John Davis Williams Library Archives and Special Collections

When most people think about libraries, they think of shelves filled with books and journals. Sometimes, however, libraries contain other kinds of materials such as original photographs, one of a kind memorabilia, rare manuscripts and letters, even unique sound and visual recordings. "Mississippiana," a new feature of the Southern Register, will highlight the holdings of the Blues Archive and the Department of Archives and Special Collections at the University of Mississippi. Mississippiana is the study of the culture, history, folklore, and geography of the state of Mississippi, and both collections contain materials within those categories.

Although there has been a Mississippi Room at the University of Mississippi since 1919, the Department of Archives and Special Collections was not formally established until 1975. Its mission is to acquire, conserve, and catalog rare books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other printed and recorded materials documenting Mississippi's heritage. The collections illuminate the talents of Mississippi's authors, raconteurs, artists, scientists, clergymen, soldiers, statesmen, and others. The works of Nobel Prize-winner William Faulkner, for example, mingle with the letters of Jeremiah Gage, a member of the University Greys, a group of students who fought together during the Civil War. The collections also chronicle Mississippi's place in important social and historical movements. As an illustration, the Congressional papers of William Whittington and the Anne Rayburn Sheet Music Collection provide two different approaches to this type of research.

In 1984 the Blues Archive officially opened as a branch of the University Libraries. The Blues Archive was established to house three large collections, the B. B. King Collection, the Living Blues Collection, and the Kenneth S. Goldstein Collection of materials related to blues, folk history, and culture. In the years following its official opening, the Blues Archive has grown substantially. Materials in the archive vary from books and records, such as 78 rpm recordings of Robert Johnson, to posters, photographs, interview tapes, and even T-shirts from the most recent B. B. King concert at the University of Mississippi. The Blues Archive wants to preserve blues music as well as the history and culture of Mississippi as depicted by its musicians.

While archives are places where a library's treasures are housed, there are other essential functions. In future columns, we will address concepts such as conservation, acquisition, and retrieval by presenting some of the treasures contained in the Blues Archive and in the Department of Archives and Special Collections.