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Searching for Love Canal Documents 

Please excuse cross-postings. This message is being forwarded to several
electronic lists.

The Niagara Falls (NY) Public Library, under a grant from the Niagara
County Environmental Fund, is seeking to locate, identify and record
original documents related to the Love Canal.

 As field archivist for this project, it is my hope that some of the
unique, uncatalogued or undocumented records may located through postings
such as this. 

I have done extensive searches in OCLC, World Cat, First Search, Library
of Congress, on-line academic library catalogs and used standard search
engines, especially Google in identifying titles and resources related to
Love Canal. 

The New York State Library and the New York State Archives also are
assisting with identifying records included in state departmental records.
Much cold calling to repositories, networking among professionals who
worked on Love
Canal related issues, friends-of-friends, etc., also is occurring. 

The goal of the project is to develop a systematic inventory and survey of
documents... including organizational and government  reports
(especially unpublished), public information records, correspondence
(public and private), photographs (including video or film),meeting
minutes, real estate transfers, court cases, etc. As the project
progresses a comprehensive public access database
will be developed for easy identification and location of records with
instructions for access and retrieval.

The Love Canal crisis was a watershed environmental event. The
 nature of the event necessitated expert assistance in a
broad arena of disciplines from law to science and technology, medicine
and health related fields, education, social services, building and
transportation, etc. As the events of the crisis unfolded, neighborhood
and ecumenical
groups formed to elicit assistance from local, state and federal agencies.
However, in 1978, at the height of the first "man-made" toxic federal
emergency, many government agencies did not have policies or plans in
place to deal with such an event; remediation of such toxic chemical sites
was not yet law.

Because Love Canal records are increasingly in danger of being destroyed 
or lost, and because these records are so historically important, this
project also has a conservation/preservation component.  Much
of the searching for documents occurs beyond standard
archives, historical societies, government record offices,
etc. Grey and fugitive literature is a large part of the
"paper trail" of Love Canal. This necessitates searching for records
in unlikely places (i.e., church basements, former residents private
collections and mementos, law offices, neighborhood coalitions, etc.).

If you know of any Love Canal or related documents, I would very much
appreciate hearing from you. We are not seeking to take possession of
them, although if the opportunity arises, we will make every effort to
provide for an archival repository.

 We are also interested in hearing from former residents of the Love Canal
area. If you know of a group or agency that formed as a result of the
activist model created by former Love Canal residents, we also would be
interested in hearing from you...especially if
you live or work in the Great Lakes region, including Canadian neighbors.   
We also are interested in hearing from professionals (i.e., lawyers,
researchers, health care providers, social service personnel
media, including news anchors, reporters, film makers (and actors), 
clergy, activists,etc.) whose careers may have been impacted by their
involvement in Love Canal.

The Niagara County Environmental Fund, whose funds support this project,
was established as part of the Love Canal settlement between New York
State and Occidental Chemical Corp. It provides grants to encourage,
inspire and facilitate activities by volunteers, organizations and
educational institutions to enhance and restore, maintain, care for and
provide access to Niagara County's environment and ecology, as well as
educate people of all ages about the county's environment. The grant is
administered by the New York State Center for Hazardous Waste Management
at the University at Buffalo. Selected documents from The University at
Buffalo Archives extensive Love Canal collection may be viewed at 


If you have any questions regarding this project, or believe you can
provide some leads...please contact me via e-mail
at: kdelaney@acsu.buffalo.edu or via the telephone/fax or postal address
below.

Thank you for your help.


Kathleen M. DeLaney, MA, MLS
Project Archivist
University at Buffalo
University Archives
420 Capen Hall, North Campus  
Buffalo, New York 14260-2200, USA
e-mail: kdelaney@acsu.buffalo.edu
tel: 716-645-2916
fax: 716-645-3714
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