“Pacific Wine and Spirit Review” Now Being Scanned

By Bo Simons

Internet Archive ( http://www.archive.org/ ) has begun to digitally scan The Pacific Wine and Spirit Review (PWSR), a project funded by Wine Librarians Association (WLA).  When the WLA met on September 15, 2008, at Cornell, we voted to fund the digitization of the San Francisco Public Library’s run of this important Nineteenth Century wine trade periodical.  While no exact date when the run of PWSR will be available has been announced, this marks continued progress on an effort that stretches back decades.

Susan Goldstein, City Archivist of San Francisco, reported to us in December, 2008, that:  “that the first three cartons of Pacific Wine and Spirit Reviews are at the scanners. Three more boxes are at our Preservation Dept. where they’re mending paper tears and other problems before being sent out for scanning. So we’re on our way!”

This announcing email from Susan caps over twenty-three years of searching for a way to make this important resource available.  Historian William Heintz began this odyssey to make the PWSR available in 1985.  In a letter to then-librarian John B. McConnell at UC Davis dated October 23, 1985, Heintz lamented the fact that no institution had a complete run of the periodical, and none had microfilmed what they had.  McConnell started the process that got those years that UC Davis and UC Berkeley owned microfilmed.  Unfortunately that only covered 1906 through 1919.  The full run goes back to 1879.  Over the years the periodical went through several name changes, from The San Francisco Merchant to The San Francisco Merchant/Viticulturist and The San Francisco Merchant/Pacific Wine And Spirit Review and the Pacific Wine, Spirit and Brewing Review.  There were some false starts trying to get copies from the California State Library and the Library of Congress whose holdings did not pan out to be any more extensive.

San Francisco Public Library had a run that went from 1883 to the periodical’s final issue at the start of Prohibition in 1919.  The problem was that these issues were beautifully but tightly bound, with no appreciable gutter.  That meant that to microfilm this treasure, it would be necessary to destroy the bibliographic integrity of this one-of-a-kind archival treasure.

This impasse held for a number of years.  Heintz brought this to the attention of the Wine Librarians Association at an early in 2000.  We retraced some of Heintz’s steps to verify that only San Francisco Public Library had the fullest run.

Then in October, 2005 officers of the Wine Librarians Association, Secretary Gail Unzelman, Treasurer Callie Konno, and myself, the President, drove to San Francisco.  We met with Susan Goldstein, manager of the San Francisco City Archives, at her offices on the 6th floor of the new San Francisco Public Library.   We explained our mission to make the PWSR available.  We thought there might be some new, less invasive digital technology that would get us past the “destroy the resource to save it” choice that had stymied us.

Susan had a great solution.  She coincidentally had been communicating with the Internet Archive and the Open Content Alliance about digitizing some of the Archives treasures, specifically old San Francisco City Directories.  The Internet Archive is a project spearheaded by Internet visionary Brewster Kahle as an entirely legal alternative to the Google Books Project.  They were scanning only out-of-copyright materials.  They were using the latest high tech gentle-on-rare-books scanners, and charging only a fraction of the costs in order to get content up on the Internet Archive.  Susan thought that, if the Wine Librarians Association agreed to pay the ten cents a page scanning fee for the approximately 20,000 pages of for the thirty-seven years of the Pacific Wine and Spirit Review, she would move the project up to the top.

It took us three years, from 2005 to 2008, to surmount several hurdles on this project.  SFPL had to do a trial run with the San Francisco City Directories, to see if the scanning and interface provided by Internet Archive met with their criteria and standards.   The Wine Librarians Association then had to meet after the green light from SFPL to appropriate the $2,000 to fund the project.  We took that vote in September at Cornell, and now Susan has reported the start of the scanning.  Stay tuned for details.

Words of thanks about the 2008 WLA meeting – Marty Schlabach

The Wine Librarians Association meeting of 2008 is now several weeks past and we are moving on to pursue some of the projects, ideas, and other initiatives we discussed over the course of the two day meeting.  More than 30 people who enjoy the literature of wine and grapes attended some or all of the events and activities.  I would like to take the time to thank the many, many people who participated and helped make it a success. 

At the risk of leaving some people out, I’ll attempt to mention all involved.

Thanks go to:

Marcie Jacklin, Brock University Library, for getting the Sunday night arrivals together for dinner at the Stone Cutters Cafe.

Nancy Long, Rob Way, Donna Boyce, Elaine Gotham, Joe Ogrodnick of Communication Services who worked on many components of the event including registration, the web-based meeting info, brochure, publicity, plaque design and editing, food, scheduling and much more.

Michael Rockliff, Workman Publishing Company, for providing copies of two wine books and a wine calendar as gifts to each meeting participant.

Alan Lakso, CU Professor of Horticultural Sciences, for his welcome to the Experiment Station and introduction to the enology and viticulture research, education and extension work at Cornell.

Tom Burr, Experiment Station Director, for his support in hosting this event in Geneva.

Bo Simon, our president, for organizing and leading the Monday morning meeting.  And for all his work on facilitating our publishing and digitizing projects.  And in general, for his leadership.

Gail Unzelman, our secretary, for her membership and treasurer reports, her management of membership, and in general her enthusiasm and support for our organization and for wine and grape literature, not the least of which is publishing The Wayward Tendril Quarterly, copies of which she made available to attendees. 

Doug Cook, from Able Grape, for his online remote demo of Able Grape, a wine and grape web search engine.

Lee Library Staff for providing lunch on Monday.

Bruce Reisch, CU Professor of Horticultural Sciences, for his presentation on the breeding and development of the Traminette grape and the subsequent Traminette wine tasting.  Thanks also go to Mike Fordon for compiling the handout on Traminette, and who with Holly King arranged for the wines we tasted.  Thanks also to Holly, Mike and Mary Jean Welser for assisting with the tasting.

Marilyn Konopka, from Constellation Wines, for her presentation on the new electronic resource, FIVS-Abridge, a new database of international wine regulatory information.  And to Ramón Mira de Orduña, CU Enology Professor, for his comments on the value he and his students find in the use of FIVS-Abridge and the several students who attended this session with him.

Adiva Sotzsky, Information Research Specialist, US Alcohol & Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau, for her presentation on the services and resources of her agency.

Marjorie Parrott Adams, Archival & Curatorial Consultant, for her report on the wax fruit and vegetable collection at the Experiment Station and her contributions to inventorying it and showing us a wide array of grape specimen from the collection.

Andrea Davis, Simmons School of Library & Information Student, for her report on her work at the Sonoma County Wine Library project to preserve a collection of 16mm wine films, and covert to DVD.

Chris Gerling, Cornell Extension Enologist, (and others in his group) for the tour of the Vinification & Brewing Lab, overview of their work and a Merlot tasting.

Chuck Simon, USDA Grape Curator in the Plant Genetic Resources Unit, and Heidi Schwaninger for the field tour of the repository vineyard, and explanation/demonstration of a wide array of grape species and tastes of several varieties.

Mike Fordon, Holly King, and Jane Irwin for the tour of Lee Library, and Mike for putting together the exhibit, “From the Vineyard to the Table”.  Jane also staffed the Library during our two day event, and missed most all the activities, except dinner at Fox Run.

Scott Osborn, Fox Run Vineyards owner, for the informative and enjoyable tasting at his winery and Frank Caravita, Executive Chef at Fox Run Vineyards, for the tremendous dinner with perfectly paired wines for each course. Jeff Shampnois, Don Schnedeker, and Karen Bobbett for hosting our tuesday morning coffee break and giving a tour of the library, their exhibit, “Wines and Grapes in Hospitality” and Jeff’s terroir poster.

 

Marty Schlabach for giving the brief tour of the Entomology Library and the “Phylloxera” exhibit curated by Ashley Miller.

Janet McCue, Eveline Ferretti, Liz Brown, Howard Raskin, Shirley Cowles and others at Mann Library for hosting lunch, a tour of the exhibit about current wine and grape research at Cornell, “We Grow the Grapes”, the winery and vineyard photography show in the gallery and a brief tour of the recently renovated Mann Library.

Sherry Vance, Bailey Hortorium, for their exhibit, “The Compleat Grape” and for joining us for our Mann Library visit.

Bob Kibbee, Maps Librarian, for his wine and grape map exhibit, “Cartobibulosity”, and subsequent visit to the map collection to see additional maps of interest.

Katherine Reagan, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, for her overview of the Eastern Wine and Grape Archive.  And thanks to Hudson Cattell, one of the primary advocates for the establishment of the Archive, for his additional comments on the background of the Archive.

Gary Cox and Jane Oakes, York Historical Society, for their two talks on their research into Samuel Warren and York Wines, documenting what is likely the earliest commercial wine production in NY.

John Slater,  railroad and Lake Erie grape belt historian, for his talk on fresh grape shipping from the Lake Erie Grape Belt in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Suzi Teghtmeyer, Michigan State University Library, for her talk on the history of the Missouri grape and wine history. 

Jim Trezise, New York Wine and Grape Foundation, for his optimistic view of the future of NY’s wine and grape industry and his enthusiastic presentation.

Elaine Engst, Katherine Reagan, Evan Earle, CJ Lance, Ellen Marsh, Lynn Bertoia, and others of CUL Rare & Manuscripts Collections, and CUL Communications for hosting the afternoon events, tours of the exhibit, “Song of the Vine”,  and the wonderful reception, with NY wine, lotsa good food and that wine sorbet from Cayuga Lake Creamery.

Bob Madill, Sheldrake Point Vineyard winegrower, for the winetasting and Sam Izzo, Chef, Simply Red Bistro, for the wonderful dinner at Sheldrake Point.

Most of us could have kept chatting, eating and drinking on into the night, but it had to draw to a close. 

A general and big thank you goes to Lee Library staff for helping with the many aspects of making this event successful, particularly Holly King who handled an endless number of details.

And the final thanks go to all the attendees, whose participation and engagement made this meeting a very beneficial and enjoyable event.

For those who missed this event, several of the comments from participants are attached.

If you haven’t already joined the Wine Librarians Association, I would encourage you do contact Gail Unzelman <nomis@jps.net> about membership.

Best,
Marty