The Legislative Paper Processing Project at State Library

The State Library is proud to announce a new project to process the papers of legislators that we have in our collections. Two excellent contract workers have been with us since late last year: Deanna Parsi, who has already completed the processing and cataloging of the papers of Richard Ross, Carlo Basile, George N. Peterson, Frank I. Smizik, and Thomas P. Kennedy. She is currently working on a large collection of papers of Gloria Fox. Christopher Lewis has completed work on the Scott Brown Papers; his current project is  the papers of Jay Kaufman.

For each collection, their work includes biographical research on the legislator; an initial survey of the unprocessed papers; writing a processing plan, including deciding on series and arrangement; sorting the papers; re-housing materials when necessary; writing a finding aid; creating a record for our online catalog; and depositing the finding aid in our digital repository, DSpace. They will also write a blog post for each completed collection.

Watch our blog for information about the collections as they become available for research. The staff of the Special Collections Department will be glad to answer any questions you may have.

Beth Carroll-Horrocks
Head of Special Collections