News and more from ZSR’s Special Collections & Archives
On October, 26, 2025, I taught a Book Repair Workshop in Boone, NC at the Watauga County Public Library. This library is nice architecturally, with a mountain feel, and inside it has a number of great resources. In the restrooms, they have a good supply of all sizes of disposable diapers. They really care about... Continue reading “Book Repair Workshops in Boone and Goldsboro” ›
Join historian Craig Thompson Friend, Alumni Distinguished Graduate Professor of History and Public History at North Carolina State University and a Wake Forest University alumnus (’83), for a special two-day exploration of the remarkable life of Lunsford Lane, the self-emancipated entrepreneur and author whose story challenges and enriches our understanding of freedom, identity, and resilience... Continue reading “Exploring the Life and Legacy of Lunsford Lane: A Two-Day Lecture Series with Craig Thompson Friend” ›
This semester, I assumed instructional responsibilities for the LIB100 class visits to Special Collections and Archives. During these one-off visits, I sometimes choose different materials to exhibit, while these materials have important historical value to the university, I consistently aim to emphasize the research value. While working with collections was an opportunity for me to... Continue reading “A New Semester of LIB 100s” ›
The following is the November 9 keynote presentation I gave for the annual meeting of the Wake Forest Historical Society Board: “It’s a Complicated World: Telling the Story of Wake Forest in the 21st Century” “As a brief introduction – and to give a little context for my presentation today – Special Collections & Archives... Continue reading “It’s a Complicated World: Telling the Story of Wake Forest in the 21st Century – WF Historical Museum Board Annual Meeting Presentation” ›
Having begun publication 60 years after the American Revolution, the Biblical Recorder still had that momentous event as a fresh memory. Veterans of the fight for independence were elderly men in church congregations across the state of North Carolina. So it is not surprising that references to the war often occurred in its print but... Continue reading “The American Revolution, The Biblical Recorder and a Country Church” ›
Since my last update on the Richard Burr Congressional Collection, I have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on the collection. Read my previous blog posts documenting this project: Planning and Processing of the Richard Burr Collection, Richard Burr Collection Processing Update, and An Inside Look at Senator Richard Burr’s Memorabilia Collection. I’ll... Continue reading “Wrapping up the Richard M. Burr Congressional Collection” ›
Hello! I’m Sam Sfirri, the new Collections Archivist in the Special Collections & Archives team at the Z. Smith Reynolds Library at Wake Forest University. It has been almost three months since I started in this position, having worked as a digital archivist for the previous five years at the Kislak Center for Special Collections,... Continue reading “Processing My First Collection as a New Member of the ZSR Special Collections & Archives Team” ›
Continue reading “Author and Researcher Chenita Johnson Book Talk and Reception” ›
The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina was organized in 1830; among its founders were the future first president of Wake Forest College Samuel Wait and Thomas Meredith, the first editor of the Biblical Recorder, the convention’s voice in print since 1835. For 190 years now, the Biblical beliefs, church practices, and struggles of the... Continue reading “The Biblical Recorder and an Origins Story” ›
