FEATURE
Special Investigation:
Cats in the Archives
Looking southeast at the main (north) entrance of Renne Library on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Photo by Tim Evanson, shared courtesy of CC BY-SA 2.0.
For centuries, cats have been employed as pest control in archives and libraries around the world. Sadly (as I have to remind my own two furry friends each morning), that is not the case at Montana State University (MSU) Library. Instead, during our work hours, our staff has to make do with images of cats found in the collections of our donors. Since January 2024, we have been able to share our illustrative felines with patrons who visit our Archives and Special Collections (ASC) through a simple, yet delightful little display, and they have made archives just a little more approachable.
Inviting Patrons In
Archives can be a bit of an enigma for patrons (or potential patrons). Every archive differs in materials they house, collecting scopes, access rules, and ways to discover what they have. Meanwhile, there is a history of archives being exclusively for “serious researchers” and, overall, being very strict with their rules. At the MSU ASC, we have been working hard to overturn these stereotypes. Over the last few years we have made a serious effort to improve our outreach to students, faculty, and community members to let them know that we are open to ALL researchers. We have professors bring their classes in for an introduction to our resources, we are heavily active in the library’s outreach events, and we regularly search for new ways to send the message that patrons are welcome and encouraged to use our collections. We also look for ways to send the message that our archivists and staff aren’t the old stereotype of the stuffy, shushing librarians. We are fun, and our collections can be too.
One way we accomplish our outreach mission is by sparking curiosity about what our collections hold. We make regular use of a few display cases outside our reading room, in the main library building, but well-curated displays take considerable time to plan and execute. Meanwhile, with a simple pegboard and a few printed images, we have been able to captivate numerous passersby with a topic near and dear to our librarians’ hearts, our feline friends.
Original installment of the “Special Investigation: Cats in the Archives” clue board. Photo by Mel Pomeroy.
Finding Some Felines
Something we already do, and a simple joy of working in the archives, is uncovering images of cats (as well as dogs, or random sketches on letters, or an unexpected poem) in a collection and sharing them amongst our colleagues. When we were tasked with creating decorations for the annual library Open House, I seized immediately on this as an opportunity to share these discoveries with some of our patrons. The Open House theme in 2024 was International Mystery, and the ASC decided to decorate ourselves as a private investigator’s office, complete with a “clue board” titled “Special Investigation: Cats in the Archives.”
The board was very simple. A 48” (122 cm) by 36” (91 cm) pegboard, with laser printed pictures, blown up newspaper clippings, and cards pulled directly out of our card catalog, all affixed with yellow and blue (MSU colors) push pins. There are about 32 objects with simple citations (because librarians love proper citations). Its presence not only brings joy to any cat lover, but it also has the added bonus of covering a poorly painted section of our reading room wall. Open House visitors enjoyed seeing it at the event, and it has continued to improve our outreach by still being up and visible over a year later.
Discussing Discoveries
When a patron (often a student visiting for a class session) stops to admire it, a member of ASC staff points out some of our favorite finds and discusses some of the research methods we used to put the board together.
Some of my favorite discoveries are the images of “Moxie” in the August Hormay Collection. August “Gus” Hormay was a range scientist. His collection is predominately research on rest-rotation range management. However, mixed in with his photographs of rangeland, are images of his pets and other animals he encountered.
My original investigation of our digital collections did not reveal these items, but Heather Mulliner (Librarian and Archivist) had spent a lot of time with that collection and knew there was something to discover. So, our investigation switched from looking at the digital collection to examining the finding aid. (Finding aids are the typical way that archivists describe the contents and context for an archival collection.) A full text search of the Hormay finding aid for “pets” brought up a number of objects, including photos of a cat named “Moxie.” we were able to search again using the cat’s name and found more images.
When ASC staff point these images out to patrons, we like to relate the story about how we found them. Then, we have the opportunity to focus on one of a few different points, depending on what the patron might be interested in: 1) you sometimes need to change your search tactics and/or use different research tools, 2) it can be very helpful to reach out to the ASC staff about advice on researching your topic, or 3) sometimes you find things in surprising places. I wouldn’t have found Moxie without Heather’s help, especially on a tight timeline. We work so closely with these collections that we can often direct patrons to places they might not have explored or give advice on improving the search terms for better results.
Portrait of Moxie the Cat, 1942. Photo courtesy of August "Gus" Ludwig Hormay.
Portrait of Moxie the Cat, 1942. Photo courtesy of August "Gus" Ludwig Hormay.
“Mistakes” are Teachable Too!
A search for cats through some of our other digitized collections and finding aids also resulted in hits from some of our other notable collections, such as images of a very young Ivan Doig (western author) with his pet cats, and some images of stuffed Garfield toys stuck to a shop window (also from the Ivan Doig Papers). We found images of James Willard Schultz (western author and historian) proudly showing off his cat. Cats were tucked in pictures of country homes, barns, and in family photographs. The search for more could have continued indefinitely, but only so much could fit on our little board, and we had a deadline of being ready for the Open House.
Some of the items that ended up on the board could have been considered bad results if we had been researchers earnestly looking for images of felines. Items like the program for an MSU Theater production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or “Klondike Cat,” which turned out to be the script for a play in the Virginia S. Burlingame (professor and children’s author) Papers. We went ahead and included these “mistakes” anyway, and they were great for starting conversations about how sometimes you get things that don’t really fit when you are doing research. Sometimes, these results mean you need to adjust your search terms. Sometimes, it's easy to identify and dismiss items; for example, many people know that Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a famous play and probably not an image of a cat. But with items like “Klondike Cat,” we don’t know what they are (an image? an essay? a drawing? etc.) until we pull them out and look at them, which is a good lesson about patience in research.
James Willard Schults Holding a Cat. Photo by James Willard Schultz.
Creative Problem Solving
An additional challenge/opportunity we had while building the board was that the MSU mascot is a bobcat. That meant we couldn’t do a search for “cat” or “bobcat” in our student newspaper, the Exponent, since almost every issue talks about our football, basketball, or other sports teams (all referred to as the Bobcats). This was unfortunate because the Exponent is an invaluable resource for university history, and we have a digital collection of nearly all Exponent issues dating back to 1895!
However, we did discover a number of Exponent clippings when we explored the University “Print Archives” which is an early collection of university history, cataloged by subject, and only accessible through a card catalog. Searching under “Bobcat,” we found entries for “Bobcat mascot” which included articles about “Fang”—a live bobcat owned and cared for by one of the campus fraternities.
An updated version of the “Special Investigation: Cats in the Archives” board for extended use. Photo by Christina Trunnell.
Short Term to Long Term
The resulting board was intentionally a bit chaotic (as you would expect on a detective agency clue board), but students, professors, and community researchers continued to stop and admire our furry friends. When we decided to keep the board up for a prolonged period, I adjusted it for broader use. Straighter lines, clear citation text, and items from the same collections grouped together.
Not long after the board was updated, some representatives from August “Gus” Ludwig Hormay’s estate visited ASC to discuss funding future projects. They were delighted to see Moxie and other Hormay cats so prominently displayed in our reading room and shared stories about Hormay’s love of animals. It was a great example of the ways the collection is about much more than range management.
Man and horse in mountain meadow. Photo by Frederika E Marshall.
Repeating the Wonder
Our Special Investigation has been up for over a year now. Many of MSU professors will be returning with new students, so we plan to give the board another update. It’s time for new four-legged friends to grace our reading room, and every dog should have its day right?
To expedite the process a bit, over the last few months my colleagues have been documenting the canines they have encountered while working with collections. We are very close to Yellowstone National Park, so we expect some interesting results when we search for wolves, coyotes, and foxes. I anticipate some intriguing entries, too, in MSU students’ theses and dissertations (all digitally available), and in some films in our Filmmaking Archive of the Montana State University Science and Natural History MFA Program collection.
Into the future, we intend to continue to update the board with topics our staff enjoy discovering. Topics our patrons might not expect to find in our research collections. Topics that we stumble upon and discover we have more than we expected. It is our hope that our enjoyment of the topics and of the process of discovery will come across to our patrons, and illustrate that our staff is a fun group of people with similar interests to our visitors. Our goal is to keep the process quick, simple, and overall FUN for everyone involved.
