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The purchase of environmental monitoring equipment and other supplies to improve storage conditions for Oakland University’s archives and special collections.  Holdings include the Hicks Collection of Women’s Writings, a collection of epistles, poetry, memoirs, cookbooks, conduct manuals, and pro-feminist pamphlets spanning the seventeenth through twentieth centuries; the William Springer Collection, which contains over 1,000 books, nearly 1,000 pamphlets, historical newspapers, ephemera, photographs, and memorabilia relating to Abraham Lincoln’s life, assassination, and representation in American culture; and local records of Oakland County, Michigan from 1827 to 1931.

To ensure the long-term preservation of university archives and special collections, this grant will support an environmental monitoring program for collections storage areas and the purchase of supplies to rehouse fragile books and pamphlets. These projects are derived from a preservation assessment conducted by a Northeast Document Conservation Center preservation specialist in 2018. The grant will purchase dataloggers to record temperatures and relative humidity, and a consultant’s visit to train staff how to install and use the equipment, and how to interpret its data. The grant will also fund custom enclosures for rare books and pamphlets. The consultant will host a rare book care workshop, open to library staff and the general public. A library science graduate student from Wayne State University will shadow the consultant.