[MSN] Fire reminds us of precious archives at UNM library

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Fire reminds us of precious archives at UNM library
By Mo Palmer
Special to The Tribune
May 11, 2006

"I've worked in Zimmerman Library for over 20 years. When I learned about
the fire, my heart sank and my mind raced. What did we lose? I couldn't go
in to check on the collections, and I felt so helpless. I thought I
appreciated it, but now I realize how much that building, its WPA
furnishings and the historical documents mean to me." 

Photos:
http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/ne_neighborhoods/article/0,2565,ALBQ_19853_46909
29,00.html

Adrian LaBelle (center), who works in the basement of the Zimmerman Library
near where fire broke out on April 30, tells Becky Kappus where to return
books that she had checked out earlier. The staff has set up a tent at the
library entrance to answer questions raised by the closure, which is
indefinite. (Craig Fritz/Tribune) 
That's how University of New Mexico archivist Terry Gugliotta reacted to the
April 30 fire at Zimmerman Library, one of our most valuable treasures both
for the building and what it holds inside.The library was closed for the
rest of the spring semester. UNM is waiting for the state Fire Marshal's
Office report on the cause and a damage estimate, UNM spokeswoman Karen
Wentworth said this week. 

UNM Archives  

What if the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the rotunda where
the Declaration of Independence rests burned? America would be sick at
heart, because these hold our country's history - primary resources in the
founders' own hands. 

Yes, they are probably all on microfilm - archives always back up their
holdings. But is a photo of a photo the same as the original? Is a Xerox of
the Bill of Rights as good as the real thing? What's lost in the
translation? Is it real or is it Memorex, and does it matter? You bet. 

Good historians use primary resources whenever possible. Oral histories,
letters, diaries, maps, manuscripts, minutes, books written at the time,
photographs - the actual item upon which history is originally recorded. 

We do use secondary resources - summaries, textbooks and synthesized
materials. They are valuable, too, but the authors got their material
somewhere. It's the "somewheres" that we work to preserve, and those were
threatened in Zimmerman's fire. 

UNM was founded in 1889. Students met in Perkins Hall, a school/library
building at Edith Boulevard and Central Avenue, where the Special
Collections/Genealogy library is now. 

In 1892, the embryonic educational organization moved into its first real
home, Hodgin Hall, two miles up the hill from Downtown, barely accessible by
real horsepower. Sand, gravel and steep hills made it anything but a casual
stroll. 

Hodgin Hall was Victorian, as were many of "new" Albuquerque's structures -
erected by newcomers re-creating the homes from which they came. 

It was Richardsonian Romanesque, a pre-Gothic revival style featuring
semicircular arches and heavy stone - elegant, impressive, solid-looking.
This main building was later named in honor of UNM's first president,
Charles Hodgin. Later, the building was remodeled, and the entire campus
became a pueblo on the mesa, as Dorothy Hughes called her book. 

The library was housed in a room at Hodgin Hall and did double duty as the
post office. 



Architect John Gaw Meem designed Zimmerman Library with Spanish and American
Indian influences. This shows the library shortly after it opened in 1938.
(UNM Archives) 
In 1926, UNM opened its first real library. It was east of Hodgin Hall, part
of today's art department. You see the back of it when you drive east on
Central Avenue from University Boulevard - north side, across from a
now-vacant former fast foodery. 

With pomp and circumstance, the entire collection was carried to the new
building in 1938, and the library opened for business the next day, with no
interruption in service. 

We have not been good prognosticators for our own growth. 

When Albuquerque High School was built at Central Avenue and Broadway
Boulevard, critics said we'd never need a school that big. When St. Joseph
Tuberculosis Sanatorium opened, way out at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and
Edith boulevards, the same negative curmudgeons were positive the town would
never grow that far out. We always get it backward. 

And so it was with the library. Built to last for decades, UNM outgrew it in
10 years. 

During the Great Depression, when politicians such as Gov. Clyde Tingley and
Sen. Dennis Chavez were winning New Deal bucks for New Mexico, Zimmerman
Library became real. 

University architect John Gaw Meem, a talented, gentle man who came to our
touted "salubrious" climate to be healed of tuberculosis, designed a
building combining Spanish and American Indian elements, with a rising tower
that looks as much a part of the earth as any of our pueblos. 

With handcrafted wooden furniture, American Indian artists' murals, handmade
Mexican tin light fixtures, vigas and latillas, Meem's building expressed
our unique culture and environment. 

The contents were carried to their new home with spectacle and splendor.
President James Zimmerman led a triumphant parade. His wife carried the
first book. The marching band played, followed by students, staff and
faculty. 



UNM's original library opened in 1926. You can still see remnants of that
building, part of today's art department, when you drive east on Central
Avenue from University Boulevard. This image shows the circulation desk
around 1930, before Zimmerman Library opened in 1938. (UNM Archives) 
Both libraries remained open during the transfer - again, services weren't
disrupted. 

The Coronado Room, designed to protect the past, began filling up with
collectibles, including the papers of Thomas Bent Catron, a controversial
figure in some funky history. Collecting, processing and preservation
continues to this day in a wing called the Center for Southwest Research. 

There you can examine Sen. Clinton Anderson's papers, Spanish documents,
photos of early Albuquerque and a good bit of Mexican and Albuquerque
history. 

In 1985, an archive for UNM's past opened. 

Gugliotta signed on to manage the collections, from Board of Regents'
minutes to founding documents by UNM luminaries such as Hodgin, Zimmerman,
Elias Stover, Bernard Rodey and George Tight. 

Gugliotta estimates the photo holdings at half a million, covering more than
a century at UNM - including shots of the riotous 1960s and 70s. 

People call the archives "dumps without roaches" of papers and photos no
more important than a Big Mac wrapper. 

There's nothing rare on a wrapper, but would you throw away Coronado's
signature? Archives hold the sought-after primary resources I mentioned. 

UNM's three-story underground storage, which holds items under correct
archival temperature, humidity and light, holds several million documents. 

Gugliotta and her committee are working on a project to nominate the library
as a historic landmark. What if it were all gone? 

In a news conference two days after the fire, UNM leaders remained upbeat,
saying damage didn't appear to be as bad as they thought. The basement area
that fire struck held more than 3,000 periodicals, but at the time UNM said
it was unclear how much was lost. 

Camila Alire, dean of libraries at UNM, said the rare collections, housed at
the opposite end of the building, were not damaged. 

"I still haven't seen the effects of the smoke on collections in my
processing office, which is on the same floor as the fire," Gugliotta told
me last week. "We'll certainly have smoke residue on everything. Of course,
the most important thing is that no one was injured." 

Is there more structural damage than we know? Were pearls of great price
destroyed? The library will remain closed for some time, unlike its
Herculean efforts in the 1920s and 30s. Why? 

Albuquerque always rises to an emergency occasion. With Rio Grande floods,
bosque fires, devastated families, we do what needs to be done, as long as
we know what needs doing. 

Zimmerman Library belongs to all of us, and we - especially the history
community - are ready to help UNM. Call on us.