The
Honorable Ben L. Harbin of Evans, State Representative since
1994, has worked tirelessly throughout his legislative career
in a bipartisan manner on numerous legislative issues. He was
appointed by Speaker Glenn Richardson prior to the 2005
General Assembly session as Chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee. In that capacity, Representative
Harbin has championed funding of vitally necessary state
facilities, including funding for the operation of the new
State Archives Building. He has been active in preserving
historic courthouse facilities--which house some of Georgia's
most historic records--through legislation and appropriations.
His ability to effectively communicate and listen to the needs
of Georgians has made him an outstanding "Legislative
Advocate."
Honorable Mac Collins
Congressman
Mac Collins of Jackson represented the 3rd District of Georgia
from 1993 until 2004. In 1994, when the Director of the
National Archives Southeast Region and the President of
Clayton State University conceived the idea and developed a
partnership for constructing a new National Archives facility
and co-locating in Morrow, they approached Congressman Collins
for help. Congressman Collins took on the project and never
gave up. His contacts with the State Legislature assisted in
the negotiations between the National Archives, the State of
Georgia, and Clayton State University to make this unusual
partnership a reality. Whether they needed an advocate with
the Office of the Governor, the Legislature, the Congress, or
even Georgia Power, Mac Collins was always there.
Award for Advocacy
Wilbur W. Caldwell
Wilber W.
Caldwell of Gilmer County wrote The Courthouse and the Depot,
a narrative catalogue of Georgia's 19th century public
architecture and a complete history of the hundreds of tiny
railroad lines that covered the state in this period. In
telling the story of small towns before 1910, Mr. Caldwell
tells the story of Georgia, whose life was centered in its
small towns. Mr. Caldwell's work has encouraged the use of
historical records and raised the appreciation for the
richness of Georgia's history to a new level. It has
encouraged many local governments and historical societies to
implement local history projects and encouraged many citizens
to travel around the state and discover the majestic beauty of
Georgia's courthouses and depots.
Alice Taylor-Colbert
Alice
Taylor-Colbert of Rome has been a strong advocate for
preserving Georgia's historical records and has worked
tirelessly to further history education for more than twenty
years as a history professor, archivist, museum consultant,
and humanities scholar. Dr. Taylor-Colbert served as Dean of
the School of Education and Social Sciences at Shorter College
and Director of the College Museum and Archives. Dr.
Taylor-Colbert has been an active member in a variety of
historical organizations and has played a leadership role in
the Georgia Association of Historians, the Georgia Association
of Museums & Galleries, and the Georgia Historical Records
Advisory Board. As she begins a new academic career in another
state, her great passion, commitment, and presence will be
missed by many Georgians.
Award of Excellence in Archival Program
Development
City of Alpharetta,
Engineering/Public Works Department
The City of
Alpharetta, Engineering/Public Works Department, in Fulton
County protected existing engineering drawings from loss
through a project organized in four phases: electronic
conversion of drawings, production of microfilm as a backup to
electronic images, web access to the drawings, and expansion
of the project into other city departments. The project serves
as a model for other local governments by demonstrating how to
plan and implement a large scale document management project
that succeeds in using technology to promote both greater
accessibility by the public and productivity by staff, as well
as preserve the historical record.
W. H. Shaw High School
W. H. Shaw
High School in Columbus conducted an oral history project
entitled, "Saluting Our Heroes, Part II: The Korean War" and
donated the collection to the National Infantry Museum in Ft.
Benning. Over 250 students from grades 9-12 conducted
interviews with veterans and citizens, wrote biographical
essays, presented speeches, and published the completed
project. Students in the Fine Arts Department presented a
production, "Letters from Home," that was written by students
in Shaw's creative writing classes based on information from
the interviews and research. The production included a
15-minute videotaped vignette of interviews of the veterans
who related their most memorable experiences of Korea.
Clayton State University Library
Archives
Clayton State University Library in Morrow hired
its first archivist in December 2004, created an archival
space, and established an archives in only six months.
Documentation programs for faculty, alumni, student
organizations, and staff have been put in place. The Archives
also developed an internship to support the history department
program. In addition, several collections, including the
student and faculty/staff newsletters, have been processed and
are available for research. It is significant that such a
young institution, only 36 years old, has established an
archives to preserve its history.
Historical Collections and Archives
Robert B. Greenblatt, MD Library Medical College of
Georgia
The Historical Collections and Archives at the
Robert B. Greenblatt, MD Library of the Medical College of
Georgia organized and made available the scientific materials
of Dr. Robert B. Greenblatt. Dr. Greenblatt's research
impacted the field of endocrinology, not only in Georgia, but
across the nation and internationally as well. Prior to
processing, these records were totally inaccessible and at
risk of disintegration. The collection is significant because
it contains Dr. Greenblatt's research notes on various
treatments and records his research and medical career that
spanned a period of 40 years (1934-1974) at the Medical
College of Georgia.
New Georgia Encyclopedia
The
Web-based New Georgia Encyclopedia provides information about
the history, culture, people, events, and places of Georgia
through articles, photographs, and multimedia. The
encyclopedia encompasses several thousand documentary sources,
each situated within an interpretive article. The articles on
the site are the product of scholars and reference librarians
working with Georgia's documentary heritage, and many of the
articles are linked to repositories of original records.
Library Journal identified the New Georgia Encyclopedia as a
"best reference source on the Web" for 2004. The encyclopedia
is a project of the Georgia Humanities Council, in partnership
with the Office of the Governor, the University of Georgia
Press, and the University System of Georgia.
Special Collections Department
Georgia State University
The Special Collections
Department at the Georgia State University Library in Atlanta
maintains the Women's Collection as an integral part of its
broad range of rare and unique primary source materials. In
1995, Special Collections and the Women's Studies Institute at
Georgia State University conceived the idea of a repository to
collect materials examining women's political and feminist
activities in Georgia from 1921 to the present. A part-time
Women's Archivist position was created by the University
Library in 1995 and made full-time in 2005. Today, the Women's
Collection manages close to 420 cubic feet of records
including over 500 photographs, over 500 artifacts, and an
innovative oral history project that has captured the
narratives of over 50 individuals.
Award for Excellence in Research Using the
Holdings of An Archives
John S. Lupold
John S. Lupold
of Columbus and Thomas L. French Jr. of Columbus wrote
Bridging Deep South Rivers: The Life and Legend of Horace King
which is the first major biography of the man who rose from
slavery to become a master bridge builder. King, who began
life as a slave in South Carolina and received no formal
training, built covered bridges over every large river in
Georgia, Alabama, and eastern Mississippi. The authors
separate fact from legend as they carefully document King's
life from 1807-1885 in the Chattahoochee Valley on the
Georgia-Alabama border. The book contains an astonishing
amount of previously unpublished information and makes a
significant contribution to the history of the American South
in general and to African-American history in particular.
Thomas L. French, Jr
Award for Excellence in Student Research Using
Historical Records, Undergraduate Level
Grace A. Hardwick
For her senior
thesis at Clayton State University, Grace Hardwick of
Jonesboro wrote a biographical sketch of Jefferson Franklin
Long, Georgia's first African-American Congressman, who is
largely unknown even within academic circles. The main focus
of the paper is Long's political career, his election to and
historic speech in Congress. The paper was written using
primary sources almost exclusively and, where possible, any
secondary sources were verified using the original documents
from which they were derived. Copies of the paper have been
requested by the Auburn Avenue Research Library, Crawford
County Historical Society, and the National Archives Southeast
Region.
Award for Excellence in Student Research Using
Historical Records, Grades 9-12
Ashley Alred, Page Dickson, Colleen
Fries
Three juniors at Rome High School, Ashley Alred of
Rome, Page Dickson of Rome, and Colleen Fries of Silver Creek,
completed a National History Day group exhibit titled, "The
Talking Leaves: How the Syllabary Advanced the Cherokee." A
syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent
syllables, which make up words. Their project was based on
Sequoyah, Cherokee Indian leader and scholar, who created a
syllabary for the Cherokee language and how his invention led
to the creation of the Cherokee newspaper, the Cherokee
Phoenix, that advanced the Cherokees culturally. The exhibit
placed second in the state competition and represented Georgia
in the national competition at the University of Maryland.
Award for Excellence in Student Research Using
Historical Records, Grades 6-8
Dillon D.Carroll
Dillon D.
Carroll of Geneva, a ninth grader at Midland Middle School in
Columbus, used an array of sources to write, "The Sextant in
History: Expanding the Age of Discovery Through Communicating
Location." These sources included interviews, autobiographies,
records and logs kept by explorers, and other documents from
the archives of the Port Columbus National Civil War Naval
Museum, as well as Air Force records and correspondence.
Drawing from a multitude of sources, Mr. Carroll described the
historical significance of the sextant throughout history
including its impact on travel, mapping, exploration and the
age of discovery.
