September 18-September 20

It felt strange returning to the Special Collections Department after a week-long absence due to Hurricane Irma. Fortunately, only a few items were damaged and the collection I was processing was still safely stored in the archives room on the first floor. All I needed to do was transport my collection back to the Special Collections room on the fifth. While processing the many materials I have come to wonder how certain collections fell into Lawther’s possession in the first place. Many documents are letters that were sent to other professors in the College of Health and Public Affairs. One letter was even sent to a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice. Another document that seemed unrelated to Dr. Lawther and the College of Public Administration was a printed receipt that recorded the prices of various computer equipment. Unfortunately, Dr. Lawther has left behind no notes in his collection explaining his reasoning for including certain types of documents. Overall, this results in Dr. Lawther being an almost mysterious figure. Through his correspondence I can learn his business matters and his education but not his personality. This is a sharp contrast with my experience scanning the documents belonging to Reverend John C. Fuller. Through his recorded sermons I was able to learn much about Reverend Fuller’s character, belief’s and many other details about his life. On the other hand, all I know about Dr. Lawther was the director of the Public Administration’s PHD program and attended the University of Indiana. Also, there is a lot of information I want to learn about Dr. Lawther. For example, I still need to find out what year he retired in and whether any of the other people mentioned in his correspondence have retired or not. Examining all of this has encouraged me to learn more about the College of Health and Public Affairs.


Another subject this collection has made me consider is the matter of dating. Most of these documents are not originals but copies or drafts. While the drafts are not hard to date the copies are because sometimes the copy of something that happened in the past might be printed at a future date. For example, one folder contained a dozens of copies dated to the 1990’s but the printing occurred in 2000. Even more strange, the time stamp told me that all of these were printed at four in the morning. This of course made me wonder why someone was printing all of these documents so early in the morning and whether these documents should be dated for the time of creation or the time the originals were created. It also made me consider the possibility that Dr. Lawther had a secretary or intern compile his collection for him because I cannot imagine a full time and very busy professor taking the time to file all of his documents away. Whatever the case is it has certainly given me plenty to think about and has made me realize how complicated dating can be. Nowadays, where everything is saved digitally and multiple copies are made it can be hard to provide a definite date.       

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