The St. Olaf College Archives: A New Era

In 2018, St. Olaf’s College Archives celebrated its 50th year, and began a new chapter in its work to preserve and protect our institution’s unique history ahead of the coming sesquicentennial. St Olaf College archivists and librarians have partnered with engineers, grant-funded descriptive archivists, conservators, and preservation professionals to increase accessibility, not just for students, but for staff, alumni, and researchers across the globe. The results: the construction of a new state-of-the-art, climate-controlled vault, preservation and digitization of the most important and fragile portions of our collections, and extensive classroom and community outreach. This timeline chronicles just some of our progress these past four years. Following the timeline is a section that depicts our "Mission in Action"; these are principles that the Archives wants to emphasize as the platform for the work we have and will complete.

• Conservators from the  Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts (CCAHA)  were welcomed to St. Olaf throughout the Summer of 2018. Conservators specializing in photo, paper, 3-D, audio-visual, and textile materials assessed the Archives’ collection. They offered integral insight regarding strategies for future conservation efforts. They also identified a handful of “treasures”- materials in the collection that intersect the space of highest historical value to the institution and greatest risk of loss. With this information in mind, the Archives staff made decisions regarding later digitization efforts and projects funded under MNHS grants.

• Kristell Benson (Lead Archivist) and Jillian Sparks (Distinctive Collections Engagement Librarian) hired.

• The St.Olaf College Archives was awarded their first MNHS grant: “Cataloging Minnesota Treasures at St. Olaf College”. This grant provided funding to hire two Processing Archivists. Under this grant, the Processing Archivists worked on reprocessing, describing, and creating finding aids for six major collections: the Mohn and Boe Presidential Papers, Kelsey Theater, Felland Glass Negative, Northfield Postcard, and Panoramic Collections. 

• The  Thorbjorn N. Mohn Presidential Papers collection  is composed of materials related to Thorbjorn N. Mohn's tenure as the first president of St. Olaf College and Mohn's family. The  Lars W. Boe Presidential Papers Collection  is composed of materials related to Lars W. Boe's tenure as the fourth president of St. Olaf College along with some personal materials of Lars W. Boe.

•  The Felland Glass Negative collection  features the photography of Ole Gunderson (O.G.) Felland. During his tenure at St. Olaf he taught Greek, Latin, German and Hebrew. He would eventually become the college's librarian. The glass negatives were digitized in 2019 and described by grant-funded archivists under the grant period.

• The  Northfield Minnesota Postcard collection  is comprised of over fifteen hundred postcards of St. Olaf College, its students, the city of Northfield, the State of Minnesota, views of the United States, Norway, and a number of other countries where the senders of these postcards had traveled to.

• The St. Olaf College Panoramic Photograph Collection contains various images of the student body, faculty and choral schools from the early to mid-20th century. These panoramic images showcase the breadth of St. Olaf’s influence. They range from class photos, to trips to the nation’s capital and St. Olaf playing host to military units during WWII.

• St. Olaf was awarded their 2nd MNHS grant: “Discovering Musical and Broadcast Stories in the St. Olaf College Archives”. This grant funded the continued work of the previously hired Processing Archivists. Under this second grant, processing archivists worked on reprocessing, describing, and creating finding aids for three major collections: the St. Olaf College Music Organizations Collection, WCAL Radio collection, and the F. Melius and Olaf Christiansen Papers and Manuscripts.

•  The St. Olaf College Music Organizations Collection  features a variety of items pertaining to St. Olaf music programs. This includes, but is not limited to, audio tapes, scrapbooks, and other materials related to the general existence and maintenance of the program.

•  The WCAL Radio collection  includes materials related to the WCAL radio station, a local radio station which would become a founding station of the National Public Radio (NPR). Under the 2021 grant period, 77 reel-to-reel recordings of foreign language religious services broadcasted on WCAL were reprocessed, digitized, and described. 7 DAT tapes were also reprocessed, digitized, and described. These tapes featured the "Dr.America" radio show of beloved St. Olaf professor Dr. James Farrell. Digitization was completed by Minneapolis based company  Saving Tape Media Conservation .

• The  F. Melius  and  Olaf Christiansen  papers and manuscripts collection features papers from and related to the founder of St.Olaf Choir, F. Melius Christiansen, as well as his son and successor, Olaf Christiansen.

The St. Olaf College Archives was awarded their third MNHS grant: “Cataloging the Rise and Development of St. Olaf College through Archival Items”. This grant funds the hiring of two Processing Archivists in 2022 who will reprocess, describe, and create finding aids for four collections: Early Registrar’s Records and Correspondence, Inez Frayseth’s Personal Papers and Registrar’s Records, Dean of Students Records, and Student Scrapbooks.

Descriptions and finding aids created by grant-funded Processing Archivists are discoverable in St. Olaf’s newly created  Collective Access  system. Collective Access acts as a search engine for our archival materials. These descriptions are DACS-compliant, which means that they follow standards set by the Society of American Archivists.

In 2021, student associates Erin Magoon ‘21 and Shelby Louk ‘23 created  The 2020 Stories Project  with the goal of building a robust and representative oral history collection that captures pandemic-era voices of as many members of the St. Olaf community as possible. This project is still accepting submissions.

As St. Olaf continues to grow and diversify, the College Archives aims to curate a collection that reflects this growth. We accept donations of materials from  alumni, students, staff, faculty, student organizations,   campus offices, and academic departments.  The Archives wants YOU reflected in the college’s history. The donation process for these groups is linked.

Using recommendations from CCAHA’s preservation report, the Archives has begun digitizing portions of our collections. Staff prioritize materials at the intersection of greatest historical value and greatest potential for loss. Digitizing these materials assures they will be accessible for years to come. Notable digitization efforts over the years include the Felland Glass Negatives Collection, Northfield Panorama Collection, Northfield Postcard Collection, and the upcoming digitization of the F. Melius and Olaf Christiansen manuscripts. Before materials are sent to off to be digitized, items are inventoried, carefully assessed and rehoused.

St. Olaf is building a single, secure, climate-controlled vault to better preserve and steward primary source materials, while increasing their visibility and use, for decades to come. The funding for this vault came from three major sources:  The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)  provided the College Archives with a generous capital infrastructure challenge grant in August of 2019, $160,000 of the required matching funds for that grant were provided by the  Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA) , with whom we will share future space, and the remainder of the required match is being met by generous donations from alumni and friends of the college.

Our future space includes not just the physical vault itself, but also a welcoming patron and staff space that will provide students and scholars proctored access to our materials. The facility will include staff offices, a reading room, classroom and exhibit spaces, as well as processing and workspaces for organizing and preserving collections.

The impact of the College Archives’ effort to preserve materials and make them more accessible is felt outside of the walls of the department. Jillian Sparks, Distinctive Collections Engagement Librarian, works with faculty to offer classes that introduce students to our materials and primary source research. Students often use the collections in digital assignments or as inspiration for their creative work. We are excited to preserve some of these assignments in our archives.