Richardson Research Center for the Southwest

                        This photograph is of the front cover of a brochure describing the collections of the Rupert Richardson Research Center for the Southwest at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas.  The brochure highlights some of the material housed at the center and also lists the complete collections that can be found there.  I mention all of this because many of these are collections that I either processed or supervised the processing.  Some of the collections are on line at wtda.alc.org, others soon will be, and some are available for study at the Center.  By the way the Center is in the Rupert Richardson Library at the university (second floor). Rupert Richardson was a prominent Texas historian, the author of numerous seminal books with a focus on Texas and Comanche history.  Dr. Richardson taught at the university for years and also served as university president from 1943 to 1953.  His papers are housed at the Center and include teaching materials, manuscript drafts, and old family photographs.

                        The Center was founded in 1975 through the efforts  of Dr. Richardson and other prominent West Texans.  Dr. Richardson became the first director in 1983.  It was continued by history professor Dr. B. W. Aston with the help of graduate students and now is under the library direction. Members of the historical community, particularly members of the West Texas Historical Association, donated material. Several attempts were made over the years to gain intellectual control of the material, but it wasn’t until the creation of the West Texas Digital archives through the funding of the Dodge Jones Foundation and the Dian Graves Owens Foundation that resources could be directed towards in-depth processing of the collections followed by digitization.  Devhra Bennett-Jones headed the digitization project for the Abilene Library Consortium and as I said I did much of the processing and organization.  Through the increased focus on the collections, the Center now has a full time librarian who has had archival training.  With the increased exposure from digitization of the material, the Center has expanded service to researchers and genealogists from all over Texas if not beyond.  Check it out.  The Abilene photograph collection and the Jesse Wallace Williams Map Collection are particularly fun to peruse.

                        More on what can be learned from the Center’s collections next time.