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Evan Farber Papers

 Collection
Identifier: EC-24.36 (XXIV)

Scope and Contents

Evan’s papers span his entire career, with quite a few files from his retirement years. During his retirement, he served as College Librarian Emeritus and had an office in Lilly Library. This collection consists of all of the files in his office at that time. Files and books deemed not relevant to the collection have been returned to his family or donated to the general collection of Lilly Library.  These materials were primarily journals already in the collection, books, and student art projects. Some of these items were kept as representative of the type of material Evan kept on hand in his office, but most were returned. The collection is divided into 5 series: Subject Files, Earlham related, Presentations/Conferences, Publications, and Video/Photographs. The subject files primarily focus on Evan’s retirement years, though a few things in the files are pre retirement. They are arranged in alphabetical order as Evan had them arranged in his office. The names of the files generally are the same as Evan named them, to give us an understanding of how he used and thought about his files. The files related to Earlham primarily consist of materials regarding the expansion of Lilly Library in the 1980s and early 1990s, culminating in the Anscombe addition of 1993. There is correspondence, informational materials, and plans for the expansion. There are also some budget materials and publications regarding the library. These folders of Library Miscellany were located in one of Evan’s file drawers in his retirement office. They are a mix of items covering topics from bibliographic instruction, presentations, technology, library buildings, and so forth. They remain together as Evan had them filed and appeared to be using them in this order.  One of the most extensive series is the collection of presentation and conference notes. These include drafts of presentations and information about the conferences he presented at, to materials about conferences Evan attended. Usually if Evan attended a conference, he was heavily involved in some way. There are multiple drafts of some presentations and correspondence regarding the conferences. Also included are some writings of Evan’s, some of which began as a conference paper. Not only do these materials reveal a great deal of Evan’s professional interest, they show the evolution of the library profession over several decades. Also in this series is the typescript of an oral history interview with Evan Farber. The interview was conducted by Scottie Cochrane, and is a rich history of Evan’s life, both professional and personal. In this interview Evan reflects upon his time at Earlham, commenting on colleagues, buildings, trends in libraries, Earlham as a Quaker institution, and many other topics. He also discusses his family. Some books and publications have been kept as part of Evan’s collection. The collection also contains two boxes of photographs. These photographs primarily are of the library expansion project in 1992, and of Evan at various conferences. They are an important record of Lilly Library. There is also a box of videos, primarily VHS, of Evan’s presentations and other things. We are currently trying to decide to best steps for preserving these videos; digitization is a possibility.

Dates

  • 1962-2006
  • Other: Majority of material found in 1968-2001

Conditions Governing Access

Materials related to recommendations to students, faculty tenure, and other sensitive college business are restricted for 50 years.

Conditions Governing Use

Some materials may be protected by copyright. Permission to reproduce and to publish for commercial purposes must be requested from the Archivist.

Biographical or Historical Information

Evan Farber served as College Librarian at Lilly Library from July 1962 to June 1994. Evan’s work resulted in significant contributions to the field of librarianship, especially as a pioneer in bibliographic instruction. Evan earned his degree in library science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where he also received his A.B. and M.A in Political Science. Although Evan studied politics at Princeton University and taught politics at Chapel Hill and the University of Massachusetts, he chose not to pursue a career as a politics professor, landing into the library profession while working in the library in graduate school. He embarked upon his career at Livingston State College in Alabama, and moved on to Emory University as chief of the serials and binding division from July 1955 to June 1962.  At Emory Guy Lyle served as his mentor. In 1962, he accepted the job at Earlham College where he would remain for the rest of his career. In 1967 Evan was elected chair of the College Libraries Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). At the 1969 ALA annual conference, he introduced Earlham’s BI program to the world. In 1977 he was elected President of ACRL, and won ACRL’s Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award. Evan holds honorary degrees from St. Lawrence University, Susquehanna University, and Indiana University. UNC School of Library and Information Science honored him with the Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1992. Evan was a prolific writer and presenter.  Many of his presentations focused on Earlham’s BI program, but he also wrote about the University Library Syndrome, teaching and learning, and technology and libraries, among many other topics. He also served as a consultant on many library buildings at small colleges, and also served as a consultant on administration and re-organization projects of small college libraries.

Note written by

Extent

13 Boxes

Language of Materials

English

Physical Access Requirements

The collection contains two boxes of print photographs.

Technical Access Requirements

There are some old floppy disks that currently cannot be used.

Method of Acquisition

Donation, Evan Farber and his estate, 2009/2010.

Accruals and Additions

No accrual are expected.

Title
Archon Finding Aid Title
Author
Anne Thomason
Description rules
Other Unmapped
Language of description
Undetermined
Script of description
Code for undetermined script
Language of description note
und

Repository Details

Part of the Friends Collection and Earlham College Archives Repository

Contact:
US