The Daily Princetonian
Thursday october 1, 2015
page s1
THE DIRT ON
PAGES DESIGNED BY LIN KING :: STREET EDITOR
MUDD This week, Street Editor LIN KING takes you behind the scenes of the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.
W
hen thinking of “historical Princeton,” it is often images of Nassau Hall and Blair Arch that come to mind — it is, certainly, not the brick-tiled, rectangular building lodged between the Engineering Quadrangle and the Friend Center that represents campus for most people. Yet within this unassuming exterior stands the Mudd Library, responsible for housing just about all of the University’s illustrious history. The Mudd Library was established in 1976 as the first building designed under Princeton’s energy conservation program. As part of Firestone Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections department, Mudd contains two lines of collections: the University archives and public policy papers from the 20th century. According to Sara Logue, assistant University archivist for public services, the library now has over 400 archives collections, including Princeton
COUTESY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
memorabilia, Board of Trustees minutes, Office of the President papers, historical photographs, all senior theses and all graduate dissertations. “A lot of times people like to do research on famous alum — [the thesis of] Ted Cruz [’92] is very popular right now,” Logue said. In addition, Mudd also houses student files for all alumni. While these files are unavailable for 75 years after the student’s graduation, due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, they are open for request and viewing afterward. This makes the library a popular source for researchers both within and without the University looking into an individual’s history, as well as those researching their personal family history. “A lot of genealogical research is done using the student files,” Logue said. “It’s really like a treasure trove for people. If you think about it, your application is in there, and they’re great for just getting a sense of what [people] were like as a teenager, com-
ing into college.” She added that the library has about 2,000 patrons a year and over 3,000 email requests for files and photograph duplications. In recent years, one of Mudd Library’s most frequently received requests has been calls by recent graduates to see their own student files, including their applications and the Office of Admission’s comments. According to Yankia Ned ’17, a student employee at the library who worked as an assistant archivist there this past summer, there were approximately 20 requests per week over the vacation. Another sect of Mudd’s frequent visitors are seniors, who often make the trek there to view the theses of their predecessors for reference. “A lot of seniors come in in order to get an idea of what their advisers have advised on before and to see what the expectations are of a thesis,” Logue explained. “We’re doing more work to expand our libguides offerings — they’re ba-
sically guides that librarians make online that can lead you to more niche topics for research, so we made one for the senior theses,” Logue added. All libguides are available at libguides.princeton.edu. In addition, Mudd recently also hosted its first senior thesis open house to COUTESY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES teach seniors how to access This floppy disk containing Toni Morrison’s personal typed the theses in copy of “Beloved” was recently digitized at Mudd Library. the collections. Being renowned for its collection who looked into primary sources of of senior theses also has its pitfalls, the eating clubs’ histories, as well according to Special Collections as- as a novelist who spent time in the sistant April Armstrong ’14. “People archives to research Princeton as the who do come here and know what we backdrop for her book. For students, are, they know us as the senior thesis requests to see materials can be made library, and while we do have all the online after registering once on the theses, there’s a lot more here.” Princeton University Libraries webAnd there is, indeed, much, much site. more. Ned, when she first began “It seems limiting, but it’s for the working at the library, was shocked protection of materials,” Logue said. by its sheer size. “It’s a very unassum- “We have things from 1746 and earing building, but it’s actually four lier, and we want the things from f loors,” she said. “There are three today to still be available hundreds floors full of closed stacks, and it’s of years into the future, so that’s why expansive. It’s anything you could we take such care.” ever want to learn about Princeton.” In the meantime, the library has For instance, over the summer, been working toward digitizing its Ned was asked to scan some corre- materials to be made available onspondence between President Wood- line. Currently, all Board of Trustees row Wilson, Class of 1879, and his minutes are available online; they wife, which she discovered to be love serve as useful overviews of the Uniletters, complete with pet names. versity’s activities and concerns at Meanwhile, one of her fellow student any given point in its history. employees worked on digitizing the “While we are making great strides John Foster Dulles in trying to get things digitized, papers. there are a lot of materials here — we “Closed stacks” have over 40,000 linear feet of matemeans that the li- rials,” Logue explained. brary’s materials The library also collects some are available to be “born-digital” materials, such as viewed in-house, all of University President Emerita in Mudd’s read- Shirley Tilghman’s emails during her ing room. Since term, which will be made public folthis is the case, lowing the time period dictated by many researchers FERPA law. Mudd Digital Archivist physically come Jarrett Drake also worked on extractto Princeton just ing files from professor emerita Toni to use the library’s Morrison’s f loppy discs, including resources. Logue a typed copy of “Beloved,” when her recalled projects papers were brought into Firestone. such as a researcher writing on dinCONTINUED ON S3 ing in universities