If there were a lot of documents in the Baker University archives before, now the collection has become even larger by adding the documents of the Kansas West Conference of the United Methodist Church.
The West Conference has been held in Wichita, and University Archivist Brenda Day said holding the documents in storage there wasn’t good because researchers couldn’t read them, pests could get to them and fires could start. Now that Baker is getting those documents, Day said students will have even more access for research for classes and getting into graduate school.
“It provides really cool primary research for students,” she said. “It doubles our research capabilities.”
Day wasn’t sure at first where to put these new documents, but she got two ideas. One was to build a new center, but as money is an issue, Day decided to remodel the archives for now. She is getting shelves that pull apart when something is needed from a particular row and then can be closed when finished.
“It’ll almost triple the space,” Day said.
Junior Kim Kilmartin works in the archives. She said she is glad they are getting new storage because they have needed it.
“I think it’ll make the information more centralized,” Kilmartin said. “Some of the shelving here you can’t fit all the documents on. The (collapsible shelves) make storage so much smaller.”
Junior Scot Rogers, who also works in the archives, said he thinks the remodeling is fantastic.
“It’ll allow for proper storage for the documents we have,” he said. “We’re lacking space; it’ll help.”
Rogers is also excited about getting new documents so students have more research to look through.
“It will allow for Baker students to have that much more information at their fingertips and will make Baker’s archive collection even more valuable to methods history,” he said.
Assistant Professor of History John Richards said all the really important documents are in the archives.
“When someone needs to know something about the history of Baker, they need to go there,” he said.