Annie Belle Weaver Special Collections
University Archives, Local History, Rare Books
& Political Collections
Annie Belle Weaver (1904-1991) was hired by West Georgia College President I. S. Ingram in 1933 to be the college's first librarian when the library was one room in the west wing of the Administration Building. During her long tenure here, she saw the construction of the first library building, Sanford Hall, which now houses the President's offices, and the current Ingram Library building finished in 1968. Ms. Weaver retired a year later. Under former Library Director Charles Beard, Ms. Weaver was memorialized in 1981 with the naming of the Annie Belle Weaver Special Collections, now housed on the third floor of Ingram Library.
Special Collections include:
- University of West Georgia Archives, which comprises papers of permanent value of the university administration as well as individual faculty manuscript and book collections. Notable among these collections are papers of humanistic psychology and parapsychology scholars, including Sidney Jourard, who founded the American Association for Humanistic Psychology, Carmi Harari, who founded the division of humanistic psychology within the American Psychology Association, and author William Roll who has written extensively about poltergeists and psychical research.
- Georgia's Political Heritage Program, a growing collection of papers and oral history interviews with prominent current and former Georgia political figures at the state and federal level. Notable collections are former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the late Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy and several former U.S. and Georgia state legislators and governors.
- West Georgia Local History, in collaboration with the University's Center for Public History, which collects the history and cultural, architectural, and folk life resources of the broader west Georgia region. Collections include University and Carroll County oral histories, white and African American folk music recordings, and mill community histories.
- Rare Books, a collection of about 1,500 volumes primarily published in the late 19th and early 20th century. Monographs of current and former faculty are actively collected.
- Sacred Harp Music, culturally represented in this region along with the history of American psalmody, especially dealing with the origin and practice of shaped note singing.
Georgia's Political Heritage Program
Library Director E. Lorene Flanders with Newt Gingrich on the publication last year of his book of historical fiction, Pearl Harbor.
Begun in 1985 by Dr. Mel Steely, Professor Emeritus, Georgia's Political Heritage Program is a video/audio interview collection that captures the memory of Georgia's political leaders as they relate their roles in the state's political history. The Annie Belle Weaver Special Collections serves as repository for these interviews as well as the political papers of former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Congressmen Bob Barr and Pat Swindall, Georgia Senators J. Ebb Duncan, Bill Hamrick and Wayne Garner, and Representatives Carolyn Lee, John Simpson, Tracy Stallings, and Charles Thomas. Interviews with all the former governors of Georgia since World War II are included with the exceptions of M. E. Thompson and Marvin Griffin, who died prior to the program's existence.
Interviews include key political figures such as Senator Herman Talmadge, Andrew Young, Hosea Williams, and many individuals who have represented the West Georgia region. Governor Sonny Perdue has agreed to be interviewed for the video collection, which is currently being digitized and made available online under an agreement with Georgia Public Broadcasting.
The program's collections include the papers and office contents of long-time Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy, who will be memorialized with an exhibit re-creation of his Capitol office under an $8.3 million library renovation plan.