#finding aids

[u-mspcoll]

Finding Aid Friday: Jim Cohn Papers

Notebook of “Purple Mountain” in Sli Chorea Dhuibhne (The Dingle Way), 1999.  Jim Cohn Papers, Box 15, folder 3. University of Michigan Library, Special Collections Research Center. 

On this #FindingAidFriday, we are highlighting the recently processed papers of Jim Cohn, poet, writer, recording artist, editor, publisher, and curator of the online Museum of American Poetics. The Jim Cohn Papers (1953-2019) were donated in 2019 and encompass approximately fifteen linear feet of material documenting Cohn’s work across his several vocations through correspondence, research files and drafts, interviews by and of Cohn, published essays and poetry, journals, photographs, and audiovisual materials.

Read more!

[hclib]

Map Collection Finding Aid Now Online

Special Collections has over 1,300 maps of the Twin Cities and searchable descriptions of each map are now online. Curious about bus routes in the 1970s? Wondering what was along the Nicollet Mall in the 1990s? Interested in how Minneapolis looked before Minnesota statehood? Search the finding aid, then stop by Special Collections during our open hours to look at the maps in person. Or, explore over 300 maps from this collection in the Hennepin County Library Digital Collections.

[hclib]

Poster Collection Finding Aid Now Online

Over the decades, Special Collections has collected over 850 posters from local Hennepin County concerts, fairs, sporting events, businesses, and more. A finding aid listing all these posters, organized by subject, is now available online. Find a poster that sounds interesting? Visit Special Collections to see the original.

Posters pictured:

MetroTransit's "Around Here, We Take the Bus," June 1, 1981. (POST0397)

Canned Heat & Serf at the Labor Temple, May 4, 1969. (POST0833)

Minnesota North Stars Home Schedule 1978-1979, October 14, 1978. (POST0110)

A Month of Celtic Music at the Cedar Cultural Centre, March 3, 1989. (POST0451)

Minneapolis Community Development Agency's "Forging New Traditions in Community Building," November 5, 1997. (POST0712)

[hclib]

NOW ONLINE Search Archival Collections

Hennepin County Library has a new, online access portal for our archival collections. Detailed inventories, called finding aids, are now fully searchable online at archives.hclib.org!  Access finding aids for over 400 archival collections documenting Minneapolis and Hennepin County history, including the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board records, the print photography archives of the Star Tribune, the records of several Minneapolis neighborhood associations, and the Minneapolis Department of Community Planning and Economic Development records.

Browse full finding aids, or search for individual people, topics, or community organizations. Each finding aid includes information on the physical materials included in the collection, as well as contextual and historical details about the materials and their creators. Enter your keywords in our ArchivesSpace search interface to find all the collections and folder titles that meet your search. 

If you find a collection or folder that piques your interest, contact us to learn about access options. Special Collections is currently closed, but staff is happy to provide remote reference assistance. We are continually adding materials to both our Archival Collections and our Digital Collections -- check back often for new content.

[riversidearchives]

National Aviation Day

In celebration of National Aviation Day, which is observed each year on Orville Wright’s birthday, we are sharing this post from Archives Technician Kim.

During this period of teleworking due to the coronavirus, Kim has been updating finding aids for Record Group 181: Records of Naval Stations and Shore Establishments. Finding aids are tools that help a user find information in a specific record group, collection, or series of archival materials. 

Kim has been updating the finding aid for the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake, California. While researching the topic, she was browsing the National Archives Catalog and found this nice image of an A-6E Intruder aircraft during an early morning test flight in November 1988. 

The A-6 Intruder was designed as a long-range, all-weather aircraft that was first flown in 1960. For more information about this aircraft, see the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum webpage.

Item: An A-6E Intruder aircraft in flight over the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, California, during an early morning test flight, 11/10/1988. Series: Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files, 1982 - 2007. Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1921 - 2008. (National Archives Identifier 6440298).

[hclib]

Archives Month: Finding Aids

October is American Archives Month, and in celebration we are highlighting and demystifying a little archives jargon.

Archival collections come in all shapes and sizes—from a single scrapbook to hundreds of boxes. Collections may reflect the meticulous organization system of their creator, or they may have been put in order by an archivist or librarian during processing. Each collection is different. With all these different systems, how do we—researchers, archivists, and library patrons—know where to look within a collection for materials? How do we even know if a collection is related to our research needs? Often, the answer is a finding aid.

Finding aids are documents created by archivists that provide an overview of a particular archival collection. Like an entry in a library catalog or a table of contents in a book, they point us toward the information we seek. Like collections, finding aids come in many shapes and sizes. Some are short and sweet, like this finding aid explaining Clara Julia Hixson’s early 1900s high school scrapbook. Others are as long and complicated as the collections they explain, for example this 100-page finding aid for the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program Records.

What is the best way to use these documents? A good starting point is often the abstract, biography, history, or description of collection sections (sometimes called “scope and content”) found near the beginning of the document. These sections give an overview of who created the materials in the collection, when they were created, and what sort of materials they are. After reading this beginning information, if the collection seems useful, then it can be helpful to search the document. Holding Ctrl+f on your keyboard will often bring up a search bar that allows for searching the finding aid for keywords or phrases.

Ready to use some finding aids? Most of the finding aids for our archival collections in Hennepin County Library are available here. We are always processing new collections and making improvements to older documents, so please contact us with any questions!

[organizing-libraryschool]

Heard about Finding Aids at work with Amanda and searching for Bandorama programs, and then got to that section in my reading for class.

[dtrblackbrooklyn-blog]

Finding Aids

Note: This is more of a resource for me :) Just wanted somewhere to keep track of some finding aids from the Brooklyn Collection helpful for pulling images. 

http://www.bklynlibrary.org/brooklyncollection/purchase-photograph-print http://www.bklynlibrary.org/brooklyncollection/historic-brooklyn-photographs

Jamel Shabazz http://catalog.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/search/X?SEARCH=%22jamel+shabazz%22&l=&m=k&s=&b=&SORT=D&Da=&Db=

African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church Collection http://www.bklynlibrary.org/brooklyncollection/finding-aid/african-methodist-episcop

Prints Collection (check paper for specific parts) http://www.bklynlibrary.org/sites/default/files/files/pdf/bc/PrintsCollection.pdf

Brooklyn Atlas Collection, Series 1 http://www.bklynlibrary.org/sites/default/files/files/pdf/bc/AtlasCollection.pdf

Black Brooklyn Renaissance Digital Archive http://www.bklynlibrary.org/sites/default/files/files/pdf/bc/Black%20Brooklyn%20Renaissance%2C%20Black%20Arts%20%26%20Culture%2C%201960%20-%202010%20Digital%20Archive.pdf

Civil Rights in Brooklyn Collection http://www.bklynlibrary.org/sites/default/files/files/pdf/bc/Civil%20Rights%20in%20Brooklyn%20Collection(1).pdf

Ephemera Collection http://www.bklynlibrary.org/sites/default/files/files/pdf/bc/Ephemera%20Collection.pdf

Photographs from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle - Brooklyn Subjects http://www.bklynlibrary.org/sites/default/files/files/pdf/bc/PhotosBDE-BKsubjects.pdf

Guide to Brooklyn High School Newspaper Collection http://www.bklynlibrary.org/sites/default/files/files/pdf/bc/HSNewspaper.pdf