The Coal Culture web site pilot project
is funded through the Library Services and
Technology Act (LSTA).
The Special Collections and Archives
Department of Indiana University of Pennsylvania
was created in 1981 with the completion of the Stapleton/Stabley Library
Complex. Its
mission is to supplement and
support research by faculty, graduate and undergraduate
students, and private scholars. Special Collections vigorously pursues the
preservation
of significant regional archival collections with a particular emphasis on
business, industry
and labor that are related to the coal, iron and steel and transportation
industries.
The regional focus extends from western Pennsylvania to western New York and
eastern
Ohio. Collections beyond this region with a coal, steel, railroad or labor
theme are also of
interest in that they serve to develop the depth of an integrated
collection.
Our holdings are often consulted by
scholars but limited hours and fragility of manuscript
materials make our materials far too often inaccessible by traditional
means. As a result,
Special Collections and Archives applied for an LSTA grant to make
collections relating to
the mining history of Southwestern Pennsylvania available over the Internet.
The grant was
awarded in March of 2006.
The Coal Culture web project is the
result of this grant. It provides digitized primary sources,
and background information and lesson plans to make the primary sources more
useful
for the beginning researcher.
Background essays were provided by
historians, Dr. James Dougherty, IUP Sociology,
Dr. Irwin Marcus, Professor Emeritus, IUP History, oral historian
Eileen Cooper. A special
debt is owed to Eileen Mountjoy. Many of the materials that have been
digitized were collected
by Ms Mountjoy while she worked in Special Collections and Archives.
Lesson plans were prepared by Dr.
Soo Chun Lu, of IUP's History Department.
The site also contains images of artifacts available at the Historical and
Genealogical Society
of Indiana County.
Contacts:
IUP Special Collections Librarian and University Archivist: Harrison Wick, hwick@iup.edu
Project Historian: Dr. James Dougherty
Lesson Plans: Dr. Soo Chun Lu, Soo.Lu@iup.edu
Indiana Historial and Geneological Society President: Herb Gleditsch, ichs@ptd.net