Community activists and their work are well represented with records from groups like Clergy and Laity Concerned of Kentuckiana, the Kentucky Government Council, Progress in Education, and Save Our Parks. University of Louisville professors, along with other scholars, have donated their papers, which serve as a rich resource on many topics in the field of academia. The Archives is also home to the Women's History Collection, established in 1985, and currently numbering over sixty collections, which document the lives and careers of Louisville women and local women's organizations. Among the many important collections in this group are the papers of Gerta Bendl, Laura Miller Derry, Carol Dowell, Sara Landau, Mary K. Tachau, Louise Weiller, and Rebecca Westerfield. Manuscript collections often arrive here in total chaos.
Large collections can take years to process.
I'm a half-time Associate Archivist for Local History here at the University Archives, splitting my time with Community Relations where I offer local history programming to the community in a variety of formats. Here at the Archives, much of my time is spent either assisting researchers in the use of our holdings or answering inquiries about university or community history. I am also responsible for maintaining local history and university clipping and ephemera files. I read several local daily and weekly publications and oversee the clipping and filing of articles from them. I also keep my eyes open for quality archival materials in the community that could be donated for our collection and work with donors in their transfer.