Immigration History Research Center to move to new quarters in St. Paul (09/21/97)

Immigration History Research Center to move to new quarters in St. Paul

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Construction began this summer on the long-awaited Minnesota Library Access Center at the University of Minnesota. It will house the Immigration History Research Center's (IHRC) resource collections and activities relating to immigrant and ethnic history, including collections about Ukrainian Americans.

Completion of the structure on the University's West Bank campus (overlooking the Mississippi River) is expected in two years.

The IHRC is regarded as one of the nation's foremost repositories of historical resources dealing with American immigrant groups. Internationally recognized, its priceless collections document the migration and ethnic life of groups whose origins lie in southern, central, eastern and northeastern Europe, as well as the Near East. The collections include books and pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, photographs, and original manuscript papers and records.

Typical manuscript collections include the personal papers of community leaders, clergy, journalists and educators, and the records of fraternal organizations, labor and cooperative associations, publishing companies and immigrant service organizations. Significant documentation is available on the daily lives of immigrants and their descendants. These resources are used by teachers, students, journalists, exhibit curators and ordinary citizens researching their family histories.

Sharing the building with the IHRC will be seven other University archival collections. In a creative design by the architects, the three-story surface structure will house offices, reading rooms, exhibit and meeting areas, and technical services, while the archival collections and library books will be stored in huge constant-temperature caverns carved out of the sandstone, 80 feet beneath the surface.

The legislature and governor would not have approved bonds for the $41 million project had the Friends of the IHRC and other building constituents not engaged in an intense three-year lobbying campaign. Especially effective were the letters, telephone calls, and visits organized by the Friends Building Committee, led by president Kalju Kubits. The staff of the IHRC expressed gratitude to them and to all others who participated.

Ever since its creation in the early 1960s, the IHRC has faced the dilemma of inadequate facilities, so its new home is the realization of a long-held dream.

For more information about the new building or the IHRC's activities, contact Joel Wurl, curator and assistant director, at: Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota, 826 Berry St., St. Paul, MN 55114; telephone, (612) 627-4208; fax, (612) 627-4190; e-mail, [email protected]. More information is also available at the center's website: http://www.umn.edu/ihrc.

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