The Ohio Archives Grants are funded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), an arm of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) through their State Board Programming Grants. Grants of $500 to $5,000 are available to archival institutions to fund projects to preserve and/or provide access to Ohio’s historical records. Eligible grant projects include: repository assessment, policy development/strategic planning, digitization and collection access and/or preservation projects.
Section I. Organization Description
Introduction: To ensure the preservation of Baldwin Wallace University's historical assets, the archives seek funding for ongoing environmental monitoring and disaster response supplies. Reflecting the institution's commitment to diversity, innovation, and care, the Archives have been the primary repository for nearly two centuries of history. Open to all by appointment, its responsibility includes organizing, documenting, and curating materials to promote the university's historical legacy. Staffed by one full-time Archivist, supported by library colleagues and part-time student assistants, the Archives engage with the community through programming, annual community events, publicly accessible digital content, and integrating archival work into public history courses, enhancing accessibility and engagement.
Operational Information: Ritter Library, where the University Archives is located, operates from 8:30 am to 5:00 pm during the school year and 8:00 am to 4:30 pm during the summer. Access is available during these hours. The Archives contribute to campus events that promote diversity and provide access to collections, including Black Student Alumni Weekend, Homecoming, Bach Festival, annual exhibitions, and public presentations. Funding for Ritter comes from university tuition, with no endowment income or funding partners this academic year.
Facility Description: The University Archives, situated on the lower level of Ritter Library, underwent a comprehensive renovation in 2023, supported by an anonymous benefactor and internal funding. The renovation expanded the facility to 1300 square feet and included the installation of twelve new mechanical-assist carriages with high-density shelving, providing 3,125 filing feet of storage space. The new shelving features a gutter and drainage system to minimize water damage. Although the Archives lack dedicated HVAC controls, its location benefits from central air-conditioning and library heating. Additionally, a nearby server room with HVAC helps regulate humidity and temperature. Exhibit space for archival content is strategically placed on the main floor of Ritter Library to maximize visibility and engagement. Custom graphics and interactive elements enhance the visitor experience, particularly during annual fall exhibits.
Holdings Overview: The University Archives' mission statement outlines its collection policy, primarily focusing on the history of the University. While adhering to this policy, the Archives also hold assets that contribute to broader historical narratives beyond the university's scope. Dating back to the early nineteenth century, the collection spans various topics, including prominent alumni, community history, quarrying operations, German Methodism, faculty contributions, and special collections. Assets encompass diverse formats such as audiovisual materials, still imagery, printed documents, newspapers, microfiche, manuscripts, and objects, totaling an estimated space usage of 1,875 linear feet, representing roughly sixty percent of capacity.
Physical Condition: The Archives have maintained relative stability regarding moisture infiltration, temperature spikes, and pest control. However, occasional power outages result in fluctuations in temperature and humidity. Preservation efforts are primarily proactive, such as storing newspapers unfolded and using gloves when handling delicate materials. The oldest film and audio reels are digitized offsite to prevent decay, while digital assets are migrated to current storage formats and cloud storage to ensure longevity and accessibility.
Public Accessibility: Access to the physical content held within the University Archives requires an appointment. This restriction is done not as a deterrent but to ensure that assistance with the collection is available. Access to all digitized content is discoverable via search engines and publicly available via the web. No paywalls are in place, nor are unique credentials needed. Contact information for making an appointment is available via the Ritter Library homepage. Plans for public access include the continued digitization and dissemination of content as additional materials are digitized.
Section II. Project Description and Scope of Work
Historical Significance and Accessibility: One of the earmarks of well-run archives is dedication to access. Archives without access serve a lesser purpose. The University Archives strives to embrace this responsibility by exploring as many avenues of promotion and accessibility as time and funding permit. All digitized or digitally-born content is stored in redundancy on physical media and online in the cloud, utilizing our institutional iteration of OneDrive with a departmental account. Keeping content in OneDrive allows for the easy dissemination of files or folders of material to users requesting access to material that is too large or in quantity to share via email. Requests of this nature are relatively regular and originate equally from internal and external sources.
CONTENTdm, our digital asset management system, which we share as a consortium with other Ohio private academic libraries, provides a platform for disseminating archival content when offering the associated metadata, an essential aspect of the request. Additionally, CONTENTdm works well for promoting access to high-profile collections that benefit from being seen together, such as our century-old student newspaper, The Exponent, or our yearbooks, which date to the 1890s. Locating and presenting files in OneDrive and CONTENTdm is also beneficial as both provide a means of generating hyperlinks to content that we can then embed within curated content in our iteration of LibGuides. The Encyclopedia of Baldwin Wallace University History is the most visited terminal webpage within our iteration of LibGuides, providing a platform to curate content and provide deeper context than can be achieved via CONTENTdm, allowing redirection to more metadata-heavy content. Archives staff also place hyperlinks within relevant Wikipedia articles under External Resources that direct people who wish to access primary resources to visit our Encyclopedia or materials on CONTENTdm.
The other significant online portal utilized is YouTube, which the archives use as a platform to access digitized audio and video assets. YouTube has an unmatched user base and allows for connections between posted content, Wikipedia, and our curated content in LibGuides.
Usage of archival assets, both physically and digitally, comes from internal and external users equally. Internally, usage comes from student researchers and student journalists, alumni and philanthropy staff, public relations, courses in public history, and when curating content for annual events and exhibits. Externally, usage comes from researchers interested in the lives and exploits of various alumni, faculty, and administration. Rajmohan Gandhi, son of Mahatma Gandhi, utilized records of a contemporary civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who promoted passive resistance. Researchers interested in Daniel Webster Shaw contacted the archives, interested in his relationship with his mother, Harriet Shaw, who was portrayed in the film 12 Years A Slave. The Archives hosted a visit from Dr. Ward-Bamford, curator from the Library of Congress, who was exploring a connection between their collection on Dayton C. Miller and his time as faculty here. Frequent cases of researchers using our records occur, nurturing the expansion and understanding of historical topics in greater depth and global context.
Actions and Timeline: Initial phases were completed during recent renovations and as necessary for writing this proposal.
Responsible Parties: The primary party involved in implementing, training, and monitoring these initiatives, systems, and protocols will be the University Archivist, Kieth A. Peppers. His services and the time spent in relationship to these activities will represent in-kind contributions to the overall cost associated with this project. For the last ten years, Kieth A. Peppers has been the University Archivist, Historian, and professor of public history at Baldwin Wallace University. As a professor, Mr. Peppers teaches an Introductory course on public history, Introduction to Archives and Museums, Oral History and Local History, and public history internships. Before working for Baldwin Wallace, Kieth was a teen and reference librarian at Wadsworth Public Library and, before that, an assistant project manager at Cleveland’s NPR, PBS affiliates WCPN and WVIZ.
Outside of his full-time employment with Baldwin Wallace University, Mr. Peppers holds the position of Programming Chair with the Cleveland Archival Roundtable and has held a position on the Cuyahoga County Archives Advisory Commission since its beginning in late 2017.
Results: Purchasing and installing humidity, temperature, leak, and pest monitoring equipment and supplies will enable library staff to understand better the known and unknown fluctuations that happen when the Library is staffed or unstaffed. Data loggers will allow for detailed reporting on minimum and maximum values recorded on a 24-hour basis, providing significant insights beyond what staffing and physical observation would allow. Problematic fluctuations in humidity and temperature go unnoticed when the space is unoccupied on weekends, evenings, and holidays, as might the presence of destructive insects and rodents.
The leak monitoring equipment will allow for the timely identification and quick response of essential buildings and grounds staff to the Archives, mitigating further damage as quickly as possible. Generating descriptive documentation of leak incidents with time, location, and severity will facilitate proactive measures and safeguard archival materials from future water-related hazards.
The placement of pest-monitoring devices throughout the Archives will allow us to track activity and identify potential risks before they become more problematic. Reports on pest sightings or activity levels, including the types of pests encountered and their potential impact on archival materials, can help shape decision-making procedures and deployment to protect the collection.
All of the activities associated with this grant: supplies purchases, deployment of monitoring equipment, tracking of data, response to initial findings, adjustments to staff protocol, and any related incidents/issues will be reported in full monthly for the duration of the grant-funded period. Information on the quality and functionality of purchased supplies will be documented, reported on, and made publicly available for other archivists and interested parties. Archives staff will gather information from these implementations, organizing it into a report, documenting climate fluctuations, sensor alarms, steps taken in response to these data points, and any response by notified staff should an alarm sound. All the information above will be accessible via a curated page within Ritter Library’s website.
Follow Through: The University, its Archivist, and fellow library staff share a joint interest in the long-term viability of historical content for internal and external parties. Ritter Library oversees numerous multi-stage projects and has done so effectively in the past, as each member of the library staff supports one another. Trained student assistants and staff carry out routine procedures and protocols as a part of daily responsibilities. Monitoring the detection systems will be integrated into the existing checklist of duties. A regularly scheduled maintenance and functionality check of the monitoring equipment and supplies will be implemented as part of the library protocol and embedded in the Rare Books and Archives’ governance book. Gathering this information and synthesizing our findings into a concise report will allow us to improve archival practices and continue to serve researchers long into the future.
Evaluation: By taking the steps permitted via the acquisition and deployment of environmental monitoring and disaster preparedness measures, we ensure the long-term viability of our history. Safeguards against unforeseen calamity will provide the time needed to implement ongoing digitization efforts and other tangential preservation measures. This will allow continued efforts to make as much material digitally accessible as possible. Primary documents are essential to understanding our world and the path trail of actions that lead us to where we are today. Accessibility to these unique and irreplaceable documents will aid in expanding our understanding of the world around us.
Publicity and Future Development: The intent and application of funds associated with this grant, as well as information about the granting organization, will be publicized through various online venues. Baldwin Wallace runs a variety of news updates through the official public relations department, including successful grant-funded projects. The University Library and History Department produces regularly published newsletters distributed to the campus with relevant updates, including information on the Archives. Furthermore, the University Archives have a page on the Library’s main website where news of this matter can be published, in addition to the Archives’ social media.
As disaster planning and monitoring go hand-in-hand with preservation, we intend to use a combination of funding avenues from internal sources and additional grant funding to continue the ongoing efforts to digitize and make a more significant portion of our holding web-accessible.
