Report of the Senate Committee on the Libraries: 2020–21
February 2021
Submitted by Mark Monmonier, Chair
This report describes the work of the Senate Committee on the Libraries (SCoL) since our
last report, in February 2020. Although the last eleven months have been exceptionally
stressful on staff and resources, the Libraries have coped impressively, implementing diverse
strategies for making the collection accessible—safely accessible—to faculty and student
researchers. Despite affirming our appreciation of these creative strategies for coping with
Covid-19, the Committee is deeply concerned about our own climate crisis: a crisis arising
from the unexplained and dangerous ‘hold’ placed four years ago on the construction of an
approved, well-designed addition to our offsite storage facility, out on Jamesville Avenue.
With building plans drawn up and most financing identified, Storage Module 2 (Mod 2)
would include the “cold” and “colder” vaults necessary to arrest the ongoing deterioration of
unique and priceless materials entrusted to Special Collections.
1. The Committee endorses with enthusiasm the Libraries’ strategy for coping with SU’s
Covid-19 response, including social distancing and ID-regulated access to Bird,
Carnegie, and King+King libraries through most of the Fall semester. Although most
of the professional librarians and technical support staff have been working from
home at least part of the time, they continued to meet the needs of faculty and
student researchers through many virtual sessions, additional online content, and new
video content. Although delivery to departments had been suspended, library staff
retrieved books on request, for pick up at Bird or home delivery via UPS.
After November 12, when in-person instruction ended for the remainder of the Fall,
faculty, staff, and student users have had access to Bird Library. Indeed, Bird Library
has remained open on reduced hours (M–F, 8am–5pm) to all SU/ESF users including
students (except for a couple of days during the readjustment in November, and for
the Orange Appreciation Days in December). Carnegie and the King+King Library in
Slocum were closed to all users between semesters, but except for a brief period in
November student employees were at work in Bird Library.
University plans to resume in-person classes in early February included library
access conditions similar to those in place at the beginning of the Fall semester. The
Libraries’ diverse collection of databases serves many research needs, and staff will
continue to retrieve physical books from the stacks and the Storage Facility on
Jamesville Avenue, making them available for pickup at the Circulation Desk or
shipping them to the user’s home via UPS.
2. The Libraries have continued to maintain our national standing, with our Association
of Research Libraries Investment Index holding steady at 60 (out of 116 North
American research libraries) after 5 years of a steady climb from the mid 80s.
3. Enhanced online services and collections have been put in place during the pandemic.
As a single example, the staff and student workers of the Libraries' Department of
Learning and Academic Engagement were directly engaged with patrons for 360+
hours on their live chat service during Fall 2020, quadrupling the activity of Fall 2019.
This is in addition to the reference help provided through the Information Desk,
Technology Desk, and by phone and email.
4. Our overriding concern this year is the deterioration of audio and visual materials in
Special Collections. Two appendices to this report provide key facts about the
breadth and value of our collections and the threat of deterioration. Appendix A is an
overview of the holdings and usage of the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC)
along with notable examples of research products linked to the Center, including its
international impact. Appendix B is a concise illustration of the principal types of
degradation threatening our world class collections, currently stored in conditions (at
Belfer, Bird, and Hawkins) where temperature and humidity are not tightly controlled,
and particulate matter contaminates the air. Warm temperatures are bad, temperature
fluctuations make this worse, and excess humidity aggravates the problem.
Although the damage is irreversible, it is sometimes arrestable, particularly when
fragile materials that need them can be moved to cold (32°F, 40%RH) or cool (50°F,
30%RH) storage vaults for secure long-term curation. To this end, a solution had been
designed and approved in 2016. Permits were secured, and contracts bid for an
addition to the existing Library Facility on Jamesville Avenue. And funding was largely
in place, when this shovel-ready project was halted, with no apparent plans to revisit
the situation in a timely manner.
Apparently Mod 2 was shoved aside to accommodate three large projects underway
in 2018: roof replacement for the Stadium (aka Carrier Dome), renovation of the
Schine Center, and the new Veterans Center, between Waverley Avenue and Marshall
Street. A new Stadium roof reported to cost $118M is enormous in contrast to the
estimated $6.07M (2021 dollars) needed for Mod 2—an estimate far from daunting
because roughly $4M has been squirreled away for the project.
Although estimating the value of “priceless” artifacts is problematic, a respected
appraiser of books and manuscripts put the value of the Margaret Bourke-White and
Grove Press collections at $98M and $8M, respectively. The Committee argues that
the $2M difference is small in comparison to the material loss of cultural artifacts, the
loss of possible future research, the loss of teaching opportunities with SCRC
materials, the institutional loss of reputation, and the loss of user and donor
confidence, as well as the straightforward loss of monetary value of materials at risk.
It has been suggested that we explore a less costly stopgap strategy. Sadly, Mod 2 is
the stopgap strategy. The only remaining moral solution is surrender: If SU cannot
properly care for treasures to which it has been entrusted, we need to surrender them,
with donor approval, to institutions that can. The way to avoid this Humanities
Dunkirk—or worse yet, to allow the materials to crumble to oblivion—is to
expeditiously restart the construction process authorized after careful study in 2016.
The 2017 halt is not fiscal responsibility—it is a dereliction of duty and a betrayal of
trust. Indeed, some potential donors are aware of the consequences of our inaction.
The laws of physical science have kicked in, and unless arrested, entropy will run its
course. If this rhetoric sounds harsh, it is because the urgency is extreme. Protracted
dithering is not an option. The price of inaction is embarrassment among our peers as
well as a diminished experience for our students and researchers.
Special Collections Research Center Fact Sheet
The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) advances scholarship and learning by collecting,
preserving, and providing access to rare books, manuscripts, archives, moving image, sound, and other
primary source materials. SCRC’s collections span time and form, from ancient cuneiform tablets to
born digital media. Collection areas include activism and social reform, architecture and design,
popular culture, photography, the history of Syracuse University, and the history of recorded sound.
Located on the 6th floor of Bird Library and in the Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive, SCRC connects
students, scholars, and the public to collections through exhibitions, lectures, hands-on classes, events,
and mini seminars.
Quick Facts
• Average number of Reading Room visits per year: 1,350.
• Average number of reference questions per year: 3,000 [75% from non-SU affiliates].
• Average number of duplication orders per year: 425.
• Average number of publication permission requests per year: 78.
• Average number of instruction sessions per semester: 35 [for a list of undergraduate and graduate
courses supported see https://researchguides.library.syr.edu/scrcsessions/].
• 4,086 archival/manuscript collections.
• 150,000 rare book/printed material items.
• 28,000 linear feet of archival/manuscript materials.
• 530 linear feet of manuscript collection material and 235 rare books acquired in last two years.
• Over 500,000 records, tapes, and cylinders in SCRC’s Belfer Audio Archive.
• Total number of digital objects: 116,418.
• 3,059 collection descriptions to help users navigate the materials efficiently.
• Faculty Fellows: SCRC hosts two faculty members each year who build new undergraduate courses
around our collections, and provide students with an opportunity to experience, analyze, and
interpret primary source materials.
• A staff of 20, plus 18 student employees/interns (undergraduate and graduate).
Selected Research Output Based on SCRC collections
• Moving image footage/stills from the Mike Wallace Papers, for two separate documentaries (2021).
• SU Football practice footage, 1955 for 30 for 30: Al Davis vs. the NFL, NFL Films (expected 2021).
• The Syracuse Chemistry of Artifacts Project (SCOAP) team: chemistry Ph.D. candidate Elyse Kleist,
chemistry instructor Mary Boyden and chemistry professor Timothy Korter.
https://tmkorter.expressions.syr.edu/
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• Unfaithful: Love, Adultery, and Marriage Reform in Nineteenth-Century America by Carol Faulkner
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).
• Forever Orange: The Story of Syracuse University by Scott Pitoniak and Rick Burton; foreword by
Eileen M. Collins; afterword by Floyd Little (Syracuse University Press, 2019).
• Images and research from the Grace Hartigan Papers for Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine
de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the
Movement That Changed Modern Art by Mary Gabriel (Little, Brown and Company, 2018).
• Images from the Russel Wright Papers and the Marcel Breuer Papers for Industrial Design in the
Modern Age (Rizzoli International, 2018).
• Marcel Breuer: Building Global Institutions, edited by Barry Bergdoll and Jonathan Massey (Lars
Müller Publishers, 2018).
• Dorothy Thompson and German Writers in Defense of Democracy by Karina von Tippelskirch (Peter
Lang, 2018).
• Syracuse University. Volume six, The Shaw Years by David T. Tobin; with a foreword by Chancellor
Kent Syverud (Syracuse University Press, 2018).
• Oz behind the Iron Curtain: Aleksandr Volkov and his Magic Land Series by Erika Haber (University
Press of Mississippi, 2017).
• Images and research from the Margaret Bourke-White Papers for Erskine Caldwell, Margaret
Bourke-White, and the Popular Front by Jay Caldwell (University of Georgia Press, 2017).
• Images and research from the William Lescaze Papers for Europe Meets America: William Lescaze,
Architect of Modern Housing by Gaia Caramellino (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016).
• Transcriptions from the Grove Press Records for The Letters of Samuel Beckett, 1966-1989, edited
by Lois Overbeck (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
• Images from the Gerrit Smith Papers/Rare Books collection for The Rev. J.W. Loguen, as a Slave and
as a Freeman, A Narrative of Real Life, Including Previously Uncollected Letters by Jennifer
Williamson (Syracuse University Press, 2016).
• Images from the Margaret Bourke-White Papers for It Has Got to be Exposed: Margaret Bourke-
White and the Dawn of Apartheid by Alex Lichtenstein (Indiana University Press, 2015).
Materials Exhibited Locally, Nationally, and Internationally
The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) lends materials from its collections to libraries,
museums, and other cultural institutions with established exhibition programs. In recent years we
have loaned materials to over 20 exhibitions on campus and to events in Albany, Rochester, Ithaca,
New York City, Portland, OR, Pittsburgh, PA, Houston, TX, and internationally to galleries in Italy,
England, Spain, Norway, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates.
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Special Collections Research Center: Endangered Collections
The Problem
A significant subset of our world-class research collections in the Special Collections Research Center are
actively degrading as a direct result of long-term inadequate environmental conditions in our storage facilities.
Affected materials include many tens of thousands of films, photographs, negatives, recorded sound formats,
tape-based media, and 19th/20th century paper books and manuscripts on acidifying wood-pulp based paper. In
order to halt this continued harm to our rare and irreplaceable collection materials, a stable, clean, secure, and
environmentally controlled environment must be created, and plans exist for an addition to the library storage
facility on Jamesville Road. Improving environmental storage conditions will significantly slow the rate of
degradation, extend the useful life of our collections, and increase the length of time future generations of
students, faculty, and scholars have to access, discover, and research these University treasures.
A Few Illustrative Examples
1. Film reels from the 1937 SU vs. Maryland football game in which SU’s
star player, Wilmeth Sidat-Singh, was forced to sit out against Maryland
due to their segregation policy, as well as other football and historical
films in the University Archives, are suffering from severe vinegar
syndrome. The symptoms of vinegar syndrome are a pungent vinegar
smell followed eventually by shrinkage, embrittlement, and buckling of
the gelatin emulsion. Storage in warm and humid conditions greatly
accelerates the onset of decay, and off gassing from vinegar syndrome
can also degrade adjacent collections in the stacks. Another example is original film reel footage of Albert
Schweitzer taken by noted filmographer Erica Anderson, who documented Schweitzer’s life and humanitarian
efforts in Africa.
2. Graphite particulates flowing in from the freight elevator shaft located
in the stacks of the Belfer Audio Archive has coated collection materials,
which is damaging to rare items such as our wax cylinders, tapes and 78s.
The Belfer Cylinders Collection is one of the largest outside the Library of
Congress, with more than 19,000 cylinders featuring 19th and early 20th
Century American popular songs, Yiddish songs, spoken word drama,
vaudeville, presidential speeches given between 1908 and 1912 as well as
early children’s’ stories and books-on-cylinder.
3. The Dick Clark Papers, received from Dick Clark in 2009, contain more than 2,000 radio broadcasts on reel-
to-reel audiotapes documenting shows such as Rock, Roll and Remember, Dick Clark in Hollywood, and National
Music Survey. This type of magnetic media has the highest rate of decay when stored in improper conditions.
Several tapes within the Dick Clark Papers are currently showing the beginning stages of magnetic media
degradation due to inadequate and fluctuating environmental conditions at the Hawkins warehouse.
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4. Margaret Bourke-White photographic prints, including famous images
of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp and her portraits
of notable figures such as Sergei Eisenstein and Joseph Stalin, are showing
signs of silver mirroring, a reflective, bluish cast that appears on a print or
negative due to improper storage and humidity levels. If left unchecked,
the silver mirroring will continue to creep over the image causing the
original content to be obscured.
5. The Clara Sipprell Papers contain a substantial number of photographic
negatives, including portraits of Albert Einstein, W.E.B. Du Bois, and
Langston Hughes, that are in increasingly poor shape, with emulsion
bubbling and cracking on some negatives so the image is no longer visible.
The badly deteriorating negatives need to be placed into cold storage, so
the off gassing does not continue to damage the Sipprell Papers and other
adjacent collections in the stacks.
6. Significant portions of our manuscript and rare book collections were
created between the mid-19th century through the 20th century and many
are printed on paper that is now acidifying and brittle. Examples include
University and Chancellors records, The Daily Orange, local abolitionist
Gerrit Smith’s papers, and our early science fiction collections. Moving
these materials to a building with tightly controlled humidity and
temperature will slow down the rate of decay, increasing and in some
cases, doubling their life span.
The Solution
The solution is well-understood, already designed, and aligned with similar curatorial vaults at peer institutions.
A 14,000 sq ft addition to the Libraries Facility on Jamesville Road will provide the controlled temperature and
humidity these research materials need (50°F/30%RH), with shelving and spaces designed to accommodate the
special requirements of our endangered collections. The new vault includes a cold storage room to house the
most unstable materials (film and photographic negatives). While we cannot reverse the damage that has
already taken place, we can slow down future degradation. We have an ethical responsibility to take care of
these materials so that generations of students, faculty and scholars can continue to engage with them. We
promise our donors that we will care for their life’s work, and we are suffering reputational damage as a
research institution due to the condition of collections for which we are known internationally. The addition to
the Libraries Facility will significantly extend the life of our current special collections, allow for overall
collections growth in the future, and drive research and teaching excellence.
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