The Hannah Arendt Papers: Acknowledgments

The generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation made the digitization of the Hannah Arendt Papers possible.

Special thanks go to staff at the New School University, New York, for their collaboration on this project, particularly the director of the Hannah Arendt Center, Jerome Kohn, who consulted with the project team on a variety of topics and wrote the accompanying essay. Gail Persky, University Librarian, participated in the development of the grant proposal and is coordinating the display of the full collection at the Hannah Arendt Center at the New School University. Antonia Grunenburg served in a similar role for the project’s other collaborative partner, the Hannah Arendt Center at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. Stefan Ahrens, a graduate student at the University of Oldenburg, provided access to the university’s database of information about the Hannah Arendt Papers.

Abigail Grotke, Project Leader, coordinated the overall production of the Hannah Arendt Papers digitization project. She was responsible for overseeing the scanning, image quality review, and copyright permission process. She also coordinated efforts between the Manuscript Division and the National Digital Library Program of the Library of Congress, the New School University, and the Oldenburg Arendt Center.

The production team consisted of the following members over the course of the project: Katy Caron, Laura Gottesman, Colleen Byrne Wallace, Barbara Weiss, Ann Wilkens, and Theresa Wilson. Though some have since moved on, all provided major support in the following areas: preparation of the collection for scanning, production data management, image quality review, deposit of delivered images into a digital repository, and the extensive review of items and research related to obtaining permission from copyright holders to use materials online. Colleen Byrne Wallace and Laura Gottesman also helped prepare framework materials for the online presentation of the collection.

In the Manuscript Division, Assistant Chief David Wigdor and Paul Chestnut, Head of the Preparation Section, worked with the New School University and the Oldenburg Arendt Center to obtain the grant from the Mellon Foundation. Both provided invaluable support and guidance to the production team throughout the course of the project, sharing their administrative expertise and assisting in decision making regarding the scanning of the Arendt Papers and manuscript collections in general.

Senior Archivist Michael Spangler reprocessed the Hannah Arendt Papers and revised the finding aid before scanning, with assistance from Archives Technicians Alys Glaze and Kathryn Sukites. The archives team embraced their additional roles of preparing materials for scanning and collecting massive amounts of information about items in need of copyright clearance. Manuscript Division interns Debra Tomaras and Priscilla Foley also provided assistance in these efforts.

The help of the following Manuscript Division staff members is most appreciated. Assistant Head for Processing Allan Teichroew provided support during many phases of processing and preparation for scanning. Karen Stuart assisted with network connections and computer support. Frederick Bauman translated German documents during the copyright review process. Richard Bickel helped arrange space for the scanning operation. Bebe Overmiller ordered the mailing supplies for copyright permissions requests and coordinated the sorting and delivery of mail returned to the Arendt production team.

Various National Digital Library Program staff members provided indispensable support to the production team. We would particularly like to thank Tamara Swora-Gober and Martha Anderson for their guidance with production planning and development. Nancy Eichacker and Daphne Hawkins provided the managerial framework for the project. Beth Davis-Brown and Ariel Rosenblum served as the contracting officer's technical representatives for the scanning contract. Margaret Alessi shared her experiences with the digitization of manuscript collections. Elizabeth Madden assisted with the creation and continuing evolution of the production database and developed a complex system that automated the process of printing and mailing thousands of permissions letters. Christopher Pohlhaus and David Brooks coordinated the receipt and review of image batches from the scanning contractor. Steven C. McCollum and Deborah Thomas assisted in the creation of derivative images. Emily Lind Baker and Jurretta Jordan Hecksher edited the framework materials. Andrea Dillon was responsible for the Web page design and final production.

Melissa Smith-Levine, National Digital Library Program legal advisor, advised the team on the extensive copyright issues for the Hannah Arendt Papers. NDLP Law Librarian Emily Howie was especially effective as research coordinator and primary contact with the public concerning permission to use the thousands of items in the Arendt Papers.

From Information Technology Services (ITS), David Woodward was responsible for the programming of indexing, the display of the documents, and most notably, the special programming for the public version of the Web site.

From the Conservation Division, Alan Haley worked with the scanning contractors to ensure safe handling of the Arendt Papers. He also coordinated and oversaw all conservation efforts in the project and completed treatments with the help of the following conservators in the Preventive Conservation Section; Kaare Chaffee, Jane Kogi, Sonja Reid, and Hans Wang.

Dottie Denchy and Pauline Bushrod of the Budget Office, Library Services and Molly Ho Hughes Johnson of the National Digital Library Program assisted with the management and tracking of grant funds.

The scanning contractor, Systems Integration Group, Inc. (SIG), of Lanham, Maryland, produced the digital images. Special thanks go to Imelda Chase and Arnold Goodman for scanning the collection and preparing the digital images and to Valencia Downing, Art Brown, and Dan Pence for managerial support.