University of South Florida Special Collections
University of South Florida Special Collections
http://www.lib.usf.edu/special-collections/
Digital Collections: http://digital.lib.usf.edu/
No. of Employees: 3 faculty / 2 staff
Size: 100,000 volumes / 10,300 linear feet of archival and manuscript collections (appox.)
Major Subjects: Florida Studies (History, Environment, and Culture), Children’s and Young Adult Literature, LGBT, Latin American Science Fiction
Main Collaborators: Florida Holocaust Museum, Tampa Bay History Center, Hillsborough County Public Library
Recent Exhibits: Robert Porter Allen Story Map, The Witch Hunt at USF
Current Projects: Dion Boucicault Digital Collection
Types of Events: Lectures, exhibit openings, receptions
Social Media:
Mission: Support the research and teaching missions of the University of South Florida by acquiring, preserving, and providing access to select and targeted monographs, manuscripts, illustrations, maps, sheet music, photographs, archival materials, and printed ephemera, as well as audio/video, images, and text in select digital formats.
Physical Spaces: 2, Special Collections Reading Room and the Grace Allen Room, which is reserved for events and classes
Established in 1962, the University of South Florida’s Special Collections house an array of unique and primary source materials, and a robust program in research awards and travel fellowships. While their mission primarily focuses on the research and teaching of the USF campus, the special collections department also places strong emphasis on collaborating with the Tampa Bay area through events, exhibits, and digital projects.
The department also contributes to the development of future special collections professionals through a substantial program of internships and student work, and the faculty are proud of the fact that many of their students go on to work in cultural heritage institutions in the Tampa Bay area and the state of Florida. Students have worked with all collections, which cover eight different areas:
- Arts
- Children’s and Young Adult Literature
- Florida Studies Center
- Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center
- LGBT Studies
- Literature and Book Arts
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- University Archives
In each of the above areas, there are standout collections, such as the Dion Boucicault Theatre Collection, the second largest Boucicault collection in the world, the Latin American Science Fiction collection, the Burgert Brothers Photograph Collection, and the Hipple Collection of Young Adult Literature. USF Special Collections’ most requested materials come from the Holocaust & Genocide Studies Center, the Florida Studies Collections, Children’s Literature, and the department’s History of the Book Teaching Collections. Researchers from all over the world are particularly interested in the department’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies materials and in the Latin American Science Fiction books and periodicals, which are often sent via Interlibrary Loan to other special collections. In keeping with the department’s research and teaching mission, USF Special Collections offers four fellowships for USF students to conduct research in the areas of Florida Studies, Armenian Studies, Science Fiction, and LGBT research. Additionally, the department offers two essay awards for students – Consular Corps of Tampa Bay Essay contest and the Leland Hawes Essay Prize in Florida Studies – and an in-residence Patrick Riordan Memorial Fellowship for graduate students researching Florida history.
Part of the strength of USF’s Special Collections is their interdisciplinary focus in both geographic scope – local and global, and format – with a wide range of audio-visual materials, particularly photographs, and large ephemeral collections. In the future, USF Special Collections would like to collaborate with other state institutions in Florida on collaborative collecting, and with other ASERL members on consortial LGBT, children’s literature, and science fiction collections. For digital projects, USF Special Collections would like to digitize and continue processing the department’s large Florida Audubon collections.