News:
New Student Week: Congratulations to all those who signed up to win a University Archives t-shirt! We'll be notifying the winners very soon. In case you didn't know, the Northwestern University Archives serves students, faculty, staff, and the general public. Students will find us especially useful if they're looking for primary or secondary sources for research projects. Faculty will be pleased to know we can provide them with historical background on the departments and curricula. We can also serve as a repository for their own papers. Staff can find noncurrent administrative records of their department or unit. And finally, we can provide the general public with answers to genealogical questions as well as resources on Evanston and Chicago history. If this is the first newsletter you've received from the Archives, we hope you enjoy it. You can see our previous newsletters here.

Remodeling the Archives: After many, many years, the University Archives reading room has received a new paint job! Come check out our purple walls and new furniture arrangement. We'll also be putting together a rotating artifact exhibit in the coming months. See the latest "Object Lesson" blog post (below) for some items that might be included. Stay tuned for photos!

New Chemical Engineering collection: S. George Bankoff, Professor Emeritus in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department has donated his papers to University Archives. As a professor at Northwestern, Bankoff was the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Mechanical Engineering. In addition to teaching, he also did research for NASA. In the 1940's Bankoff worked briefly on the Manhattan Project.

Featured Collection:
Myrtle Whitney Papers: We're excited to have processed the Myrtle Whitney Papers, a collection from the years 1890-1892. Myrtle Whitney transferred to Northwestern in 1890, after having spend two years at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin. She graduated from Northwestern in 1891 and pursued a career as a Latin instructor in Missouri, and then in Wisconsin. Little else is known about her. Her papers are interesting because they include letters home to her parents and grandparents that describe her experiences as a student here in the late 19th century. There is also an expense book that shows what kinds of items she purchased and their cost. Tuition, books, and room & board were among the most expensive (no surprise there). You can view the finding aid for this collection here. Stop by University Archives to take a look at this collection!

This Month's Highlights:
Object Lesson: The Rock: Have you seen our very own unadulterated piece of The Rock? University Archives was able to grab this shard when The Rock was moved to its present location. Read more about it here.

Shakespeare Garden: The Archives has produced a short documentary on the garden. Watch and learn about this campus tribute to one of the language's greatest writers here.

Tip of the Month:
Video: About the Archives: The Archives does not function in the same manner as the Main Library and the materials we house can be wildly different. To help explain the Archives to those in search of some guidance, Assistant University Archivist Janet Olson sits down to let you know what you can expect to find in the Archives and how you can go about finding it. See the video here.

The University Archives:
The Archives has nearly 1000 processed collections and thousands of linear feet of material. Browsing our website can help inspire choices of topics for research or general-interest purposes. Check our Finding Aids site for information about processed collections; our History and Traditions pages and Exhibits sites provide some great ideas; and browse through past entries in our This Day in NU History for items that pique your interest. As most of our holdings are not listed in the library catalogue, we encourage inquiries by those looking for primary source documents.

A few of the topics that Archives visitors investigated this month included:

The 1995-96 football team's trip to the Rose Bowl
U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipmen's School, Abbott Hall
J. Allen Hynek, NU astronomer interested in U.F.O.s