Special Collections and Archives Archives - Page 2 of 4

Women’s History Month in the Archives: Lucille Kyvallos Collection and Exhibit

The library is pleased to announce that the papers of Queens College basketball legend Lucille Kyvallos are processed and available for research. Transferred to Special Collections and Archives last summer, the collection includes administrative, coaching, and teaching records; awards, photographs, and publications; and other materials that shine a light on the history of women’s college basketball from the late 1960s through the early 1980s.

*Madison Square Garden, Queens College vs Immaculata College Poster, 1973. Photo credit Richard Lee*

Select items from the collection are on display in a library exhibit, Leaving it All on the Court: Queens College’s Lucille Kyvallos and her Iconic Legacy. Stop by Rosenthal to see photographs, trophies, awards, and primary documents from this extensive and multilayered collection. The exhibit opened March 1st in celebration of Women’s History Month but will remain on display through December of this year. The exhibit is located in the display cases in the Charles J. Tanenbaum room and adjacent lounge area on the 3rd floor.

Lucille Kyvallos is a trailblazer of women’s basketball in collegiate sports. She was the head coach of the women’s basketball team at Queens College from 1968 through 1981, holding an overall record of 239-77. Kyvallos helped bring her team and the sport to the national stage: she coached the first women’s college basketball game played at Madison Square Garden in 1975 and led the 1977 US National Women’s Basketball Team at the World University Games to a silver medal, among other accomplishments. During her tenure, she worked tirelessly to promote women’s college basketball and bring it to a wider audience.

Sarah Barlow-Ochshorn, a graduate Fellow from the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies (GSLIS), processed the collection and curated the exhibit, thanks to generous funding from Lucille Kyvallos and the Department of Recreation and Athletics.

*United States National Women’s Basketball, World University Games Team 1977*

*Lucille Kyvallos playing for St. Demetrios, circa 1950s*

“Getting to learn about Lucille and her impact on women’s collegiate basketball has been a joy. The materials in her collection reveal the perseverance, resilience, and teamwork that led to the success of the QC women’s basketball team in an era when women’s sports lacked adequate support and resources,” said Sarah.

Interested in learning more about Lucille Kyvallos and her collection?

Access the finding aid for the Lucille Kyvallos Athletics Records and Papers now! To book a research appointment, please email qc.archives@qc.cuny.edu.

View an oral history with Lucille Kyvallos, or download the transcript, on the Queens Memory portal.

Special Collections & Archives Launches Research Fellowship

In late 2021, James J. Periconi donated his collection of Italian-language American imprints to Queens College Special Collections and Archives. Lovingly curated over multiple decades, the collection consists of over 500 items that provide unique insight into what Italian immigrants to the United States were reading, writing, and thinking about at the end of the 19^th and first half of the 20^th centuries.

Thanks to library cataloger Ronnie Gomez, the Periconi collection is now fully cataloged and open for research. What’s more, the Queens College Library, in collaboration with the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, has launched a research fellowship program that will defray costs for a scholar to conduct research with the collection over a period of two to four weeks.

The collection can be browsed through the CUNY OneSearch catalog or on a curated website that includes images and essays. Research fellowship applications are due by May 3, 2023 (extended from April 2). This program is generously funded by James J. Periconi. Details are posted below.

Il Martello [The Hammer], Anno III & IV. New York: Casa Ed. “Il Martello,” 19 issues: Incomplete Anno III, IV- 1918, 1919

Research Fellowship details and logistics

Scholars receive a stipend of between $2500-$4500 to defray travel costs, depending on budget and length of stay. The stipend is provided once the scholar is in-residence.

Scholars are expected to be in residence for a period of two to four weeks between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024. Dates must be arranged with Special Collections and Archives well in advance.

All research will take place at the Benjamin S. Rosenthal Library Building, Queens College, City University of New York, during normal business hours.

During the summer months, on-campus housing may be possible just steps from the library. Detailed information upon request.

Scholars at all stages of their careers from the U.S. or abroad may apply. Accepted applicants from outside the U.S. are required to obtain a J-1 visa.

Fellows will have opportunities to interact with the Calandra Institute and associated scholars at The City University of New York, as well as James J. Periconi.

Fellows are expected to share their research in-progress through a virtual discussion hosted by the Calandra Institute within six months of their visit.

Applications for the 2023-2024 fellowship are due by May 2, 2023 (extended from April 2).

Applications must include:

A brief biographical statement of not more than 350 words
An overview of the proposed project, and how access to the Periconi Collection will aid the research process (3 pages maximum)
A current resume or CV
One letter of reference
One-page budget and proposed length of research visit (between 2-4 weeks)

Submit applications with Subject Line “Research Fellowship Application to” qc.archives@qc.cuny.edu by end-of-day on May 3, 2023. Applications will be judged by a committee of reviewers.

Queens College Library begins cataloguing the Harry J. Psomiades Greek Studies Library collection

Librarian Carlo Minchillo and — *Librarian Carlo Minchillo picks up the first batch of books from Director Gerasimus Katsan for processing.*

The Queens College Greek Center for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies have joined efforts with the Queens College Library in an exciting cataloguing project that will make their collection of Byzantine and Modern Greek literature explorable throughout the CUNY library system. Since the Center’s founding in 1974, their Harry J. Psomiades Greek Studies Library has been building an extensive collection of books, journals, and scholarly publications that supports their academic initiatives as well as the country’s largest Greek community right here in Queens. After receiving a generous donation from an anonymous donor, the project was able to begin this spring semester.

It seems almost serendipitous that the cataloguing of these valuable items began just in time for March’s Greek-American History month. Director Gerasimus Katsan and Assistant Director Maria Athanasopoulou, who are overseeing the project, also manage the operations of the Greek Center and are committed to preserving and promoting the history of Greek language and culture. And as the liaison and subject specialist for the Greek Center, Librarian Carlo Minchillo understands the intrinsic value of the collection as a vital educational resource for academic research.

*Assistant Neophytos Ioannou and Gerasimus Katsan helping pack books for processing.*

With approximately 6,000 items to catalog, there are many moving parts and details for such a unique project that require special attention. Cataloguer Ronnie Gomez and his assistant Miguel Nunez will head the book processing part of the project. With half the collection in Greek and half in English, Ronnie and his team must be precise when creating the cataloguing records for these various items. After proposing the initiative in 2022, Carlo now oversees the coordination, logistics, and communication of the project. And finally, the assistant to the Greek Center, Neophytos Ioannou, was hired to help support the Greek Center and transport materials back and forth from the Center and the Library.

Queens College Library Call Numbers

There are also files, special documents, and items that require assessment for permanent retention. This special skillset is best left to the expertise of the Head of Special Collections, Annie Tummino, and Archives Specialist, Caitlin Colban-Waldron, at Queens College Library. So when the Center identified materials in their collection that might meet the criteria for retention, Caitlin visited to determine if they hold historic value of interest to future researchers.

Caitlin Waldron — *Caitlin Colban-Waldron visits the Greek Center to assess materials for possible retention.*

The book processing is underway and there are items from the Greek Center Library that are now searchable through the library catalog! The location is listed as Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies (Jefferson Hall 302) and requests can be submitted by using your CUNY credentials. For research assistance, reach out to subject specialist, Carlo Minchillo, or visit the Reference Search office in room 344 on the main floor of the Queens College Library.

Treasures from Special Collections & Archives: Black History Month Edition

In Celebration of Black History Month, this month we share an item from our digital shelves: an oral history with Nathaniel Smith.

Nathaniel Smith is Director of NYC Men Teach at Queens College, CUNY. The interview was conducted by former staff member Obden Mondésir over Zoom in two parts, in November and December 2020. In the interview, Smith talks about his early childhood, family, and education throughout his life. He also touches on Hurricane Katrina, the organization of the BLFSA (the Black & Latinx Faculty & Staff Association) at Queens College, and the lockdown at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this clip, Smith discusses the work of the BLFSA on campus after the murder of George Floyd:

You can watch the full interview on the Queens Memory Aviary portal. You can read the full BLFSA 2020 statement and call to action here.

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Road to Equality Exhibition

Exhibit Dates: January 26, 2023 – June 30, 2023
Exhibit Location: Barham Rotunda

Black History

Black History Month gives the Queens College Library the opportunity to celebrate and honor the efforts of QC students and faculty who sought social justice for all by their participation in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, especially the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Starting in 2009, Queens College Library’s Special Collections and Archives (SCA) began collecting materials from alumni, faculty, and community members involved in these movements that now constitute part of the Civil Rights Collection of the photographs, printed materials, and miscellanea seen in the present exhibition documenting experiences of the participants that speak to the courage and optimism as well as to the rich history of QC activism during the civil rights movement.

In 1989, the QC library clock tower was dedicated to the memory of James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman (a QC student), and Michael Schwerner, civil rights activists who were murdered during the Congress of Equality’s (CORE) Freedom Summer project of 1964 by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Their deaths have inspired countless others to continue the struggle for equality and justice for all Americans.

Women History

The inclusion of materials supporting Women History movement in the exhibition bridges the coordinated efforts of the suffragists across centuries and countries for abolitionism and women’s rights by demanding change to the voting laws. The suffragists understood the persuasive power of language and utilized postcards to spread their textual information; propagated visibility through marches and campaigns; and contributed to political empowerment through the visual arts (posters, collages, buttons, et al) to connect to the great and just causes of human history in order to disseminate their message. Their sense of energy and urgency established a new and formidable expression in the world that ultimately changed cultural perceptions and reshaped the discourse of American democracy for the better.

Upcoming Event: Celebrate Douglass Day 2023!

You’re invited! Douglass Day 2023, February 14, featuring a Transcribe-A-Thon of the papers of Mary Ann Shadd Cary.

Douglass Day is a collective act of radical love for Black history, and an event that helped inspire the creation of Black History Month.

Details for Queens College:

Date: 2/14
Location: Queens College Library Room 225
Time: 12:30pm – 2pm
Light refreshments will be provided!

Douglass Day is an annual program that marks the birth of Frederick Douglass. Each year, we gather thousands of people to help create new and freely available resources for learning about Black history. We frequently focus on important Black women’s archives, such as Anna Julia Cooper (2020) and Mary Church Terrell (2021).

This year, Douglass Day features a transcribe-a-thon of the papers of Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823-1893), who “was one of the earliest Black women to edit a newspaper, serve as a Civil War recruiter, attend law school, and so much more” according to the Douglass Day website. The organizers of the event “are pleased to be partnering with the Archives of Ontario, Libraries and Archives Canada, and many others. Together we are presenting newly digitized and fascinating collections from Shadd Cary’s long and fascinating life.”

The event is organized by Transformative Learning in the Humanities and will run at three CUNY campuses. A transcribe-a-thon is an event in which people gather in person or online to work simultaneously on a crowdsourcing project. We share cool finds and more on social media, connecting across all of our locations.

RSVP now!

Please register (RSVP) at the link above if you plan to attend in-person at Queens College Library!

We also encourage anyone who is unable to attend in person to join the live stream on YouTube, and contribute transcriptions for the project on February 14. Visit douglassday.org for more details!

Queens College Library: #ColorOurCollections

From February 6-10, 2023, libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions around the world are sharing free coloring sheets and books based on materials in their collections. Sponsored by the New York Academy of Medicine, the initiative is a wonderful way to publicize unique holdings and create new uses for public domain materials. Please download, print, and share your favorites!

Here at the Queens College Library, members of the Special Collections and Archives and Web and Digital Services units teamed up to create a coloring book based on illustrations from the text Pepper and Salt or Seasoning for Young Folk (Harper Brothers, New York, 1885). The item is one of several hundred in our rare juvenile literature collection.

Download Queens College Library Coloring Book

Please share your coloring on social media using the hashtag #ColorOurCollections and make sure to tag @qclibrary and @queenscollegearchives on Instagram and @LibraryQc on Twitter!

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Archival Inspiration!

How can the archives inspire you?

This past October, Queens College’s Special Collections and Archives and Professor John Wegner’s Design 1 class met to cultivate inspiration for the Design course’s final project: designing a suite of menu materials for imagined New York City restaurants.

The Restaurant Menu Collection, donated in 2014, includes menus from New York, New Jersey, around the country, and even the world, dating from 1938 through 2013. However, the strength of the collection lies in its New York City menus. What sets this collection apart is its emphasis on takeout and to-go menus, “underscor[ing] food habits and trends” that “give insight into the current economic and technological advances of a given community.”

Selections from the Restaurant Menu Collection

While the collection is a valuable historical resource in itself, Professor John Wegner saw an additional use for it: as a site of creativity and a way for his Design 1 students to get inspired. “I wanted to collaborate with the Queens College Special Collections and Archives because it’s such a valuable resource for inspiration, documenting the rich visual history of our local community,” he explained. The collection speaks to a clear history of food habits across the five boroughs, but it also displays vibrant examples of business history, technological history, and, yes, design history. Questions like “How has the ordering process changed from phone calls to websites and apps?” and “What kind of customer is the restaurant trying to attract and how is that reflected in the design of the menu?” can be explored when browsing this collection.

Students from Design 1 review materials from the Restaurant Menu Collection

In Wegner’s Design 1 class, students were asked to create an identity for a brand-new restaurant concept, complete with logotype and menu design. To jump start the creative process, he scheduled a class in the library to look at the Restaurant Menu Collection in-person, saying “As a designer, I think it’s important to have a sense of place in the world, and to be in touch with the history of your community.”

In addition to reviewing and interacting with the Restaurant Menu Collection, students also learned about what archives are and how they can use the physical and digital materials SCA collects. Art librarian Scott Davis was on hand to talk about resources for graphic designers and artists more generally, all available through the Queens College Library.

See below for several selections from students’ beautiful final portfolios!

Are you interested in utilizing archival resources in your class or encouraging archival literacy in your students? SCA can work with you to provide instruction in archives at the Queens College Library. Contact qc.archives@qc.cuny.edu for more information.

Sneak Peek: Processing the Alexander Kouguell Papers

By Pamela Padilla

Wondering what an archivist does? In this post, Pamela Padilla, the library’s Shirley Klein Rare Book and Manuscripts Graduate Fellow, provides a sneak peek of her work processing the Alexander Kouguell Papers. Kouguell, a world-class cellist, taught at Queens College for over 68 years and sadly passed away on October 2, 2022. He donated his papers to the Queens College Library just a couple of months ago, in August 2022.

Most librarians will agree that archival science is an important branch of library work, but despite the deference there is often the question of what exactly an archivist does. There are many aspects to an archivists’ profession such as reference work, collections care, and management of new/existing material, but today I will be focusing on processing—an invaluable part of collections care.

Photo 1. Kouguell’s Elementary Photo deframing and tools.

This was the case with the Alexander Kouguell collection, which required extensive processing. Not every collection has these processing demands, but the Alexander Kouguell Collection is diverse not only in its content but its mediums. Music manuscripts required rehousing, documents required de-framing, and photographs required sleeving. Several scrapbooks had to be vacuumed to mitigate any risk of mold, and their contents were well worth saving.

Photo 2. Alexander Kouguell, Florence Kouguell, and a man assumed to be Florence’s brother eating ice cream cones in Paris, France.

Dr. Kouguell’s career as a professor at Queens College began in the 1940’s and lasted over 60 years, with an additional 10 as an adjunct lecturer. His collection offers its viewer a snapshot of his life, from his honeymoon photos to his participation in Queens Colleges faculty orchestra throughout his tenure, but his extensive career as a cellist also offers a cultural snapshot of NYC throughout half a century. The preservation of his life and history serve as a reminder of the impact that can be made by a singular person.

It’s usually the case that people unfamiliar with the profession may ask “Why rehouse anything? Aren’t the folders/envelopes/plastic slips that these materials come in enough?” and our answer to that is that they usually aren’t. Photographic negatives, photographs themselves, or oversized papers aren’t typically argued against when discussing rehousing, but even paper requires special care. Paper isn’t what it used to be and hasn’t been since the mid 19th century—its lower quality leads to an inevitable yellowing and breakdown due to acid hydrolysis, or the breaking down of the cellulose that keeps the paper together. This process threatens paper and its contents.

Photo 3. Deframing and picture processing of Alexander Kouguell’s pictures.

The processing of collection often begins before the first object is rehoused. That is, it begins with the acquisition. An archivist ensures that their institution has an appropriate level of copyright and intellectual control through of a deed of gift. By ensuring the proper acquisition of a collection from a donor through a mutually agreed upon deed of gift (assuming the donor is one outside of the institution), an archivist has begun the processing of this collection.

Photo 5. Head of Special Collections and Archives Annie Tummino with Alexander Kouguell in his studio, summer 2022.

The processing of an archival collection takes time, patience, and (surprisingly enough) a bit of elbow grease. It’s how we rehouse our materials to maximize their longevity and how institutions ensure they have the intellectual control needed to make collections accessible.

Pamela Padilla is a second-year candidate in the Dual Degree program in Library Science and History (MLS/MA), pursuing a Certificate in Archives and Preservation of Cultural Materials. Padilla is one of three graduate students participating in the Archives Fellowship Program at Queens College Library over the 2022-2023 academic year. Fellows carry out real-world projects in Special Collections and Archives, receiving stipends, mentorship, and professional development opportunities.

Behind the Collab: KITH x Special Collections and Archives

This past September, the anticipation for the CUNY x Kith collaboration was through the roof.

Kith apparel, a “multifunctional lifestyle brand for men, women, and kids, as well as a progressive retail establishment,” partnered with CUNY to create a range of shirts, hats, jackets, and sweatshirts emblazoned with Queens College and Brooklyn College insignia. Alumnus Jerry Seinfeld even modeled the wares in a high-profile publicity campaign before the drop, garnering attention from all corners of the internet.

The clothing is undoubtedly cool—but look closer! There’s more about Queens College history displayed on these items than first glance would reveal.

KITH Jacket, CUNY collection — Kith & Russell Athletic for CUNY Queens College, Jacket

KITH cardigan, CUNY collection — Kith & Russell Athletic for CUNY Queens College, Jacket

Representatives from Kith visited the Special Collections and Archives at Queens College looking for inspiration for the CUNY line in fall 2021. Archives aren’t only for your research papers (though they are great for that), they can be places of creativity, too.

The Kith collaboration is an excellent example of how expansive archives can be, and how they can serve all kinds of people and needs. The patches on the jacket above were sourced directly from a printed program for a 1952 Varsity Sports dinner honoring the athletes, preserved in the archive’s Student Publications Collection.

The artist of the original drawings, Earl Rubin, crowded the cover with lively illustrations evoking the teams that represented Queens College athletics that year. Inside, each page celebrated a different sport and cohort (the Women’s Basketball team was once…the Hoopsterettes!). Looking to evince a retro vibe for its letterman jacket, Kith used this material to throwback to an authentic mid-century look with a 21st century spin.

Cover page, Queens Page Knight athletic program — Queens Page Knight, Varsity Athletics dinner program

Queens Page Knight, Varsity Athletics table of contents

The Student Publications Collection is an unbeatable record of student experience on Queens College campus, stretching back to the founding of the college in 1937 through to 2014. In it, you’ll find copies of dozens of student magazines and newspapers, detailing the events, opinions, and interests of Queens College students in their own voices for almost 80 years.

Stop by the archival storage room on the third floor of the library—the jacket, born from the archives, is now part of the Queens College archives and on view!

Think you could use some inspiration? The Student Publications Collection is open for research and browsing; contact the Special Collections and Archives at qc.archives@qc.cuny.edu to make an appointment to view any of the materials.

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