Barbara and Justus Paul
co-author Wisconsin History
A
guide to the thousands of literary resources of Wisconsin history has
been written by a husband and wife who are faculty members at the
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
Barbara Dotts Paul, an associate professor in the University Library, and Justus F. Paul, a professor of history and dean of the College of Letters and Science, have compiled Wisconsin History: An Annotated Bibliography. Published as part of a series of state bibliographies by Greenwood Press, the reference work is now available for use in libraries, universities, colleges and high schools.
The volume is the only comprehensive, up-to-date bibliography on Wisconsin’s 150-year history published since 1947.
The book provides 3,400 entries arranged in chronological and topical chapters and includes chapters on prehistory, Indian tribal history, early exploration and settlement, statehood, the Progressive era, the world wars and the Depression and the years since 1945. It includes citations from archival resources, monographs, journal articles, dissertations, conference proceedings, local and state publications and reference works.
This is the second collaboration for the couple, who also edited The Badger State: a Documentary History of Wisconsin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979) together in 1979.
"We knew there was a need for a bibliography," Barbara says. "I think the book is a solid contribution to the state’s history that will stand for many years."
The couple began work on the book about three years ago and spent much time doing research at the State Historical Library and other libraries. With piles of books before them, each would concentrate on materials of a certain subject matter.
"We tended to work at the project in different ways, with Barbara working from the specific to the more general while I was inclined to begin with the general and look for specific items to fill gaps," Justus said.
Barbara added that although they worked differently, they enjoyed working together and discussing what could be considered historical literature for the purposes of the bibliography.
"An academic bibliography is not something you do for any kind of reward other than completing it," said Barbara. "But I enjoy the gathering of materials, making of lists and searching out the correct citations."
Their research led to many more entries than could be cited within the mandated length, Justus said, so they eliminated many less important items to fit the publisher’s requirements.
"We probably could have found as many as 10,000," he said.
After the annotated citations were keyed into a word processing program, Sandy Wanserski, a college support specialist for the College of Letters and Science, was hired to prepare camera-ready pages for Greenwood Press. The 442-page manuscript was completed in December of last year.
Barbara has been at UWSP since 1967 and earned degrees at UWSP, Nebraska University and UW-Madison. She has published two other scholarly bibliographies, The Germans After World War II (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1990) and The Polish-German Borderlands (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1994). She is a member of the Association for the Bibliography of History, Wisconsin Library Association and the state and county historical societies.
Justus
came to UWSP in 1966, serving as dean of the College of Letters and
Science since 1986 and serving long terms as chair of the Faculty Senate
and History Department. In 1994 he wrote
The World is Ours: A History of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens
Point (Stevens Point: University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Foundation Press, c1994), to help commemorate the university’s
centennial. He earned degrees at Doane College in Nebraska, UW-Madison
and the University of Nebraska. He is a native of Booneville, Mo., and
has taught at Wausau Senior High School and the University of Nebraska.
The couple has three grown children.
Wisconsin History is available from booksellers nationwide. To read the entire press release from Greenwood Press, click on the URL below:
Article courtesy of UWSP News Services