SDSU Archives and Special Collections Preservation Assessment
FAIN: PG-258370-18
South Dakota State University (Brookings, SD 57007-0001)
Michelle Christian (Project Director: May 2017 to March 2021)
A preservation assessment for the university’s Archives and Special Collections unit, comprising 7,000 linear feet of manuscripts, records, publications, photographs, audiovisual materials, and artifacts chiefly documenting the history and culture of South Dakota. The collection holds primary sources pertaining to the state’s agriculture industry, South Dakota politicians and political affairs, and the state’s literary heritage. Highlights include the records of the South Dakota Farm Bureau and South Dakota Farmers Union, papers of Ben Reifel, the first Lakota member of the U.S. House of Representatives, papers of Congressman and Senator Thomas A. Daschle, and the writings of notable authors and poets Kathleen Norris, Audrae Visser, and David A. Evans, the latter two being former state poets laureate.
South Dakota State University (SDSU) Archives and Special Collections (ASC) is part of the Hilton M. Briggs Library on the SDSU campus. The collections in the ASC preserve not only the history of SDSU, but also the history and culture of South Dakota, development of agriculture and rural life, and American Indian life and culture. With this grant, the ASC will hire a consultant to provide a preservation needs assessment of the environmental conditions in which the collections are housed. The assessment will produce a detailed report providing guidance to improve these conditions, which when applied will increase the longevity of the collections.