ENMU Special Collections Suffers a Tragic Start to the New Year

Over the past two years, the entire collection of GoldenLibrary books and special collection materials have beentransferred to various storage locations around campus whilethe Golden Student Success Center is under renovation.ENMU administration placed the library’s governmentdocuments in a warehouse on the north side of campus; thelibrary offices, functions and University archives in BernalilloHall on the south side; and all the books, General and SpecialCollections in the basement of the Campus Union.

On Dec. 29, 2017, the Campus Union basement encounteredsignificant flood damage. Over the holiday break, a pipe frozeand burst hours before being discovered.

ENMU Special Collections bore the brunt of the disaster. Special Collections consists of three main areas: 1. The University Archives 2. New Mexico history 3. The Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library

The majority of the archives are in another location and werenot harmed. In the flooded basement were oral histories,photographs, and folders of information about New Mexico.

The Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library is one of thelargest collections of its kind in the nation. A sizable sectionof the books and about half of a large collection of magazinesspanning more than 100 years were soaked and sitting in water.

The New Mexico history collection includes rare books, anumber of which were also saturated. In an effort to rescuethe damaged collections, approximately 230 boxes of booksand magazines were taken off-campus to be freeze-dried.

One of our greatest losses was the entire historical collectionarchiving the student newspaper The Chase from 1934 throughfall 2017. ENMU staff aren’t confident that newsprint can besalvaged. A large record of ENMU’s history has been lost.

ENMU NEEDS YOU

If you have past issues of The Chase and wish to donate them to restore the collection, please mail issues to:

ENMU Special Collections Attn: Gene Bundy ENMU Station 32 1500 S Ave K Portales, NM 88130 575.562.2636