Special and Digital Collections Fall 2025 Report

Acquisition, Processing, Discovery, and Inventory

This semester, the Special Collections team made significant strides in the acquisition and management of physical and digital assets. On the acquisitions front, Gottesman Libraries secured three volumes of testimonials documenting the professional impact of George Strayer upon his retirement. Additionally, introductory conversations were initiated with Kent State University regarding the potential acquisition of the Comparative and International Education Society Collection, which comprises approximately 60 boxes of material.

Processing and inventory work remained a primary focus for the team. Victoria Santamorena dedicated approximately 166 hours to the William F. Russell Papers, processing 19 additional boxes (approximately 18 linear feet). Their work included arrangement, research, and note-taking for the finding aid, leaving an estimated 15 linear feet remaining for future processing. Conrad Lochner reprocessed and accessioned several smaller collections, including the Sue Nanka-Bruce Series for Teachers of East Africa and the Abigail Hogan World War II Correspondence. He also accessioned and minimally processed two Afghanistan Aid Project collections acquired from Edgar Klugman and Richard Chisholm.

Further enhancing collection discovery, Krystal Grow inventoried 134 files from the Mary Adelaide Nutting Collection and audited eight boxes of the TCX historical photograph collection. This audit involved cross-referencing physical items with the Teachers College Digital Collection (TCDC) and building a comprehensive database to aid research. Similarly, Anna Descovich completed the inventory for multiple series within the Nursing Education Archive, creating documentation for materials ranging from course outlines and student applications to the personal papers of Isabel Maitland Stewart. Anna also completed a massive shelf-read of over 4,000 texts in the special monograph’s curriculum collection, noting the condition of volumes covering subjects such as foreign nations, ancient civilizations, and psychology.

On the digital stewardship front, Conrad Lochner performed quality control on suppressed digital collections to prepare for long-term stewardship analysis and deaccessioning. He also addressed creation date errors stemming from the 2023 Pocket Knowledge migration and collaborated with the former Technical Services and Metadata Librarian to implement a cataloging workflow for the Macy Gallery Art Book Collection.

Reference, Research, and Outreach

The Special Collections Team maintained a high level of engagement with the community, processing 117 support tickets over the course of the semester. These inquiries were predominantly research-focused (51 tickets), followed by requests for access to the Teachers College Digital Collections (22) and reading room appointments (17). The team also fielded inquiries regarding material donations, document scans, and general consultations. See below for further metrics.

Notable research support included assisting Henan Cheng, Executive Director of the Center on Chinese Education, with a project exploring the relationship between China and Teachers College during the 1930s and 40s, as well as assisting Morgan Gilbard from the Marketing and Communications Team with a project on Leta Hollingworth. The team also expanded its instructional footprint, conducting workshops for Pam Koch’s Food, Nutrition and Behavior Cooking class and the Columbia University Journalism Department.

_{excerpt from Deadline! From News to Newspaper}

In terms of curation, the team contributed to the Ellen Walters Avery exhibit and provided support for "Textiles: Education, Engagement, Memory." In support of the latter, Victoria authored Spinning a Yarn: Weaving the Story of Textile Arts at Teachers College. Additional blog posts included How a Newspaper is Made - Journalism as Industry in Children's Literature (Krystal Grow) and   Dear Family: Lt. Aileen Hogan's Correspondence from World War II (1942-1945) (Conrad Lochner).

                                                                                                                      _{Pearl Greenberg with Tapestry}

Technology and Infrastructure

To improve the accessibility and management of finding aids, the team focused heavily on infrastructure upgrades this semester. Coordinating with System and Web Librarian Tim Conley and Processing Archivist Victoria Santamorena, the team scoped and tested the implementation of ArchiveSpace. Following an analysis of internal capabilities versus external solutions,

Gottesman Libraries made the final decision to contract with the third-party vendor Lyrasis to implement ArchiveSpace, a move that will significantly augment search and discovery capabilities for collections that have previously been unavailable to the public.

Reference and Research Metrics

• 51 research inquiries 
• 22 requests to access the Teachers College Digital Collections (TCDC) 
• 17 requests for reading room appointment
• 7 inquiries about donating materials 
• 6 document scan requests
• 6 consultation or information session requests 
• 3 tickets concerning other areas