10-27-2008: Here’s some logic puzzles used by Senator Metzenbaum’s staff for fun. See how many you can work out. Sorry-no answer keys were found. Good luck! (Click on an image to enlarge)
10-2-2008: Here’s an article with some little known facts about Howard Metzenbaum. It gives some insight into his life apart from the U.S. Senate (i.e. I never would have guessed his favorite food to be dill pickles.)
9-20-2008: Again illustrating the versatility of Senator Metzenbaum’s collection, we’ve found this letter and accompanying license plate. Documents in this collection range from important legislative research to whimsical requests and beyond. (Click on an image to enlarge)
09-03-2008: Here’s a sampling of a voter survey from 1976 dealing with Metzenbaum, his opponent in the primaries and various other issues. We thought it was interesting because again we see several of the issues discussed in the survey (energy policy, oil company profits, health care, etc.) are still being debated in the federal government today. A state level focus was also brought into the survey with questions like what is good or bad about living in Ohio. It was also fun to see the categories the respondents were put into and what other information was gathered- i.e. favorite TV show, radio station and how they described the candidates. (Click on an image to enlarge)
08-15-2008: You never know what you’re going to come across in a collection-here’s an amusing article from one of Senator Metzenbaum’s scrapbooks.
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08-12-2008: Various segments of Senator Metzenbaum’s collection carry restrictions. This is a common occurrence, sometimes due to information of a sensitive nature or because of donor wishes. We are very careful to follow these restrictions to protect all involved. There are specific restrictions on this collection as well due to special circumstances for congressional records. For example, a Senator’s papers are his property-not the property of the Senate or government as one might think. However, committee files are property of the Senate. So, there may be committee files in a Senator’s collection (from committees that he/she served on) that may be restricted. It all depends on their age and the discretion of the Senate committee. We come across issues like this pretty regularly which differ on a case-by-case basis.
08-01-2008: In processing this series of records we find it very interesting how complicated the legislative process actually is and how many people work behind the scenes when it comes to writing and passing legislation. For those who are unfamiliar with what processing a collection is: What we do as processors of the Metzebaum collection is organize, describe, and inventory the senator’s papers so that researchers will have a “map” so to speak to make it easier for them to find what they are looking for. Right now we are working on the legislative records portion of the collection.
07-25-2008: Here’s a speech of Senator Howard Metzenbaum’s from 1974 that’s very politically relevant today. It’s interesting to note that the U.S. is currently confronted with many of the same issues it was dealing with more than 30 years ago.
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07-16-2008: Take a look at one of the most interesting pieces of memorabilia the processing team has come across so far:President Richard Nixon’s “enemies list” including Howard Metzenbaum:
