Wednesday, February 03, 2021

To best represent itself as a regional hub for historical manuscript preservation, local history and research, including valuable holdings related to the 1898 uprising in Wilmington, Library Specialized Collections is being renamed the Center for Southeast North Carolina Archives and History.

The name change will be rolled out over the course of the spring semester. The rebranding includes librarians and staff who work in the William Madison Randall Library divisions of Government Information, Special Collections and University Archives.

Nathan Saunders, associate director for library specialized collections, said the agreement to house 1898 materials from the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society and other community partnerships are one factor driving the name change.

“Our aim is for the campus and community to trust us with their historical collections and see us a resource for their own research,” he said. “We believe no one place can better tell the story of Wilmington in the twentieth century and beyond.”

Some of the collections housed in the climate-controlled space include:

• The history of UNCW
• The papers of former United States Congressmen Alton Lennon and Mike McIntyre
• A chronicle of local video history from WWAY
• The story of the post-World War II African American Civil Rights Movement in the papers of leaders such as Hubert Eaton and Edwin Kirton

In addition to being a primary repository for North Carolina state publications, Randall Library is the only one in an eight-county region that participates in the Federal Depository Library Program, meaning it provides regular access to federal government publications such as Congressional hearings, Supreme Court reports and the United States Census, among others.

-- Caroline Cropp

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