alfred's personal library that was part of the original donation. We also designed and sent several postcards to the Friends of William Alfred, to keep them abreast of new project developments.

    The William Alfred web page was revamped and relaunched in the Spring 2003 semester. A 60-page finding aid will be published on the Alfred Web site later this year; a preliminary collection outline appears there now.

    Archivist Anthony Cucchiara met with the Friends of William Alfred on several occasions. A brochure to be used in conjunction with fund-raising efforts has been designed, with the assistance of the College's Office of Publications. The Friends' advisory board includes more than a dozen people, among them Stockard Channing, Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Daniel Selznick, and Peter Wolf. The College is very grateful to Prudence Carlson and Gillian Walker, the mainstays of the Friends group: we succeed largely because of their counsel and support.

    This year the advisory board achieved two very important goals: first, they secured for the Library and the College the literary rights to Alfred's works. Second, they began planning for future fund-raisers designed to raise money for an oral history project, a writer-in-residence program, and a William Alfred scholarship. Even without project funding, we have begun with an initial interview by Phil Napoli of Alfred's boyhood friend Albert Geiger.

  • The Dershowitz Collection
    In May 2001 alumnus and Harvard Professor of Law Alan Dershowitz made the decision to give us his papers. Over breakfast on June 8 at Larry Forgione's elegant An American Place, Lexington Avenue between 50th and 51st Streets, Professor Dershowitz made his commitment to archivist Anthony Cucchiara and chief librarian Barbra Higginbotham. In early September, he accepted our formal proposal which outlines the processing, arrangement, and description of his papers.

    In the fall 2002 archivist Anthony Cucchiara and his faithful sidekick Steve Alliano made the first of four trips to Cambridge, retrieving Dershowitz materials from a variety of locations, including several of the Harvard record centers. The typical approach was, fly to Boston, rent a truck, load the materials, then drive back to Brooklyn. On many occasions Professor Dershowitz graciously entertained Tony in his home.

    With each successive trip, Tony and Steve rented larger and larger trucks, until on June 11 they returned to campus steering a twenty footer, packed to the roof with boxes labeled "Dershowitz." The next morning, with only his staff to help him, Tony, Marianne LaBatto, Slava Polishchuk, and an intern gently unloaded each of those boxes, placing it carefully in the Archives. Truly, history was made at Brooklyn College on that day in June: even President Kimmich walked over to get a sense of the enormity of Dershowitz's collection. On this particular June 2003 trip Tony also gave Professor Dershowitz a proposal for processing the collection. We are hopeful that either he, or he and a group of friends, will fund this $125,000 project.

    On May 8 Professor Dershowitz visited us to see the new Library for the first time. He also presented us with a copy of his new book America Declares Independence, telling us some amusing stories about its production--including one error that almost resulted in the Constitution's rather than the Declaration of Independence's appearing on the dust jacket!

    It would be hard to say enough good things about Alan Dershowitz. He is warm, sincere, and has a true love of Brooklyn College in his heart. He says frankly and passionately that the most important piece of correspondence he ever received was his letter of acceptance to Brooklyn College. We will work very hard to be worthy of his confidence.

    Tony Cucchiara and Steve Alliano deserve more credit than mere words can express for the determination and hard physical labor they expended in order to bring the Dershowitz materials to Brooklyn College. This was truly a two-man operation, supported entirely by Library gift funds. It represents an admirable labor of love.

  • The Edward Paolella Collection
    The rich and massive Paolella Collection (approaching 10,000 volumes) yielded a number of rare volumes for Special Collections.

  • Local Legislator's Collection
    In 2002 the Archives prepared a proposal for Senator Charles Schumer, asking that he place his papers with us. Another proposal was prepared for Ed Griffith, a retired New York State legislator who was instrumental in securing funding from the State for the new Library. In the spring 2003 Associate Archivist Marianne LaBatto submitted a proposal for an NEH Preservation Assistance Grant. If our application is successful, it will fund a consultant to evaluate the condition of the Local Legislators Collection. We will then build on this award by using the consultant's report to apply for funding for processing.

  • The David Westheimer Oral History Project
    On June 28-29 2002 Anthony Cucchiara, Philip Napoli, and Barbra Higginbotham traveled to Los Angeles to do a two-day oral history interview with Lieutenant Colonel (rtd.) David Westheimer. A WWII POW who served with Dr. Higginbotham's father Zeak M. Buckner (whose papers she added to the Library's WWII Collection), Colonel Westheimer went on to a highly successful post-war career as a novelist, authoring My Sweet Charley, The Olmec Head, and Von Ryan's Express (based on this own war experiences). The interviews were very successful, captured on videotape by Professor Cucchiara while Professor Napoli did the interviewing.

    With the help of Alex Rudshteyn of the Library Systems unit, Professor Napoli is now attempting to devise a method whereby he can continue to interview Colonel Westheimer (and future candidates as well) via the Internet, capturing on four separate tracks the voices and video of the interviewer and interviewee.