Photo by Chris Meyer Brad Cook, reference specialist and photograph curator for the university-wide IU Archives, holds a steering wheel from the converted military bomber that carried IU alumnus Wendell Willkie around the world on his 1942 “One World Tour.” Willkie may have lost to FDR, but the Elwood native was president of the IU Board of Traditions while a student at IUB; the board saw to it that freshmen upheld campus traditions. Willkie died 60 years ago, at age 52. Courtesy of IU Archives Fall 1937 in IU Bloomington’s Dunn Meadow—members of an archery class conducted by Jane Fox of the Department o Physical Education for Women. Class participants (left to right): Ruth Berning, Ella Terwilliger, Martha Hertling, Phyllis Mitchell, Betty Lapinska and Myrtle Livesay. Courtesy of IU Archives Benjamin Douglass collection —group of Brown County women who picked apples during World War I (1918). Photo by Barney Cowherd, courtesy of IU Archives Dedication of the Park West playground near Lockefield Gardens, Indianapolis, 1967. Photo by Barney Cowherd, courtesy of IU Archives IU Fun Frolic, June 24, 1959—photographer Elwood Martin “Barney” Cowherd worked at IU from 1958 to 1969. He was named national news photographer of the year in 1949 while working at the Louisville Courier-Journal. The papers, images and memorabilia that define the past of a long-living university are the treasures of a metaphorical attic. IU Archives will soon move from spaces at IUB’s hallowed Bryan Hall, and the burial urn, life mask and assorted paraphernalia will move along, too.

If Indiana University were to have a photo album, a scrapbook or an attic, it would be the IU Archives on the second floor of Bryan Hall on the IU Bloomington campus.

Located directly next to the Office of the President, the IU Archives originally was created to serve the university’s administration. As if to underscore the unit’s original mission, a framed message from Herman B Wells hangs near the door, stating that nothing should be removed from the premises.

When IU Archives became part of the university’s library system in 1992, its mission instantly broadened, explained director Philip Bantin. Today, IU Archives and its staff of four full-time and seven hourly employees strive to collect and preserve not only the records of IU, but also vast collections of photographs they then make accessible to faculty, staff, students and alumni.

“When this facility was built in 1936, it was likely considered state-of-the-art—it was fireproof, with thick concrete walls, reinforced floors and lots of storage space,” said Bantin. “Our holdings are now spread over five facilities—including the Auxiliary Library Facility, which is the 21st century’s version of a state-of-the-art archive. We are planning to move from Bryan Hall into the Main Library sometime this year, which would provide an additional 3,000 feet of much needed space for users, staff and for processing collections.”

Photographs curator Brad Cook spends his days cataloging and caring for nearly 1.5 million images that document IU history, as well as notable collections of photographs taken by alumni, staff and faculty. Cook, who started working part time at IU Archives in 1992, radiates enthusiasm when he speaks about several photography collection acquisitions.

“Naturally, the largest part of our photography collection documents the history of IU, but the scope is much broader than that,” said Cook. “Take, for instance, our Benjamin Douglass collection. Douglass, a contemporary of Frank Hohenberger, not only shot in Brown County, but also all over the Midwest, South and New Orleans. He even has images of logging camps in Wisconsin and a teepee still in use in 1919 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Douglass shot most of his collection from 1899 to 1936.”

The vast bulk—almost three-fourths—of IU Archives’ photography collection is comprised of images shot by the Bloomington campus’ Photographic Services and the now defunct IU News Bureau.

Among the images that came from the News Bureau, the Barney Cowherd collection is the most significant. Named national news photographer of the year in 1949 when he worked for the Louisville Courier-Journal, Cowherd was with the IU News Bureau from 1958 to 1969. All of the News Bureau images, along with those shot by Cowherd during his tenure there, were transferred to the IU Archives in November 1999.

The Charles W. Cushman Collection has attracted considerable attention since the IU Archives and IU’s Digital Library Program began to get the vast collection digitalized and up on its own site last year, a feat made possible by a 1998 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Cushman, a talented amateur photographer and IU alumnus, bequeathed his personal papers, camera equipment, black-and-white photographs and approximately 14,500 Kodachrome slides to IU after his death in 1972. “These slides are a major find,” said Cook. “Cushman started using Kodachrome as early as 1938, only two years after it was introduced and continued to use it until 1969. His images document the changing American landscape and society, in vibrant color, over a period of five decades.”

See the HP archival site:

http://www.homepages.indiana.edu/121203/text/past.shtml

IU Archives recently became the repository for the photograph collection of the late IUB photojournalism professor Will Counts, who died in 2001 after a long battle with cancer. He taught at the IU School of Journalism for 32 years and helped shape the careers of scores of students, including six who went on to win Pulitzer Prizes. A native of Little Rock, Ark., he captured an indelible image of racial tension during the early days of the civil rights movement in a 1957 photograph taken at Little Rock Central High School. Named one of the 100 Best Pictures of the Century by the Associated Press, the photograph depicts a white student screaming at Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine.

See the HP archival site:

http://www.iuinfo.indiana.edu/homepages/0926/text/remember.htm

“These three collections—Cowherd, Cushman and Counts—are the crown jewels of the photograph collections in the archives,” said Cook. “The significance of these collections is allowing us to acquire even more photograph collections.”

Although the professional calling of archivists is to preserve and to make accessible documents and artifacts from the past and present that will have importance to future generations, a major challenge for archivists in the 21st century is to stay abreast of and employ the technology that will ensure the preservation of today’s electronic documents. “It’s critical that institutions and individuals convert or ‘migrate’ information from outmoded software to contemporary software before such transmission is impossible,” said Bantin, an expert in the field of electronic record-keeping.

“While in 100 years we will undoubtedly live in a paperless society, now we are straddling the world of paper and electronic documents,” he said. “The task at hand for us is to manage the steady influx of valuable documents with limited resources and an increasing demand for services, while staying on the cutting edge of technology.”