Arrangement and Description of Lexington Herald-Leader Newspaper Photograph Morgue

In 1999, the University of Kentucky's (UK) Audio- Visual Archives (A-V Archives) was approached by the Lexirgtan HeraJd.Lead?r Newspaper to serve as a repository for their extensive photonegative and clipping morgue (1939 - 2000). After careful consideration, the A-V Archivist, the Director of Special Collections and Archives (SCA), and the Library Director agreed that the collection has enduring value (see pg. 6) as a source of historic documentation of Lexington, the state of Kentucky and national issues and should be preserved in an archival setting as a permanent pan of the UK A-V Archives. The HeraJd.Lead?r Collection's acquisition will more than double the size of the UK A-V Archives' present holdings. Although the UK A-V Archives has a permanent annual budget sufficient to sustain general maintenance and access to current collection materials,1 the size (1,372,000 photographic pieces, 3,884,000 total images including duplicates, 150,250 clippings) of the HeraJd.Lead?rCollection makes obtaining external funding essential to establishing access in a timely fashion and for providing adequate resources to achieve the level of arrangement and description necessary for research. To initiate this project, the Archives hired a full-time, temporary conservator with photo archive and processing experience to assist in preservation and project planning for the collection's eventual acquisition. In addition, other archives with similar materials were contacted for advice regarding the processing. 1hrough these inquiries, we found that few institutionally held newspaper photograph morgues are fully processed and even fewer are accessible through electronic finding aids at the folder or newspaper story levels (see pg. 8 for a list of institutions). It is the UK A-V Archives' goal to process the HeraJd.Lead?rCollection using a combination of methods already employed by the managers of similar collections in accordance with standard archival processing guidelines presently used in the UK A-V Archives and the archives field 2 The UK A-V Archives' I The UK A-V Archives received approximately $82,900 towards collection maintenance and access in FY 2001-2002. objectives for this initial project are (1) -the conversion of non-library generated, incomplete paper and microfilm indices to a complete, searchable, folder-level container list; (2) -the association of the newly created records to the physical objects (on a story/folder leve~; (3) -the physical separation of the acetate photo negatives from their associated, acidic materials; (4) -the re-housingof the acetatephotonegatives into archival-qualityprotective enclosures; (5) -providing appropriate storage and environmental conditionsforthe entire collection;(6)-the creation of a collection-level record in USMARC fonnat to be accessible through OCLC, as well as an EAD finding aid to the collection available through the University's website and the Kentuckiana Digital Library (KYDL)3; and (7) -the identification of future preservation and access concerns for the long-tenn maintenance of the collection. The magnitude of the collection will not permit us to complete more than the most preliminary processing in the 2. i-year grant-supponed timeframe. To ensure this imponant collection's full processing, the Libraries' Dean has committed to funding the staff necessary to complete descriptive processing within five years after the close of the grant period (see Appendix H, Letter of Commitment from Libraries' Dean). Financial suppon from the NHPRC is critical to fund the initial steps of this project, fonning a solid framework from which the additional stages of processing can follow (post -Grant Activities, pg. 20).