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This report on the activities related to the Papers of Katherine Anne Porter and other Porter-related collections at the University of Maryland Libraries covers the period between April 2000 and April 2001. There were fewer on-site researchers during this year because of the Archives and Manuscripts Department's move from McKeldin Library to Hornbake Library in January 2001. Nine on-site Porter researchers consulted Porter or Porter-related collections in the thirteen-month period covered by this report. Those from out-of-state came from Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. The single foreign researcher was Elisabeth Lamothe, a member of the faculty and Ph. D. candidate of the Departement des Pays Anglophones, Université Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux, who spent six weeks researching her dissertation in College Park. Five of the on-site Porter researchers were University of Maryland students or Maryland residents. Telephone, mail, and e-mail inquiries have also been received from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, DC. I also corresponded about Porter with individuals from Argentina, Austria, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, and Spain. During this period, the Libraries supplied more than 2,700 photocopies to meet researcher demand, provided thirty-one prints of photographs, and loaned seven reels of the microfilm edition of the Porter papers.

Popular interest in Porter remains high. Prior to the move of the Porter Room from McKeldin Library to its current location, there were 181 visitors to the Katherine Anne Porter Room. The room was only open on twelve Monday and Thursday afternoons in McKeldin Library before mid-May 2000, when we began packing its contents for the move. The enthusiastic band of volunteer docents, Freddy Baer, Shirley Bauer, Dorothy Galvin, Beverly Lewoc, Joan Phelan, and Betty Warner, have all promised to return when the room reopens to the public on a regular basis in September 2001. About forty individuals visited the McKeldin Porter Room during our second all-campus open house on April 29, 2000. This year, Jessica Ford Cameron, my graduate assistant, and I entertained approximately sixty visitors during the event on April 28, which marked the unofficial opening of the Hornbake Porter Room. Popular interest in Porter is also evident in two local publications. Martha Hopkins and Sheila Harrington's A Literary Map of Washington, DC, published by the Washington Chapter of the Women's National Book Association, features KAP's Washington area homes and haunts including the Porter Room. An article that grew from the map project, Martha Hopkins's "Author, Author," which appeared in the Washington Post, "Weekend," on October 13, 2000, featured a photograph of her and description of the Porter Room.

The Libraries received a number of donations that increased or benefited the Libraries' Porter and Porter-related holdings in the last year. Clark Dobson, whose earlier gift of Porter's wooden coffin now graces the Porter Room, gave the Libraries a significant portion of his own Katherine Anne Porter collection. His donation includes Porter correspondence, most addressed to Dobson and Jack Horner and dating from 1958 to 1978; a lock of her hair in an inscribed envelope; eight photographs of her (1958-1974); and music, both bound and sheet, that had formerly been hers. Paul Porter donated Porter's copy of Ernst and Johanna Lehner's Devils, Demons, Death and Damnation (New York: Dover, 1971). KAP's inscription on the bookplate reads "Theophila/Born free--she daily thrashed her weight in eager gentlemen cats who couldn't take no for an answer. New York City/1920/Greenwich Village/ No friend to witches, my Theophila--she knew a trick worth 3 of theirs--K.A.P. Last Day Summer, 1975." This book has been incorporated into Porter's library. A generous monetary gift from the Literary Trust of the Estate of Katherine Anne Porter provided support for some of the enhancements and renovations in the Hornbake Katherine Anne Porter Room, which will be detailed below.

The Libraries' Porter holdings also benefited from significant support from two volunteers. Bill Wilkins, who has been providing me support for five years, was indispensable this year. Not only did he review and revise the new arrangement of the photographs in the Porter papers, he was involved in nearly every aspect of preparing the literary manuscript collections for our January move. In June, he helped me pack the memorabilia in the Porter Room. Over the course of many months, he assisted in tying and taping the collections for the move, in labelling the boxes with their exact shelf locations, and in packing my office. He remains an exemplary volunteer who has become an integral part of our operation. Danielle DuMerer, a graduate student in the College of Information Studies, completed the arrangement and description of the Papers of Herbert Schaumann as a practicum under my direction. This collection of twenty-five letters and other correspondence exchanged by Porter and Schaumann between 1944 and 1947 was acquired from Waverley Auctions in May 2000. Schaumann (1909-1982) was a minor poet, a World War II veteran, and an associate professor of Comparative Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Maryland. In 1944 Schaumann met Katherine Anne Porter in Washington, D.C. In the period covered by the correspondence, they developed and ended an intimate relationship. Their letters include discussion of World War II, films, and writing, as well as personal matters.

Last year, I reported that construction for the portions of Hornbake Library, where the Libraries' Special Collections were to move, was scheduled to be complete in July 2000. In fact, renovations to the first two floors of the facility, which house Marylandia and Rare Books, the National Trust for Historic Preservation Library Collection, and my department (Archives and Manuscripts), are only nearing full completion in mid-May 2001. Important features of the new Porter Room were not complete by January 8, 2001, the date on which our actual move began, nor were they complete on January 23, when everything except the furnishings of the Porter Room was settled in Hornbake Library. The actual move, though physically demanding, went extremely well. This undoubtedly was due to the extensive preparations by Special Collections staff, students, and volunteers. As I have previously alluded, preparations began with packing the memorabilia and framed items in the Porter Room last spring. Soon thereafter, staff and students of Marylandia and Rare Books moved Porter's books from the bookcases in the Porter Room to interim storage in the rare books stacks, so that the book cases could be disassembled and reassembled in the new Porter Room. Further preparations for the move involved tying or taping every single box of our holdings (approximately five linear miles), wrapping and securing items in mapcases, labelling every one of our archival boxes with its exact shelf location in the new facility, and packing and labelling the contents of offices and storage spaces as well as our supplies. When the move actually began, Special Collections staff and students both packed and supervised packing of books and archival boxes onto carts and wheeled boxes. Because McKeldin and Hornbake Libraries remained open to the public during the move, Special Collections staff and students as well as other Libraries' colleagues provided security for our collections in areas where they were staged before being loaded on trucks.

Our Special Collections reading room in McKeldin, the Maryland Room, closed on December 15, 2000. The Hornbake Library Maryland Room did not open to the public until February 12, 2001, primarily because we did not have necessary computers, electrical power, and network connections until nearly the date on which the room opened. Of course, various parts of the renovation continued after February 12. These included completion of key elements of the exhibit room that fronts the new Maryland Room on the first floor of the library: application of stencilled signatures on the plate glass walls and installation of track lighting. In addition, a campus vice president in Facilities decided to fund lobby improvements, which were not actually part of the scope of the project: demolition, drywall, lighting installation, refinishing, and painting. The contractor for this work proposed finishing it before the new lobby and stair carpets were laid (in time for the April 28 all-campus open house). In fact, most of this work was completed by our deadline.

Between November and April 28, my greatest concern was the Porter Room and its contents. Don Williams, the furniture conservator who had begun work on Porter's eighteenth-century serpentine sofa at the end of November, completed the conservation and reupholstery at the end of March. The piece, which not only looks magnificent, is now completely stabilized, thanks to the generosity of Paul Porter. While the Porter Room was closed, a local firm cleaned and appraised Porter's large Persian carpet, and another reframed some of the room's framed items. In late November, carpenters disassembled the walnut bookcases in the McKeldin Porter Room and transported them to the new Porter Room in Hornbake Library. Additional walnut bookcases that had been stored since the 1991-1993 McKeldin renovation were also installed in the new room and several of the bookcases were reconfigured. As a result, additional walnut stock had to be ordered, bleached, and stained to match the existing wood and milled to order. The installation of this millwork and walnut baseboard in the Porter Room and the corridor leading into the room was completed on January 26. At about this time, one of the university's carpenters securely mounted the Thibault de Navarre portrait of Porter on the north wall of the room. New drapes were hung on March 21, and the track lighting installation was completed on April 2. Movers brought the antique furniture to Hornbake Library on April 13, a Friday, and luckily everything survived intact. Between April 13 and 27, my faithful spouse helped me hang framed items on the walls and adjust the track lighting. We were not able to move Porter's library books into the new Porter Room until glass shelf liners to protect them from the wooden shelves were installed on April 24. Bill Wilkins, Jessica Ford Cameron, graduate students Susan Keller and Ozgul Tamur, and I moved the books on April 25, 26, and 27. The end of this long saga is happy. The Katherine Anne Porter Room in Hornbake Library was open and received guests on Saturday, April 28. I urge members of the society to visit this beautiful installation. I will be giving tours on demand and expect to have the room open on a regular basis, staffed by the docents, during the academic year. My colleagues and I in Special Collections are working with the President's Office as well as our Dean of Libraries to get a special event celebrating our new facility on the calendar sometime in the next year. When plans have been finalized, I will see that all members of the society receive invitations.

Anyone who has questions concerning the Porter Room or the Libraries' Porter holdings should not hesitate to contact me, Curator of Literary Manuscripts, Archives and Manuscripts, Hornbake Library, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, 301-405-9298, ra60@umail.umd.edu To locate the Katherine Anne Porter resources on the Libraries' Web site, begin at http://www.umd.edu/UMCP/ARCV/litmss.html and follow the appropriate links.