Introduction

[Kathleen DeLaney <kdelaney@acsu.buffalo.edu>]

I am a project archivist at the University at Buffalo (New York)
Archives. This past summer I received a grant from the Niagara
County Environmental Fund to locate, identify and document records
related to Love Canal for the Niagara Falls Public Library. The
Fund comes through the Love Canal settlement between New York State
and Occidental Chemical Corp.; and, supports projects "to educate,
encourage,inspire and facilitate activities that enhance , restore,
maintain or provide access to Niagara County's environment and
ecology."

This year 46 projects were awarded funds for projects ranging from
covert surveillance of environmental crimes for the City of Niagara
Falls Police Department to environmental restoration of the Upper
Niagara River.

Since 1997, I have worked with the Love Canal Collection at the
University at Buffalo Archives. This is one of largest collections
available to researchers on the Love Canal disaster. I am continually
struck not only by the multi-disciplinary aspect of the collection,
but also by the type of "researcher" interested in using it. Our
patrons range from youngsters writing their first essay on "the
environment" to advanced and post-doc researchers searching for
very specific information, or grey literature related to the
disaster.

Given its historic importance, the fragmented nature and location
of documents associated with, and describing the events of Love
Canal, the goal of this project is to

  * develop a systematic inventory and survey of documents related
  to Love Canal including historical, governmental, personal,
  scientific, and interpretive materials.

  *provide a public access database for easy access and retrieval
  of Love Canal documents increasingly in danger of being lost or
  destroyed, and

  *provide for an archival repository (electronic and physical) to
  preserve Love Canal documents increasingly in danger of being
  lost or destoyed.

Among other tasks will be to conduct oral histories with past and current
residents of the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls. 

A county-wide education process to ensure that the material is
accessible to Niagara County school children, local educators,
community groups and scholars, and interested individuals also will
be addressed. The local, national and worldwide interest in Love
Canal, so synonomous with the environmental movement, will ensure
the development of comprehensive finding aids, brochures and the
all important website.

In the early part of my career I was a technical writer for an
environmental consulting company who worked on environmental impact
statements at Love Canal. My work as an archivist on this project
brings me full circle.

Selected documents from The University at Buffalo Archives Love
Canal Collection can be viewed at:
<http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/lovecanal/> The unique
nature of the Collection has prompted inqueries literally from
around the world.

>From this dialogue, I hope to determine better ways for my colleagues
and me to provide better access to archival or primary documents.

Cheers,

Kathleen DeLaney, Project Archivist
Love Canal Archives Project of the
Niagara Falls Public Library
c/o University at Buffalo Archives
420 Capen Hall, North Campus
Buffalo, New York 14260-2200
tel: 716-645-2916/fax:716-645-3714
e-mail: kdelaney@acsu.buffalo.edu