Archive for the ‘Recently processed collections’ Category

Drawings by actor and costume designer Frank Baker recently processed

Friday, February 1st, 2013

N. S. W. Mounted Police Trooper drawing by Frank Baker for the MGM film “The Bushranger.”

Ned Kelly costume drawing by Frank Baker.

Frank Baker was an Australian actor and stuntman in Hollywood whose career spanned from 1912 to 1970. He was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1892. His brother Snowy Baker was a well-known silent film star and boxing promoter in Australia. Both men eventually settled in Hollywood in the 1920s. Over his career Frank appeared in 18 John Ford films and was considered a member of Ford’s stock company. Baker appeared in bit parts in about 100 films throughout his long career including Of Human Bondage (1934), The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935), Stagecoach (1939), That Forsyte Woman (1949), The Quiet Man (1952) and My Fair Lady (1964). He passed away at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California in 1980.

This collection consists of ink drawings, color paintings and notes by Frank Baker of costumes and locations for the films The Bushranger (1928, directed by Chester Withey) and The Lost Patrol (1934, directed by John Ford).

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Curators’ Conversations: The Sacredness of Alameda Street on December 6

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

UCLA Library Special Collections

Curators’ Conversations

The Sacredness of Alameda Street: Reflections on the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Records Project

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Noon – 1 p.m.

Charles E. Young Research Library Presentation Room

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education records, 1875-2012 were donated to the UCLA Library in 2011, and Special Collections staff began processing the collection in a warehouse near downtown early in 2012.  Processing Projects Librarian Megan Hahn Fraser and Project Archivist Kelly Besser will present highlights of the collection and discuss the challenges of an experimental project to process more than one thousand linear feet of institutional records in one year.

Now nearing completion, this processing project makes available a wealth of research material documenting board decisions on matters such as building projects, curriculum, enrollment, personnel, student and staff integration, student unrest and Un-American activities. The collection offers scholars in many disciplines insight into educational, cultural and social issues central to the history of Los Angeles.

The title comes from an August 1963 statement by board member Mary Tinglof in which she describes school boundaries, especially the one along Alameda Street, becoming “as rigid as Berlin walls,” and the struggles to bring equal education to all students.

This occasional series explores Library collections and projects with staff who acquire and make them available. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer period.

You are welcome to bring your lunch; coffee and cookies will be served.

Seating is limited.  RSVP to UCLA Library Development at rsvp@library.ucla.edu.

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Kesh Temple Hymn

Thursday, September 13th, 2012

This summer in the CFPRT I processed the Lloyd Cotsen Cuneiform Tablet Collection, focusing primarily on the literary and lexical texts in the collection. This item, the Kesh Temple Hymn (ca. 1900-1600 B.C.E.) is of particular interest because it represents a nearly complete version of the hymn, which was of continued importance in the Mesopotamian religious tradition for several centuries.

The hymn, which consists of eight strophes, is sung in praise of the temple in the city of Kesh and its primary occupants, the mother-goddess Ninhursag/Nintu (“Mistress of the Mountain Ranges”/”Birth Mistress”), and “the Hero,” Ashshirgi, her son. The Kesh Temple Hymn is well known from other Old Babylonian (ca. 1900-1600 B.C.E.) tablets, to which this prism, Cotsen #40740, can now be added as an almost complete witness.

The hymn’s eight sections proceed as follows: 1) Enlil, chief deity of Sumer, elects Kesh; 2) the temple is described in cosmic and celestial terms; 3) the temple is described in a series of statements of the type, “from top to bottom;” 4) the interior of the temple is described; 5) the divinities who reside in the temple are discussed; 6) detailed descriptions of specific parts of the temple (gate, door, cella, sanctuary, etc.) are given; 7) the human personnel are described; and finally 8) an exhortation to approach is given.  Sumerian scribes composed multiple hymns to their temples, which they built to honor the native deities of Southern Mesopotamia. Temple building and instauration was a regular, and expected, activity of Mesopotamian kings, which can be seen in the many temple hymns as well as in the royal inscriptions left by kings of their deeds.

An advanced scribe might have undertaken to copy and preserve this important cultural hymn of Sumer, dedicating his particular copy to more current deities for his own sake. This prism is 130 lines long, and was copied in praise of several deities from what we can read in the colophon (a closing remark describing the time and purpose of composition/copying). The scribe’s name may have been lugal-gu enlil, “My king is Enlil,” which is the final line of the fourth side.

The first seven lines convey Enlil’s recognition of Kesh from amongst the lands:

1. egenune egenune eta namtabe (The exalted prince, the exalted prince came forth from the temple;)

2. enlil egenune eta namtabe (Enlil, the exalted prince, came forth from the temple.)

3. egenune namlugala eta namtabe (The exalted prince came forth from the temple in kingship.)

4. enlil kurkura igi minibilil (Enlil lifted his gaze over all the lands.)

5. enlilra kur niba munailil (To Enlil the land lifted itself.)

6. anubdalimmu enlilra kirigen munadur (For Enlil the four corners of heaven sat like an orchard.)

7. kesh sagil munaningal (Kesh lifted (its) head for him.)

The tablet will be on display in the Library Special Collections department lobby for a short time. It can also be seen on the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative.

By Jared Wolfe, CFPRT Fellow

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Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Records Processing Project

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012

UCLA Library Special Collections acquired the records of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education in 2011, and since then our staff has been working to process this large and significant collection so that researchers can begin to use it.

Portions of the collection will be open to the public soon, but in the meantime, we wanted to offer a glimpse behind the scenes to give an idea of the project’s scope.

The records span more than one thousand linear feet of shelf space. (For comparison, the Los Angeles City Hall building is 454 feet high.) They are stored at a warehouse near downtown, and, unusually for our department,  processing is taking place there rather than on campus. Project archivist Kelly Besser, a former LAUSD teacher and Center for Primary Research and Training alum, has been arranging, describing and rehousing the records since January 2012. Project assistant Alyssa Loera joined her in May 2012.

Most of the records were stored in file cases in storage lockers.

Other formats included large ledger volumes of Board meeting minutes.

A large portion of the file cases hold what the Board called “Subject Files,” and include supporting documents regarding their actions, such as publications, letters, catalogs, lists, and photographs. Readers might not be surprised to learn that one of the first subject files that caught our attention was marked “Library.”

Out of the box, the contents looked like this and included catalogs of books, reports on elementary school libraries, and letters regarding censorship of books.

Shown below is a 1973 letter from a student’s parent objecting to Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger being assigned reading in an American Literature class. The parent finds the “profanity and gutter language… enough to shock some adults.” He goes on to say that “We shouldn’t be shocked at ‘Watergate’ when things like this are being taught and advocated in our public schools.” Items such as this give us a sense of the matters of concern for students, parents, teachers and the Board.

The collection is a rich trove documenting Board decisions, large and small, that had profound impacts on Los Angeles. Please check back often for more updates on our progress with these important records.

Update: A draft of the finding aid for the collection is now available through the Online Archive of California.

By Megan Hahn Fraser, Processing Projects Librarian

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Ivan J. Houston Papers now available for research

Tuesday, August 14th, 2012

The papers of Ivan J. Houston have recently been processed and are open for research. Houston was born in Los Angeles, California in 1925. He worked at Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company for forty years, becoming the company’s President and CEO in 1970 and Chairman in 1980, a position he held until his retirement in 1990.

In 1943 he enlisted in the Army and in 1944 he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 370th Infantry Regiment Combat Team, 92nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Fifth Army, also known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Houston’s battalion journal became the basis for the memoir he published in 2009, Black Warriors: The Buffalo Soldiers of World War II. The collection consists of documentation of Houston’s World War II service; records of his tenure with Golden State Mutual Life Insurance; materials related to the creation of Black Warriors; various periodicals, programs and annual reports that feature Houston, and his personal papers, photos and slides, including materials related to his father, Norman O. Houston and his mother, Doris Talbot Young.

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Blacklisted Writer’s Papers Available: The Roy Huggins Papers

Monday, April 23rd, 2012

Roy Huggins was an American novelist, blacklisted film and television writer, producer and production manager. His crime novels were inspired by the writings of Raymond Chandler, and include “The Double Take” (1946); “Too Late For Tears” (1947) and “Lovely Lady, Pity Me” (1949).

Huggins made the transition to television in 1955 when he began working for Warner Bros. as a producer. He is best known for creating and writing for the popular television series including “Maverick,” “The Fugitive,” “77 Sunset Strip,” “The Rockford Files,” and “City of Angels.” He was executive producer for television shows such as “Alias Smith and Jones,” “Cool Million,” “Baretta” and “Hunter.” He also wrote for made for television movies and miniseries such as “The Invasion of Johnson County” and “Captains and the Kings.”

In September of 1952, Huggins was summoned before the infamous U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to answer questions about his brief membership in the Communist Party. He continued to write under his own name, and under the name “John Thomas James,” combining the names of his three sons.

The collection is rich in annotated scripts, story submissions, research materials and television viewer thoughts on many of Huggins’s television projects.

The collection is still being processed, and the finding aid will be updated periodically.

Peggy Alexander
Performing Arts Special Collections
UCLA Library Special Collections

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Si Frumkin Papers now available

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

The papers of Si Frumkin, founder of the Southern California Council for Soviet Jews (SCCSJ), have recently been processed and are now open for research.

Frumkin was born in Kaunas/Kovno, Lithuania on November 5, 1930. He survived the Dachau concentration camp and emigrated to the U.S. in 1949. In 1968 he founded the SCCSJ to bring attention to the plight of Jews in the Soviet Union. He frequently spoke on Holocaust issues at the Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance and founded the Association of Holocaust Survivors from the former Soviet Union.

The collection spans 28 linear feet and consists mostly of newsletters, press releases and photographs highlighting the activities of the SCCSJ and the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews for more than 40 years.

The collection was processed in the Center for Primary Research and Training by Bill Katin, a Ph.D. student in the Department of History. The project was supported by a generous donation from Zev Yaroslavsky. To read more about Frumkin’s life and work see http://www.sifrumkin.com/

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Phyllis Diller Papers now available

Friday, March 23rd, 2012

The Phyllis Diller Papers include business papers, correspondence, sheet music, media, and memorabilia from the private collection of the comedienne and actress. Diller broke ground as one of the first and most prominent woman comedians through her stand-up act, films, television appearances, books, and records. Post-retirement in 2002, Diller wrote an autobiography titled Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse: My Life in Comedy (2005), turned her hobby of drawing and painting into another career, and has continued to make appearances on television and in film. She continues to add material to the collection every year.

The collection was processed in the Center for Primary Research and Training by Ben Sher, a Ph.D. student in UCLA’s Cinema and Media Studies program. The project was supported by a generous donation from Bette Midler.

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