This annual report was submitted to the Association of Librarians and Archivists at Baptist Institutions (ALABI). The North Carolina Baptist Historical Collection had another productive year for 2024 and among its activities were the following:

Access

Marcia Phillips, our PT Metadata Specialist reviewed and updated 1,598 metadata records for the CLIR-funded Recordings at Risk Grant. The recordings document the American evangelical movement and contain presentations by prominent Southern Baptist pastors and church representatives at evangelical conferences and annual meetings of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

Digitizing Baptist Files

After 7 years, SCA completed digitizing the NC Baptist Church and Association files completing 12,143 pages in 2024. The total number of the collection (2017-2024) included scanning 89,239 items for 193 boxes in total. Special thanks are due to our Digital Collections Librarian, Melde Rutledge, our SCA student assistants in the Digitization Lab, Cataloging Specialist Beth Tedford for completing this work and to Stephanie Bennett (Collections Archivist), Alayna Veasey (Collections Specialist), and SCA student employees for moving the boxes off-site.

In addition, WFU worked with Backstage to digitize 8 reels of microfilm for the Hanging Dog, Murfreesboro, Franklinton, Cartledge Creek/Ayers Family, and Bethel Hill Baptist Churches. The Digitization Lab began scanning the records of the Wake Forest Baptist Church (Wake Forest University/Winston-Salem) and completed 8,676 pages. The church, which closed in 2022, donated funds for the digitizing of their collection.

SCA also hosted intern Ethan Kline from University of North Carolina-Greensboro who digitized the Samuel and Sarah (Sally) Wait Papers for his graduate Capstone Project, under the supervision of Mel Rutledge. Samuel was a Baptist preacher and first president of Wake Forest University, and the first part of the Wait collection includes their correspondence while Samuel was in North Carolina and Sally remained in New England. Ethan scanned 2,075 items, created 37 metadata records, and completed the digitization of the first 4 boxes.

Processing, Reference, and Outreach

During 2024, we accessioned 64 accretions and collections (100.37 linear ft. and 14129MB) for the Baptist Historical Collection of North Carolina and received numerous publications for addition to our collection of monographs and serials.

We responded to 354 research requests/visitors for our Baptist collections. A special thank you to Public Services Archivist Rebecca Petersen May, Processing and Reference Specialist Emily Houlditch, and Volunteer Shannon Bothwell (chair of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library’s Board of Visitors) for answering many of these reference requests.