Alden Library’s fifth floor has a much older collection of materials — some dating as far back as 800 years.
The space, part of the Robert E. and Jean R. Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections, is larger than a lecture hall and plays host to local government records, rare books and manuscript collections, as well as the Ohio University Archives.
The room on the fifth floor of Alden is locked behind a keypad and is protected from the elements outside its walls.
“All of our books and artifacts are stored in a climate-controlled vault and are handled with care,” said Special Collections Librarian Miriam Intrator.
“We have everything from special editions of books to yearbooks to encyclopedias to an 800-year-old bible,” Intrator said. “All of these books and everything we have here atthe Mahn Center is accessible to students.”
The items within the Mahn Center are kept for students to access and for research; the center is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
OU Libraries turns 200 this year. The university has events planned to celebrate, but it will kick off with the release of the book, 200 Years of Shared Discovery: The Bicentennial of Ohio University Libraries in late January.
One of the highlights of the collection is the grades of Margaret Boyd, OU’s first female graduate.
Her marks, a 69 percent in organic chemistry and 80 percent in botany, were recorded in the 1800s on a notecard and preserved by the archives.
“There is so much here to learn about, and there is so much history about the university people don’t know about,” said University Archivist and Records Manager Bill Kimok.
Although any student can ask to see any archive, students typically venture to the Mahn Center only if a professor takes them there, or if a history student needs its resources, Kimok said.
Mysterious trunks, historical texts and encyclopedias, as well as old artwork by previous students are all waiting to be seen, and even the archives’ staff find themselves surprised by hidden treasures.
“We are constantly discovering new things here,” Kimok said. “There are boxes that we have not even opened yet, so each day we are constantly making new discoveries.”
New items are regularly donated to the Mahn Center, and some of them require preservation by a special process.
“The process in which items are preserved is specific to the item,” Head of Preservation Miriam Nelson said in an email.
Requiring preservation is not, though, a sign of damage to the item. Some items are preserved to protect existing notes that might be useful to a researcher.
Items are preserved at a facility located at the Hwa-Wei Lee Library Annex, 205 Columbus Rd.
“(Preservation) could come in the form of a stain or a note written in the margins,” Nelson said. “Often our interventions will involve stabilizing the item, be it through paper mending, backing, or encapsulation.”
Though the archives play host to myriad items, they don’t accept all donations.
“Not everyone can donate items to the archives,” Kimok said. “They are usually famous or international people. When we try to decide what to keep in the archives, we say ‘Will this be valuable 100 years from now?’"
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