Report by Heather A. Wade, MA, CA
Assistant Professor/University Archivist
Emporia State University

In less than nine months Emporia created over 180 finding aids in time for a public launch of their catalog on March 26, 2007, in conjunction with the inauguration of Dr. Michael Lane, their new University President. You can read all about it in a PDF report by Heather Wade, Archivist for Emporia State University.

Here are just a few examples of what you will find in her rich archival holdings at the Emporia State University:

• the personal papers of William Allen White, a multiple-Pulitzer winning journalist and political adviser to nine US Presidents,
• the memorial collection of art and manuscripts documenting the career and influence of May Massee, who, in the early 20th Century, established two of the first children’s book divisions in American publishing business,
• an extensive photography collection tracing the history of the railroads in Kansas, and
• such unquestionably unique items as a scrapbook of observations made of Woodrow Wilson when he was President of Princeton.

Giving up on squeezing archival descriptions into library software, Emporia selected the Eloquent Archives^TM software for the following and a number of other reasons explained more fully in Wade's report:

• "The accessioning module would integrate our acquisitions process with the arrangement and description process and the reference process,
• the fully-searchable finding aids - underscored in MARC but created according to DACS - could be published in EAD, HTML, and PDF, literally at the click of a mouse,
• digital files including images of the items being described or complete box or folder list inventories can be linked directly to the finding aids, and
• all the technical support required to coach us through the process is available just-in-time by phone from the Eloquent Professional Services department".

You can enjoy researching Emporia's rich heritage by following the [Public Database] link beside their name on the Eloquent Client List.