In the Spotlight

East Africa in Photographs: The Humphrey Winterton Collection

The Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies has acquired a major collection of photographs depicting the broad range of life in East Africa between 1860 and 1960. The Humphrey Winterton Collection consists of more than 6,500 photographs documenting the landscape, urbanization, portraiture, traditional and colonial life of East Africa at the time (most of the photos date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries). The collection was put together over a 40-year period by British collector Humphrey Winterton and includes albums of photographs taken by colonial officials, geographical society explorers, settlers, military officials, and travelers. There are 75 subsets of photographs, each with a different provenance Purchased with support from the McCormick Special Collections Endowed Fund and the George and Mary LeCron Foster Endowed Fund, these extraordinary photographs are a significant addition to the Herskovits Library's East Africa collection and a complement to its exhaustive archive of print and microform sources. A catalog is also available to provide researchers with immediate access to the complete collection.

To request an item from the Library Storage Facility

In early April, the Library moved its collections of annual reports (through 2001) and Northwestern University dissertations and theses (through 2001) to a new and technologically advanced storage facility just south of Kresge Hall. These materials have been relocated because, like many research libraries, we no longer have space in the stacks for our growing book and serials collections. Eventually, five categories of materials will be transferred to the Library Storage Facility (LSF):

Theses and dissertations
Corporate annual reports
Superceded reference materials
Selected back-runs of journals
Archives materials

The Library has established simple procedures for retrieving materials from the LSF:

You may request an item from storage by stopping at the circulation desk in the Main Library.

You may submit an online request at the Circulation Department's Web page:
http://www.library.northwestern.edu/circulation/lsf_request.html.

You may request archives materials at University Archives.

Monday through Friday, materials from the storage area can be retrieved and made available at the circulation desk within 24 hours. Materials requested over the weekend will be available for pick up the following Monday.

Please remember that NU dissertations from 1996 to current are available full-text at the Library's electronic resources page:
http://er.library.northwestern.edu.
(Type "current research Northwestern University" in the quick search box. Click on the link to "Current Research @ Northwestern University.")

Dissertations can also be accessed at: http://wwwlib.umi.com/cr/northwestern/main

All patrons can access online dissertations from the Library's General Information Center, but only current faculty, staff, and students will have remote access to these materials.