By Shealtiel Dow
Staff Writer
The historical section is open to all students and is located on the second floor of the Walter W. Stiern library at CSUB.
Amid the hustle and bustle of a new fall quarter, California State University, Bakersfield opened the doors of its long awaited Historical Research Center.
The ribbon cutting ceremony took place on Tuesday, September 16th and there were about 30 students in attendance, said Chris Livingston, archivist and curator of the HRC.
The center is composed of rare books, historical documents, and centuries old artifacts from around the world.
The oldest document housed by the HRC is the last will and testament of Pedro de la Farxa, a French merchant who emigrated to Seville.
“That one dates back to about 1622,” says Livingston. “What’s really peaking my interest is finding out how we acquired that one because right now, there isn’t much information on how it ended up here.”
When asked if any of the artifacts require any special care, Livingston said, “Some are more fragile than others.” Livingston goes on to explain that the Theologica Prophetica will be stored in an acid free box once it’s no longer on display, and will then be kept safe in the library vault.
This vault has much more controlled climate conditions, and it’s very dark because light can damage the documents
“Eventually, this room will be a California rare books room. It will be specifically geared toward California history and Kern County history,” said Livingston.
The HRC is home to four different collections of rare books. There’s the Earl Warren collection, general rare books, including poetry, medical books, etc., the California collection, and Kern County historical books. Warren, a Bakersfield native, was the Supreme Court justice who over saw the Brown v. Board of Education decision.
There are also opportunities for students and members of the community to volunteer.
“Right now, we have a lot of history students volunteering, but we would like to get students from other disciplines involved,” says Livingston.
Jonathan Frigillana, a 24 year old Theatre major says that Livingston was extremely helpful in his search for images to help with his set design of “From Dust Thou Art.”
Archivist Chris Livingston welcomes any students or faculty interested in taking a look at books that are century’s olds. The historical section located on the second floor of the Walter W. Stiern library at CSUB
“Our fall production takes place during the dustbowl era, and I noticed that the library has lots of great photos from that time period. I didn’t want to just rely on the internet,” said Frigillana.
Archives east is where the student workstations are set up. “We have students working on transcribing oral histories, photos that need to be scanned, documents that need to be scanned, collections that need to be processed.”
Livingston explains that one of his student assistants is in the process of developing an app that will supplement the HRC’s exhibits.
Chad Enright, a 28 year old computer science major is responsible for developing this app. “It’s eventually going to be an app, at the moment it’s a website.”
Enright has been working on the app since the start of this quarter. He says the idea was presented to him by Livingston. “Apparently, [Livingston] had been thinking about this for some time.”
Because there are other projects that require the student assistants’ attention and due to the fact that there’s a very specific type of software needed to complete the development of this app, Enright says they do not have an estimated date that the app will be fully ready and functioning.
There’s something called a ‘lamp stack’ which is essentially a very powerful web server software. “I can’t use that because the CSUB website runs only in html and javascript “there are technical limitations,” Enright explains. “Basically, if I write the software wrong, this project could potentially bring the school’s server down.”
“The website is available to the public as of now, but it is a work in progress,” says Enright.
“The vision for the project is that this iPad will be on a stand in the HRC and it will inform people about the artifact(s) they’re observing,” Enright continues.
Livingston says that the plan is to have at least one new exhibit each quarter. “We’re starting to plan the next exhibit. As of right now, we’re exploring different ideas. We’ll open that exhibit as soon as the new quarter starts.”
csub.edu/~clivingston/edocent
