Grants and Acquisitions

David Free

The Mellon Foundation has awarded a $110,000 grant to the Penn State University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections Library to support a two-year national study examining how environmental and climate-related archival materials are collected, used, and understood across academic institutions and community organizations. The project, “Use and Availability of Environmental Collections in Archives: A Study of Academic Archives and Their Communities,” aims to produce a large-scale framework for surveying environmental archives across the United States and criteria for identifying new priorities for their acquisition and preservation. The project will investigate the types of environmental collections institutions hold, how they are described, the research disciplines that rely on them, and the barriers disciplinary communities face in accessing or preserving information central to their work. The study will also look beyond academic research communities to better understand the information needs of environmental justice groups and communities already experiencing adverse environmental impacts.

Acquisitions

The Library of Congress recently acquired the manuscripts, papers, photographs, and sound recordings of songwriter Doc Pomus, who was responsible for such hits as “This Magic Moment,” “Viva Las Vegas,” and “Save the Last Dance for Me.” Doc Pomus, born Jerome Solon Felder, was a foundational figure in rock ‘n’ roll and R&B during the mid-20th century, influencing generations of artists. His music was recorded by such notables as Ray Charles, the Drifters, Dion, Big Joe Turner, and Elvis Presley. The collection, which will be held by the Library’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, includes more than 450 noncommercial recordings of song demos, working tapes, interviews, performances, and conversations, as well as lyric manuscripts, journals, notebooks, essays, liner notes, and more. The audio recordings serve to document his songwriting process from the early 1950s until his death in 1991.

The Library of Congress has also acquired a music manuscript of songs written shipboard during the legendary United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–42. Captained by US Navy Lt. Charles Wilkes, the Ex. Ex.—as the scientific military expedition was informally called—was able to map 1,500 miles of Antarctica’s eastern coastline, proving for the first time that the landmass was a continent. The manuscript, titled The Nativity and Other Compositions, is handwritten by geologist and mineralogist James Dwight Dana, who served on the expedition as one of nine scientists. Dana composed the music and the guitar accompaniments for five of the songs in the volume to poems written by James Croxall Palmer, the expedition’s acting surgeon, at Palmer’s prompting. This music acquisition joins other collections at the library that document the expedition, including personal papers, maps, and rare books. The songs Dana and Palmer composed are the earliest known examples of music and poetry inspired by direct encounters with the Antarctic.

The Hoover Institution Library and Archives has acquired the collection of Aaron Arthur Rosen, a United States Army Signal Corps photographer whose service placed him at pivotal moments of World War II, including the 1943 Tehran Conference. The Aaron Arthur Rosen Collection includes original photographs, negatives, letters, transcribed personal correspondence, and propaganda materials documenting Rosen’s service. The collection is a valuable resource for those studying World War II, United States military history, Allied diplomacy, and the American presence in the Middle East and South Asia during the mid-20th century and was donated to the Hoover Institution by his daughters, Carroll Seron, Andrea Lovitt, and Donna Seron.

The Hoover Institution has also acquired the Ozaki Yoshimichi Papers, a collection of archival materials and photographs documenting the operations of the Japanese-managed Mankayan Copper Mine in the Philippines during World War II and the postwar efforts to demand unpaid wages for its employees. The papers provide rare insight into the wartime activities of Japanese industrial enterprises in Southeast Asia and the personal histories of the civilians who worked in them. The collection includes wartime photographs documenting life and work at the Mankayan Mine. The photographs depict colleagues and visitors, including war correspondent and writer Yōjirō Ishizaka. Particularly notable are images documenting the cultural life of the region, including photographs of members of the indigenous Igorot community performing traditional dances. The papers also document the postwar efforts of former Mankayan employees to rebuild their lives and maintain their community. The collection documents Japan’s wartime economic expansion into Southeast Asia from the perspective of civilian employees rather than military or governmental authorities, filling a significant gap in the historical record of Japanese occupation in the Philippines.