page_title: Archives of Appalachia
section_title: Center for Excellence in Appalachian Studies and Services
hierarchical_section_title: Archives of Appalachia / Center for Excellence in Appalachian Studies and Services
caption_attribution_description: English: Archives of Appalachia, Reading Room
context_page_description: The Archives of Appalachia is located on the campus of East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee. The Archives of Appalachia is a repository for memories — the written words, images, and sounds that document life in southern Appalachia. the archives steward nearly two miles of rare manuscripts, 250,000 photographs, 90,000 audio and moving image recordings, and 14,000 books. More than 2,000 visitors from ETSU and around the globe utilize the collections each year for scholarly and creative projects. The Reading Room is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m
context_section_description: In 1984, as a part of the state’s Better Schools Program passed by the 1984 legislature, ETSU inaugurated the Center of Excellence for Appalachian Studies and Services (CASS). CASS included the Institute for Appalachians Affairs, the B. Carroll Reece Museum and the Archives of Appalachia.The Archives acquired additional space when the medical library moved out of Sherrod Library. The additional space allowed for a conference room, map and over-sized material room, as well as additional storage space. In 1986, in recognition of ETSU’s 75ᵗʰ anniversary, the Archives produced a series of exhibits on ETSU's history and helped prepare a time capsule that was deposited in one of the globe columns at the campus amphitheater. The time capsule was opened during the ETSU’s 100ᵗʰ anniversary in 2011. 
  In 1988, Norma (Myers) Riddle became the Archives’ third director.  Under Riddle’s leadership, the Archives continued its robust growth, adding hundreds of new collections on a range of historical and cultural topics related to southern Appalachia.  Significant additions included the papers of the long-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives James H. Quillen; the Coal Employment Project Papers, which document the struggle for workers’ rights for female coal miners; the records of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad; and unique recorded sound collections including the Mary Elizabeth Barnicle and Tillman Cadle Collection of field recordings from the 1930s through the 1950s.
  Increased media collections created unique demands for preservation and access, and during Riddle’s tenure the Archives applied for, and received, at least a dozen grants to preserve rare audio and moving image holdings. A major grant from the NEH in 2003 funded a large preservation project and also served as the basis for the creation of the Archives’ media digitization lab.  Over time, the lab has developed the capacity for digitizing over a dozen formats of analog audio and moving image materials. Outreach also remained a focus for the Archives throughout the 1990s and beyond.  From 1994-1995, the Archives worked with Panther Press to publish a two-volume series of D.R. Beeson’s hiking diaries.  The series, edited by Riddle and Archivist Ned Irwin, was titled In the Spirit of Adventure and featured diary transcripts and photographs of hikes that D.R. Beeson and C. Hodge Mathes made of the Great Smoky Mountains (1914) and Mt. Mitchell (1915).
  In the 1990s, work promoting digital access to collections continued.  In 1996, the Archives entered the digital era with the launching of its first homepage, and in 1997 it was selected to participate in the “Monticello Electronic Library” pilot project, which was an attempt to make available online collection descriptions for 22 repositories in the southeast. In 1997, the administrative responsibility of the Archives, previously shared between the Center for Appalachian Studies and the University Library, was changed to the Center only and the Archives was restructured. Previously known as the Archives and Special Collections with subdivisions of Archives of Appalachia, University Archives, and Special Collections, the name was officially changed to the Archives of Appalachia, consisting of three units – Appalachian Manuscript Collections, University Archives, and Special Collections.
  In 1999, the Archives of Appalachia received a grant from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to preserve selected recordings and to develop a radio series drawing on the materials in these collections. The one-hour weekly radio series, titled "From the Archives," was broadcast on WETS public radio station and featured performances of a range of traditional music. In 2000, the Archives was awarded a grant by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to preserve original and rare recordings in the Barnicle-Cadle, Bernard Rousseau, and Broadside Television collections and make them more accessible to researchers. As part of an effort to make its collections more accessible, the Archiv
caption: Archives of Appalachia--Sherrod Library--East Tennessee State University
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