New Exhibit in Special Collections: 80 Years of Boise State University

A new exhibit commemorating the 80th anniversary of Boise State University was recently installed in Special Collections and Archives. The first day of class was on September 6, 1932, for the new college known as Boise Junior College. The two-year school was created to provide college education for students graduating from high schools in the area who could not afford to travel to attend college.

The first student body of BJC was comprised of 70 students, tuition was $60, and there were eight full-time faculty and six part-time faculty. The first college president was Middleton Barnwell, the bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The school was located in buildings that had previously been occupied by St. Margaret’s School, a day school for girls. The campus was located in downtown Boise near First and Idaho Streets until it moved to its current location in 1939.

In addition to photographs from the early days of classes, pictures from other decades of the university’s history, as well as significant clothing and other artifacts are displayed in the exhibit. A piece of the blue astroturf that was installed in Bronco Stadium in 1986 is also included. The exhibit is on display in front of Special Collections on the second floor of the library. E-mail archives@boisestate.edu with any questions or comments.

Additional images of Boise State University may be viewed in the digital collection “Historic Boise State” located at http://digital.boisestate.edu/cdm/.

Librarian featured in top field publication

Albertsons Library librarian Margie Ruppel co-authored an article that has been selected by the American Library Association (ALA) Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) as one of the Top Twenty publications in the field of instruction and information literacy published in 2011.

The selection committee indicated their article exemplified the criteria of "quality writing, useful research and stimulating ideas."  You can read a synopsis of the article “Information Literacy Follow-Through: Enhancing Preservice Teachers’ Information Evaluation Skills through Formative Assessment.” in Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian 30.2 (2011): 72-84. and the other top 20 here: http://fleetwood.baylor.edu/lirt/lirtnews/2012/jun12.pdf

Congratulations, Margie!

Welcome to your library!

Welcome to the Albertsons Library. We've been a busy library this summer and we're ready for the Fall 2012 semester. Here are a few of the things available to you to make your visit to the library a fun, research-handy place:

• Bring your laptop or mobile device--the whole building is Wi-Fi enabled.
• There are over 110 computers with Microsoft Office 2010, Mac and PC laptops and notebooks for checkout.
• Check out an iPad (2nd gen.) at the Circulation desk, each with tons of helpful apps.
• Scanners, microform readers, and multiple BroncoPrint stations in the first and second floors--all wired to include wireless printing from your laptop.
• Access the library from your phone via our mobile website.
• A Starbucks coffee shop on the first floor.
• Extensive subject guides in fields such as Public Administration, Radiologic Sciences,  Educational Technology and many more, via the library's LibGuides system.
• A growing collection of streaming video databases on a wide range of subjects--watch online or on your portable device.
• The library catalog now sports a large eBook collection--you can read books online or download it to your portable device.
• Access thousands of articles from journals and magazines from the A-Z list of databases. You will find that more and more of our databases are mobile-friendly, too.
• Have questions about research, campus, or anything at all? We’re available to help you via our reference chat, on Facebook, and on Twitter. Or you can text us your questions at (208) 546-9982.

Please let us know how we can be of service!

A Boise Construction Company’s Connection to Paint Your Wagon, a 1969 Musical Starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin.

Do not adjust your computer monitor. Clint Eastwood was in a musical.

In 1969, the Broadway musical Paint Your Wagon, written by Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe of My Fair Lady fame, was brought to the silver screen by Paramount.  Its trailer invited moviegoers to: "Come along with Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood, and Jane Seberg as they bring the free living, free loving, California gold rush days to life  ...a lusty group of people who one day looked civilization in the eye - and spit!" Both the grizzled Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood have singing roles.

While one of Lee Marvin's gravelly numbers was a surprise hit in Britain, Clint Eastwood's "I Talk to the Trees," which was sung over a light bossa nova beat and augmented by a lonesome cowboy harmonica and lush string arrangement, was not a chart-topper.  With its poor reviews, long running time (two and a half hours), peculiar casting decisions, bloated 18 million dollar budget, and appearance at a time when the era of the Hollywood musical was drawing to a close, the film was probably destined for problems and did not become the blockbuster success that Paramount had hoped for.

An M-K-owned crane places a 75-foot tree on the set of Paint Your Wagon.  The water wheel is visible in the foreground.  The Em-Kayan, August 1968, pg. 13

Concerning the movie sets, Howard Hugh's book "Aim for the Heart" states that, "the camp looked splendid, incorporating sluices and a huge waterwheel, at a cost of 2.4 million." The sets for Paint Your Wagon were designed by Boise's own Morrison-Knudsen Company.  The Morrison-Knudsen Company (M-K) was founded in Boise in 1912 by Harry Morrison and Morris Knudsen. Some projects in the company’s long history include the Hoover Dam and Alaska’s Trans-Atlantic Pipeline.

During Paint Your Wagon, M-K improved 18 miles of roadless wilderness in order to bring almost 30 pieces of heavy construction equipment to the remote filming location.  The set design also needed to accommodate a dramatic implosion of Biblical proportions, about which the August 1968 edition of M-K’s newsletter, The Em-Kayan, says: "Paramount is putting up 102 frame buildings to create No-Name City, more than half of which are rigged to collapse during the movie's rousing but best-unrevealed finale."

A scale model of No-Name City is inspected by Production Designer John Truscott, Director Joshua Logan and Producer Alan Jay Lerner. The Em-Kayan, August 1968, pg. 12

Boise State University's Albertsons Library has a complete run of the Em-Kayan, Morrison-Knudsen's company newsletter (1942-1988).  The library’s Special Collections and Archives also holds the Morrison-Knudsen Records (including labor files), the papers of M-K Vice President of International Operations Lyman Wilbur, the papers of M-K Executive Vice President James McClary, the papers of Ann Morrison, first wife of co-founder Harry Morrison and namesake of Ann Morrison Park, Boise Redevelopment Agency documents,  and most M-K Company Reports. 

"Aim for the Heart: the Films of Clint Eastwood," by Howard Hughes (London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 2010.), is also available to the BSU community as an eBook download.

Kent Randell,
Special Collections/Archives

Welcome our new Head of Special Collections

Greetings! My name is Cheryl Oestreicher and I am the new Head of Special Collections and Archives in the Albertsons Library. We’re located on the 2nd floor in Room 222 (look for the glass exhibit cases).

Special Collections and Archives is responsible for caring for and making available unique materials. We preserve Boise State’s history through photographs, books, papers, publications, film, and other materials that document the people, buildings, athletics, student life, faculty, and other aspects of BSU. We also have material from former senators and governors (Frank Church, Len Jordan, and Cecil Andrus), Basque culture, Idaho authors (Ted Trueblood), and other subjects pertaining to Boise and Southwest Idaho. Our materials allow for research into numerous topics, such as political science, environmental studies, Idaho history, literature, Basque studies, ethnic studies, gender, geosciences, and music.

I started here in May, which also marks 10 years I’ve been working in libraries and archives. I received a Master of Library and Information Science from Dominican University and just last year finished a Ph.D. in Modern History and Literature from Drew University. I moved here from Atlanta, where I worked with Civil Rights collections, including former aide to Martin Luther King, Jr. /U.N. Ambassador/Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young. I also worked with Chicago jazz and contemporary poetry collections at the University of Chicago; managed the University Archives at Drew University; and was the John Foster and Janet Avery Dulles Fellow at Princeton University.

I’m very excited to be here and to share our great collections with faculty and students. We welcome anyone to use our collections – whether it’s for a term paper, thesis or dissertation, or even just for fun. Please stop by and visit us between 8-5, Monday through Friday. Hope to see you soon!

Alan Virta, Library Professor Emeritus, Receives Award

Alan Virta, professor emeritus and former head of special collections at Albertsons Library, received the Life-Time Achievement Award at the annual Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists meeting in Mesa, Arizona. The prestigious CIMA Life-Time Achievement Award acknowledges and demonstrates appreciation for a life of service and leadership in the archival profession, by the peers and colleagues of the recipient. The award is given based on nominations, and this was only the third time the award has been given in CIMA’s nearly 40-year history.

Welcome, Summer Session Students!

Now that Summer is just around the corner, let us welcome you to a new and improved Albertsons Library. We spent Spring break making the library your go-to place for your research and academic needs. These are a few of the things you can enjoy at the library:

• New carpeting on the entire first floor
• Over 110 computers with Microsoft Office 2010
• Mac and PC laptops for checkout, scanners, and multiple BroncoPrint stations, including wireless printing from your laptop.
• Access the library from your phone via our mobile website.
• Check out an iPad, laptop, netbook, or portable battery chargers
• Bring your mobile device--the whole building is Wi-Fi enabled
• A large collection of eBooks, available via the catalog
• A Starbucks coffee shop on the first floor
• Extensive subject guides in fields such as Public Administration, Radiologic Sciences, Educational Technology and many more, via the library's LibGuides system
• A growing collection of streaming video databases on a wide range of subjects--watch online or on your portable device.
• Access thousands of articles from journals and magazines from the A-Z list of databases. You will find that more and more of our databases are mobile-friendly, too.
• Have questions about research, campus, or anything at all? We’re available to help you via our reference chat, on Facebook, and on Twitter. Or you can text us your questions at (208) 546-9982.

We hope you have a fantastic Summer session at Boise State University!