This just in: Congregational directories from Altus, Oklahoma

A donor sent us a box of directories from the Elm & Hudson and the Thomas Street Churches of Christ, both in Altus, Oklahoma.  A few are pictured here.  Congregational directories are valuable resources for genealogists and local historians and can serve much larger research projects.  Often they include historical information and sometimes information about the ministries of the congregation.  Usually the information they contain is unavailable elsewhere. We are always glad to see new directories come into the collection.

I have an old directory. How can I know if you need it? Great question. Chances are good we do not already have it.  But we’ll be glad to check.  The first thing you can do is  look up your congregation in this finding aid to determine if we have an existing file.  Our vertical files could contain a wide array of paper items.  There might be a few bulletins, or a historical sketch, or a photograph or flyer or other kind of ephemera in the file.  If your congregation is not listed in that finding aid, we do not have a file for it and therefore anything we receive will be a great new addition!  We are always getting new items in, like these directories from Altus, and would be delighted to hear from you about similar items.  Contact me at mac.ice@acu.edu or 325-2144 if I can assist further.

 

 

Be on the lookout: Arkansas Christian Herald

This week while processing a newly-acquired collection I found this issue of Arkansas Christian Herald.  It is the final issue, volume 30 number 5, from May 2010.  After checking our catalog, I realized we have very few issues of this paper.  It is tabloid size, on newsprint, and is well-executed. Regional newspapers such as these provide a wealth of information that is not available in detail elsewhere.  We need a complete run.

Will you please help us assemble a robust set of Arkansas Christian Herald for the benefit of students and researchers?  Let’s partner together to build a comprehensive research-level collection.  Contact me at mac.ice@acu.edu or 325-674-2144.

Arkansas Christian Herald, front page, May 2010

Student research team discovers ancient bacteria in rare book collection

That could make a snappy headline, couldn’t it? Above the fold, even.

When Maddie Conatser, Caleb Horne, and Macee Valtr showed up after their biology class one afternoon back in March and pitched their idea, we immediately went back into the stacks and started working.  They came prepared with dry swabs, petri dishes, and a clipboard.  We had a great time browsing the stacks looking for interesting candidates to swab.  I selected books, I think Caleb took pictures and documented titles while Macee and Maddie  took turns preparing and executing the swabbing.  We collected samples from the spine or front cover, title page, and page 27 from each book.  The books I selected span the breadth of our collection: there is something here for everyone…American, African, and European…theology, hymnody, and history…from Coptic Christianity to the German Reformation to Abilene, Texas.

They went back to the lab, processed the samples, and wrote up their findings, which they presented in a poster session a few weeks hence.  Their findings, titled ‘Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover: An Analysis of Bacterial Presence on the Surface of Historical Books,’ didn’t surprise us (we expected to find something, and would have been surprised if there were none) but the experiment put them through all the paces of a sound research project.  The bonus is that it was just so much fun.  It was the first time they saw, much less handled, books of this age, and the opportunity to take a student research team back into the stacks for something like this was a highlight of my semester.  I am hopeful Dr. Jennifer Huddleston will assign another team to repeat this process on another batch of books next year.  Below are some pictures I took at their poster presentation:

And they graciously shared their paper! Enjoy!