You may have seen the recent articles in the Kingsport Times News about the archives receiving a donation from the Spoden family. The bulk of the donated collection is centered on decades of research collected by Muriel Spoden. It can not be stated enough how significant the collection is to the archives and to the City of Kingsport.
The research room has been overtaken with boxes!
The intern (Joe), funded by the Friends of the Archives, started yesterday and is already making good headway with the collection. Since the collection won’t be available to the public for several months, I thought it would be a good idea to share the progress from time to time here on the blog.
Temporary holding area for part of the collection.
The Spoden Collection is HUGE! It will more than likely be the largest collection in the archives. It is going to take some time to go through box after box and start to sort and organize the materials. Also, all of the materials will be evaluated and the conservation and preservation status will be accessed. The goals for this collection are to get the materials organized, put in archival quality enclosures (acid free folders and boxes) to preserve the life span of the collection, and make the collection open to researchers.
Just a few of the many neat items in the collection.
