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Historical archives reorganized
Published November 17, 2009
Learning about the history of Kerr County just became a bit easier.
At Monday’s meeting of the Kerr County Historical Commission, member Jeanne Sutton, who headed the recent reorganization of the county archives, detailed the new organization of historical records.
“The archives are night and day from what they were a year ago,” Sutton told the KCHC and several county leaders who also were in attendance.
Sutton said at this time last year, archives were scattered and disorganized, with no inventory, retention guidelines or preservation techniques in place, and they were inaccessible to the public.
Now the archives have been inventoried, organized and moved to the county courthouse to be assessable to the public. The archives include 52 oral histories by prominent or long-time Kerr County residents. As part of the archive organization process, video histories weretransferred to DVD, and all oral histories are available for viewing or can be read as transcripts.
The archives also include 71 folders with transcripts, articles and photos for all of Kerr County’s historical markers. Many historical markers pre-date the KCHC. The first historical markers were established in 1936 around the time of the Texas centennial.
All video and audio recordings in the archives have been digitized, including footage of Kerrville’s centennial parade from 1956.
“It’s really something, seeing the footage of this parade; like everything, it tells a story,” Sutton said.
Now that the archives have been reorganized, the public can view them at either the county courthouse or the Logan Library at Schreiner University, which partnered in the archiving process.
KCHC has several goals for the future, including encouraging more Kerr County residents to contribute artifacts to the collection and to make archives available online.
The KCHC is a chapter of the Texas historical commission, dedicated to the preservation and teaching of local history. The KCHC meets the third Monday of each month in the Logan Library on the Schreiner University Campus.
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