MSU Grant Collection access honored by national body

Contact: Robbie Ward

STARKVILLE, Miss.--The American Library Association is honoring Mississippi State University for its recent online digitalization of the Ulysses S. Grant papers.

Thursday [March 11], the ALA's Web site, ILoveLibraries.org, designated MSU's libraries as the "digital library of the week" for recently providing free, online access to the collected papers of the former president and Civil War general.

MSU serves as host for the U.S. Grant Association's Web site, http://digital.library.msstate.edu/collections/usgrant. (For the announcement of the paper's public access, visit http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=4827.)

Housed in Mitchell Memorial Library, Grant's collected papers begin in 1837 as he was soon to leave for the U.S. Military Academy in West Point. They conclude with the retired chief executive's 1885 death from cancer as he rushed to complete his memoirs.

In addition to the Grant papers, MSU's Libraries' other digital archives include the sheet music from the Charles H. Templeton Sr. Sheet Music Collection, selections from the Congressional and Political Research Center and a variety of items and materials of the CHARM Project. CHARM is the acronym for the Consortium for the History of Agriculture and Rural Mississippi.

The ALA is the world's oldest and largest library association. In addition to academia, its members include public, government and special libraries.