Hours |
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Main Library | 7:30am – 2:00am |
Circulation Desk | 7:30am – 2:00am |
Digital Humanities Lab | 7:30am – 2:00am |
Interlibrary Loan Office | 8:00am – 5:00pm |
Reference Desk | 9:00am – 10:00pm |
Before you visit...
Know the Rules
Most special collections and archives have some special rules for using materials that are different from visiting a library. Generally, these rules help keep the one-of-a-kind materials safe and accessible by ensuring careful handling, by maintaining security, and by being responsive to the specific needs of a careity of formats. Each archives or special collections has specific policies and procedures and its a good idea to check them out before you visit. Check out Russell Library Research Policies and Procedures
Place Your Order
The Russell Library has online guides ( finding aids) for all of its collections that are open for research. You can browse and request the materials you want to come in and look at using any computer or laptop with an internet connection. You can make requests in advance of your arrival at the special collections building, or you can make requests when you arrive. There are staffmembers available in the research lobby located on the third floor next to the elevators to help you with requesting.
Russell Library is open Monday-Friday from 8-4:45 p.m.
What to Bring with You:
What to Leave at Home
While You Research
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Give yourself enough time to make progress. It often takes a long time to go through all the materials that you hope are relevant to your topic. Plan to visit when you can spend at least an hour of concentrated work. Note that 4:30p.m. is the last call for making new requests for materials to be delivered to the reading room that same day.
Remember to gather citation information as you look through materials in the Russell Research Room. This will save time with citations later. Note the following items:
The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies maintains a large online database of all the collection finding aids (guides) that outline what is in each collection down to the level of folder titles.
To get a feel for the process of keyword searching and browsing this database, enter "civil rights" into the search engine and browse the results. See the results for this search here:
http://russelldoc.galib.uga.edu/russell/search?text=civil+rights
Next, try some other terms that might be related to your topic (see the suggestions on the Assignment Description tab on this resource for options). Also, check out the tabs below for accessing constituent correspondence where everyday people write their elected officials for assistance and to discuss matters of concern to them.
What if you don't find what you want?
Still no luck?
Try searching in the UGA Libraries GIL Catalog or in Galileo. There actually a lot of primary sources located in the regular collections such as newspapers and other primary materials on microfilm, published diaries, annual reports, memoirs, government documents, and more. Some are available in the stacks, some area available online through Galileo, and some are available on microfilm or microfiche in the basement of the main library.
Suggested Galileo databases with primary sources:
Try searching in other archives using ArchiveGrid to see what else is available in archives nearby. Remember, to look at the summary view tab.
Try searching the following online sources for primary materials:
Don't give up!
Set up a research appointment with Jill Severn, or visit during her office hours on Thursday afternoons in the research looby, 3rd floor, Special Collections Building.
The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies offers a wide range of collections that document the African American Civil Rights Movement in the United States from a variety of vantagepoints.
One of the best places to find examples of what Georgians thought about most issues including civil rights is in the constituent correspondence files retained by elected officials on the state and national levels. People write their congressional representatives, their governor, their state representatives and senators to express opinions, ask for help,or to to demand action.
Sometimes it is easy to find these files in archival collections because they are grouped together and called consitituent correspondence or constituent services, but often these files are harder to find because they are part of larger groups of files.
To make the research process simpler and more streamlined for this assignment, we have created an annotated list of collections here in this guide that will take you to information about relevant constituent correspondence directly.
BUT, this list is just a sample of constituent correspondence. There is a lot more available in the papers of Georgia's elected officials--particularly members of Congress. If you need help finding other examples, make a research conference appointment with Jill Severn.
Senator Richard B. Russell Collection Subgroup C,
Series X: Civil Rights
The Richard B. Russell, Jr. Collection, Subgroup C, Series X: Civil Rights relates to many aspects of the civil rights issue. Almost all of the files deal with black-white relations in the United States, particularly those involving legislative action during Senator Russell's career in the Senate. Issues, such as the anti-lynching bill, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, racial integration, and the various civil rights bills from 1948 until 1964, are documented. There are also records related to other topics such as cloture, the literacy voting bill, the poll tax, school prayer, and some subjects which are indirectly related to the race issue. Any additional non-textual materials originally filed with papers were removed for preservation purposes and improved access. These materials include photographs, audiovisual items, scrapbooks, vertical files, memorabilia, and books.
Herman E. Talmadge Collection, Subgroup C,
Series III: Civil Rights
Herman E. Talmadge Collection, Subgroup C, Series III: Civil Rights files document aspects of the federal government's expansion over state authority in this area, and Talmadge's efforts against such infringement. Included is constituent correspondence, mainly for the year 1968, dealing with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, social unrest, freedom marches, and the Poor People's Campaign. Legislative files contain correspondence, printed materials, and legal opinions pertaining to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 1964, and 1966, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and busing.
Herman E. Talmadge Collection, Subgroup C, Series
VIII: Legislation
Herman E. Talmadge Collection, Subgroup C, Series VIII contains subject matter pertaining to legislation being considered by Congress including civil rights–related legislation.
Robert Grier Stephens, Jr. Papers, Series II: General
Robert Grier Stephens Jr. Papers, Series II: General contains correspondence, memos, forms, invitations, news releases, speeches, and other printed material on a variety of subjects including federal agencies and departments, topics related to Georgia, the U.S. House of Representatives, and congressional office matters. The files document Stephens’ congressional career from 1961 to 1976. Some of the topics include: Housing and Urban Development (HUD); Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW); state planning and development commissions; highways and roads; Federal Communications Commission (FCC); Fort Gordon; agriculture and forestry; and civil rights.
Archival: adj. ~ 1. Of or pertaining to archives. - 2. Records · Having enduring value; permanent. - 3. Records media · Durable; lacking inherent vice; long-lived; see archival quality. - 4. Storage conditions · Not causing degradation. - 5. Procedures · Following accepted standards that ensure maximum longevity. - 6. Computing · Information of long-term value that, because of its low use, is stored on offline media and must be reloaded, or that is in a form that must be reconstructed before use.
Constituent: n. ~ a person who authorizes another to act in his or her behalf, as a voterin a district represented by an elected official.
Constituent correspondence: n. ~ Letters received by elected officials from individuals in their districts, often expressing the authors' opinions on matters of public policy or seeking assistance in interactions with the government.
Finding Aid: n. ~ 1. A tool that facilitates discovery of information within a collection of records. - 2. A description of records that gives the repository physical and intellectual control over the materials and that assists users to gain access to and understand the materials.
Flexys: n. ~ Referes to a specific tracking system that was used by some congressional offices in the 1960s and 70s to manage constituent mail. The system began with attaching the actual letter (incoming and outgoing), along with copies of approved response paragraphs. These materials were then organized under a subject access point. With the adoption of the on-line correspondence management system (CMS) in the 1970s, computer databases became a key component of the correspondence records, and access became more flexible, but dependent on the CMS. This system provided word processing; the capability of inserting selected, approved paragraphs; personalized salutations and closings; personalized text; the ability to create targeted mailing lists; correspondence records; mail count on issues; automatic filing; and correspondence tracking.
Primary Source: n. ~ Material that contains firsthand accounts of events and that was created contemporaneous to those events or later recalled by an eyewitness.
Record: n. ~ 1. A written or printed work of a legal or official nature that may be used as evidence or proof; a document. - 2. Data or information that has been fixed on some medium; that has content, context, and structure; and that is used as an extension of human memory or to demonstrate accountability. - 3. Data or information in a fixed form that is created or received in the course of individual or institutional activity and set aside (preserved) as evidence of that activity for future reference. - 4. An instrument filed for public notice (constructive notice); see recordation. - 5. Audio · A phonograph record. - 6. Computing · A collection of related data elements treated as a unit, such as the fields in a row in a database table.- 7. Description · An entry describing a work in a catalog; a catalog record.
Secondary Source: n. ~ 1. A work that is not based on direct observation of or evidence directly associated with the subject, but instead relies on sources of information. - 2. A work commenting on another work (primary sources), such as reviews, criticism, and commentaries.
Series: n. ~ 1. A group of similar records that are arranged according to a filing system and that are related as the result of being created, received, or used in the same activity; a file group; a record series.