Billy Graham Center Archives Annual Report - 1999 Annual Report - Public Service
Public Service
In February, evangelist Howard Jones was the speaker at the College's annual African American Church Lecture. As part of the program, the Archives provided a clip (see above) from a 1968 film of Dr. Jones giving the Easter sunrise service sermon at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on on the relation of racial conflict in the United States to the country's need for Christ.
1/99 "Thank you for all the info and picture. I will use it for a bulletin board in my classroom.
We are reading the biography of Sunday by Elaine Cunningham (5th and 6th graders at a Christian school) Thanks again!!!! God bless you for your efforts." E-mail from a teacher at a Christian secondary school, about information she had received on Billy Sunday
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Public Service Statistics 1980-1999
| Year |
80 |
81 |
82 |
83 |
84 |
85 |
86 |
87 |
88 |
89 |
90 |
91 |
92 |
93 |
94 |
95 |
96 |
97 |
98 |
99 |
| BGEA |
25 |
30 |
27 |
31 |
22 |
34 |
22 |
40 |
36 |
39 |
30 |
59 |
56 |
53 |
19 |
26 |
60 |
34 |
36 |
32 |
| Classes |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
24 |
20 |
21 |
14 |
18 |
13 |
20 |
17 |
| E-Mail |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
38 |
38 |
64 |
89 |
147 |
274 |
291 |
467 |
| Faxes |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
6 |
7 |
3 |
5 |
4 |
3 |
| Inter-Library
Loans |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3 |
7 |
6 |
12 |
7 |
6 |
21 |
| Letters |
|
|
78 |
67 |
64 |
63 |
59 |
46 |
95 |
72 |
64 |
58 |
69 |
60 |
61 |
57 |
34 |
28 |
20 |
12 |
| Personal
Contacts |
|
|
284 |
507 |
310 |
354 |
762 |
709 |
502 |
434 |
869 |
344 |
96 |
40 |
75 |
64 |
53 |
49 |
36 |
22 |
| Phone Calls |
|
|
78 |
132 |
82 |
85 |
127 |
136 |
95 |
114 |
114 |
133 |
215 |
128 |
181 |
194 |
171 |
179 |
163 |
132 |
| Presentations |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
7 |
12 |
10 |
14 |
9 |
9 |
| Totals |
25 |
30 |
467 |
737 |
478 |
536 |
970 |
931 |
728 |
659 |
1077 |
594 |
498 |
342 |
441 |
469 |
508 |
603 |
585 |
715 |
Notes:
All categories are exclusive. That is, if a phone caller asks for an inter-library loan, the request is counted under "Inter-Library Loan" or Phone" but not under both.
BGEA: Requests for information from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Presentations: Lecture given to a group outside of the Reading Room
Classes: Lecture given to a group in the Reading Room
Presentations: Lectures given anywhere outside of the Reading Room
Personal Contacts: Assistance given by staff to a researcher on a one-to-one basis, outside of
the Reading Room.
Before 1991, all assistance that was not for the BGEA or was not given in a letter or over the phone was lumped together as "Personal Contact." Also, before 1991, if a staff member spoke to a class of 30 people, that was counted as 30 Personal contacts. Now it would be counted as 1 class.
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Click on any or all of the these links to see the year's issues of the Archives newsletter.
January 1999
May 1999
September 1999
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Organizations Assisted
In May Church of the Nazarene archivist Stan Ingersol (in center) and Nazarene Theological Seminary president Gordon Wetmore (right) came to Wheaton to get the advice of the Archives staff on the new Nazarene Historical Center which was being discussed.
The Archives helped many different groups throughout the year. In some cases, the help consisted of an answer to a single question; in others, many hours of staff time went into making sure people found the documents or data they needed. Following is a list of some of those we worked with:
ABC News
Action International Ministries
American Enterprise Institute
Assembly of God Archives
Beacon of Hope Outreach Center
Bellesville News-Democrat newspaper
Bethany International Fellowship
Bill Glass Ministries
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
Black Mountain News
Books & Culture
Cable Network News
Campus Crusade for Christ
China Outreach Ministry
Christianity Today International
Covenant Resource Center
Creative Media Development
Discovery Channel
Douglas Shaw and Associates
DuPage County Heritage Gallery
Emmanuel Baptist Church
Eerdmans Publishers
FilmRoos
First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana
First Free Church of Fullerton, California
Focus on the Family
Fuller Theological Seminary
Glen Ellyn Congregational Church
Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History, Duke University
Harvest Ministries
Jonathan David Publishing Company
Los Angeles Public Library
Lutheran Theological Seminary of Philadelphia
Marion Wade Center
Middle Tennessee Billy Graham Crusade
Minneapolis city government
Mobile Register newspaper
Moody Bible Institute
The Moody Church of Chicago
Motion Video Productions
National Public Radio
National Religious Broadcasters
New Forum Publications
NTM Worldwide Christian Broadcasters
Oakland Public Library
Ohio Historical Society
Owen Electric Pictures
Oxford University Press
Pantheon Productions
Pensacola Bible College
Salem Radio Network
Shiloh Museum of Ozark History
Station KSTK of St. Louis
Station WGBH-TV of Boston
Station WLS of Chicago
Stonecroft Ministries
Strang Communication Company
Total Living Network
Touch Canada Broadcasting
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Tyndale Publishers
Voice of Israel
Wheaton College Alumni Office
Wheaton College Advancement
Wheaton College Publications Department
Wheaton College Archives
Willow Creek Community Church
Yokohma Kyoritsu Gakuen (Christian girls school in Japan)
Youth for Christ of the United States
Youth for Christ of Australia
Zondervan Publishers
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Helping Other Archives of the Church
(Left) Jan Nasgowitz, Bob Shuster, Irene Wong and Wayne Weber just before Irene's return to Hong Kong in June. (Right) Irene talking to the staff of Wheaton College's Buswell Library about library theory and practice in China.
The Archives had special opportunities during the year to assist other organizations that were preserving the documents of Christian history. Hong Kong Baptist University had just recently founded the Archive on the History of Christianity in China, but did not have on its staff anyone with archival training. The BGC Archives, to assist HKBU in preserving and making available documents of the story of the Chinese church, agreed to provide a six month archival internship for one of the professional librarians from the University's staff. In the first week of January 1999, during a miserable snowstorm that even made the weather-wise inhabitants of Chicago look thoughtful, Irene Wong arrived to begin her internship. Over the next six months the staff gave her many hours of practical instruction in archival acquisition, processing, reference, outreach, and oral history. The staff also went over with Irene many aspects of archival theory, including the development of collecting policies. At the same time she attended Patrick Quinn's highly regarded class on archives at Rosary College. During her half year in the United States, Irene also attended two major archival conferences and visited numerous other archives. In 2000, Paul Ericksen of the Archives staff will be visiting Hong Kong Baptist University to assist Irene in the development of the archives there and to provide a workshop and lectures for church archivists in the city.
The staff received from Irene at least as much as they gave. As part of her training she processed or updated several collections which are now available to researchers. And the insights of this professional colleague during her six month visit were always stimulating and helpful and allowed us to see our work in new ways. Click here to read Irene's report about her visit.
In May, another archivist visited the BGC to receive and give help. Campus Crusade for Christ International is one of the most influential evangelistic organizations in the country. CCCI recently began a program of preserving its files, files that tell an important part of the story of Christian evangelism and American Protestant Evangelicalism over the last half century. Paula Marolis is head of the program and she spent several days with the BGC Archives staff, observing and discussing our procedures. She also, like Irene, helped out with the processing of one of our collections.
Paula Marolis with the files of Africa Inland Mission she was arranging.
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The Internet
During 1999, 13,977 users visited the Archives home page, a 33% increase from the previous year. The Archives took major steps during the year to make its holdings even more accessible through the Internet. Among the past years accomplishments were:
...the transition to an Internet-accessible and searchable database. Since 1985, staff and
researchers in the Reading Room have relied on the microfiche index (pictured at its retirement at the top of this report) to search for relevant collections on specific subjects. Those same searches can now be done directly by those on the Internet or in the Reading Room at http://abigail.wheaton.edu/archives
...the availability of the first motion picture footage through the Archives Web site. On October 9, 1999, the Archives launched its latest on-line exhibit, "As This Is Our First Broadcast..." to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the airing of Percy Crawford's first Youth on the March television program. This program marking the beginning of televangelism is the centerpiece of the exhibit which can be viewed at http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/crawford.htm
...the opening of an extensive chronology of the history of Billy Graham and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association to those beyond Archives staff and on-site researchers at http://www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/bgeachro/bgeachron02.htm
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