Chloe Edwards, of the Government Records Section, brings us this post in an ongoing series chronicling the construction of the Charlotte Capers Archives and History Building. Many thanks to Ms. Edwards for her research.
The Archives and History Building ultimately retained many of the features originally sketched out by William Morrison in his 1966 building survey. (It was named for Charlotte Capers after her retirement in 1984.) While the Capers Building has four floors instead of five, the foundations were poured to support the construction of two additional floors in later years (although these floors were never added). The first floor housed the public areas, such as the search room, reference library and microfilm rooms, in addition to stack space off limits to the public. The second floor held offices and more stack space, while the third floor was entirely devoted to the stacks. The basement contained the archivists’ work area, with spaces for receiving new collections, processing, fumigation, photoduplication, and storage. The staff lounge was also located in the basement.
References:
Mississippi Department of Archives and History in-house workshop on giving building tours, June 10, 1971 audio transcript (http://mdah.ms.gov/arrec/digital_archives/vault/projects/OHtranscripts/AU710_104014.pdf)
Series 1258: Charlotte Capers Building Files, 1928-1992. Box 4899.
Subject file: Archives and History Building, 1966-1970
Subject file: Archives and History Building, 1971 (dedication year)
A Building Survey for a New Archives Building, for the Board of Trustees, Department of Archives and History, prepared by William D. Morrison, Jr., 1966
Tauches, Karen. “The Fate of History: The Old Archives Building is Under Review.” Burnaway, published July 22, 2011. Accessed April 3, 2014 at http://burnaway.org/the-fate-of-history-the-old-archives-building-is-under-review/
CR&HM. Accessed April 3, 2014 at http://www.dalepartners.com/civic-corporate/wfm-archives-and-history/
WFM Archives and History. Accessed April 3, 2014 at http://www.dalepartners.com/civic-corporate/crhm/
Money conversions performed at http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl