Brooks Hays Digital Collection Named Digital Library of the Week

A week after the University Libraries’ special collections department launched the Brooks Hays digital collection, the American Library Association’s American Libraries Direct electronic newsletter named it Digital Library of the Week.

The digital collection, titled “Principles and Politics: Documenting the Career of Congressman Brooks Hays,” includes articles, campaign materials, cartoons and drawings, correspondence, diaries, photographs, poems, prayers, speeches and tributes from his life and seven-decade career.

Congressman Hays earned a place in American history in 1957 when he opposed the efforts of Governor Orval Faubus to stop the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock. Faubus later assisted a segregationist candidate who defeated Hays in his 1958 campaign for reelection.

This is the third time in the past five years that the University Libraries has been chosen as “Digital Library of the Week.” The other two projects include “Senator J.W. Fulbright Speaks” from American Libraries Direct, Nov. 25, 2009, and “Commonwealth College Fortnightly” from American Libraries Direct, July 7, 2010.