What’s Happening in Archives

Typical duties in archives:

I work as the Director of the Archives and Research Center in OKC part-time. In this position, I come into OKC in March (1 week), May (2-3 weeks), July (1-2 weeks), October (2-3 days), and December (1-2 weeks). I also set up an archives table at the Society of Pentecostal Studies each year in March (5 days total). I travel to local IPHC archives and conference camp meetings at times. I work with different IPHC archives directors on projects. This travel, work on site, and preparation for the work takes up about half of the hours I work for the IPHC each year. The on site work is where much of the inventory, scanning, donations processing, and hands-on work gets done.

The other half of my time is taken up with various activities. I serve as the co-leader of the Society and Pentecostal Studies Theology and Education Special Interest Group, and I was recently elected as a member of the Library and Research Committee. A great deal of time and effort went into finding items for the new partnership with the Oklahoma History Center. I also wrote a strategic plan for our center, and I applied for a grant with the Oklahoma History Center last year. While we were not awarded the grant, it was a good learning experience, and I will try again this fall.

Other activities include helping to research needed materials using the E-Archives or M drive, adding resources to our database, reading/doing research for the different online and print resources we provide (see the many links on the archives page to get an idea of part of this), and scanning materials. Please see the bulleted list below to see what is happening with these activities.

Over this last year, I took five graduate level courses in Archival Studies through the Louisiana State University’s online program and earned my certificate in May 2025. Over the next year, I will study for the Society of American Archivist’s Certification Exam and take it in June of 2026. Rev. McDade and I are also devoting quite a bit of time this year to prepping for General Conference, which will be held in July 2026.

Rev. Cherie McDade serves the IPHC Archives and Research Center as the Administrative Assistant. She is also part-time. She works on site two days a week and remotely the rest of the time. Rev. McDade is the one who goes into the vaults when people request physical materials, who meets with scholars who come here to do research, who is on hand for questions when people tour the building, who answers the phones, and who does quite a bit in terms of scanning. She inventories all of the cassettes, VHS, and films we send out for digitization and helps put these onto Dropbox and make links for them in our database. She also does things such as the paperwork for my travel and the American Express bill. She helps me to answer the (surprisingly) many requests for information that we get.

Her most important task is to find and post materials on our Facebook page. I hear a lot of compliments on our Facebook page, and this is her work! This is a very important connection with the IPHC community, as well as many other Pentecostal scholars, including others archives directors and employees. She has been enormously successful sharing our history and has increased the number of followers from about 800 to over 1,300. By raising awareness of our history, we are more likely to become part of the research done by scholars and to be included in the histories and theological materials they create. We also get great help identifying people and places in photos when we don’t have that information, and we have had more donors reach out to us, increasing our already good collection into something that represents more of our people.

Ongoing Projects:

• India–we have several items that go with this location, including an unedited video of an interview with Rev. Howard. This will turn into an on site display as well as a digital one.
• Hong Kong–we are beginning to gather items for this collection. This will turn into an on site display as well as a digital one.
• Africa–we are just starting to look into this.
• Oklahoma history display and adding items to the Oklahoma History Center Digital Partnership. We have been collecting items for an on site display. We hope to add to the partnership later this year.
• IPHC authors–we think we have them all scanned. Now we have to verify. Check and double check.
• J. H. King house–I’m updating displays and putting out materials to tell the story on site at the King House. We have materials to scan and we will be using the King collection for three new internships.
• Three paid internships in June 2026–need to define the roles, plan carefully, and communicate with all colleges and get them on the job boards.
• IPHC archives awards–we will review and make our own nominations and seek those from the colleges and the Pentecostal community as well.
• We are still prepping for General Conference, 2026. This includes a short history of the 1925 conference and materials for our display table as well as for attendees. We pretty much have the archives breakfast prep wrapped up.
• Lake City–I’m going to scan in June. I hope to process these digitized church and leader histories. I will have to plan a trip again next year. Rev. Jones has literally collected several hundred of these treasured pieces! He’s amazing!
• Rev. Tomlinson and I are working with others on creating videos for each important location out here that is linked to our history. This is his idea, and we are going to trying to make this happen this summer.
• The Holmes – Greenville Library partnership. We have a ton of items scanned, and I’m working on the school papers. I have several more hours to go on that aspect. Then these have to be described, labeled according to the library’s system, etc. It will take all summer, I am sure.

Projects on hold: Cornerstone Archives–Rev. Sanders and I made a good start. I will see if I can return to help her scan sometime in the future.

Rev. Tomlinson and I made a good start on the SC Upstate Archives with several items that were digitized and added to the library database.

Current Projects, June 2025:

• I go to Holmes tomorrow to finish up scanning. I will spend several days itemizing what I’ve scanned, and I will work with the Greenville Library to set up a digital collection for them as well as add these items to our database. This will take a great deal of time. Great news: We found a Holmes Bible College song we did not know about! Update: I am not done scanning. Hope to return asap.
• Zach Tomlinson reached out to our team to video several locations important to IPHC history. I’m working with him on this.
• I continue to meet with the SPS Library and Archives Committee. We will will this June, and we will offer a workshop on using the Pentecostal Consortium this fall.
• I still need to process a few items from Dec. 2024 that were digitized, all of the items our vendor brought us in March, and I will get a new batch from him in the next week or two. These always have several hundred items, so they do take a while to process.
• Cherie is still scanning and scanning. We are using 56 photos she scanned of Holmes missionaries in the digital partnership. I want to provide numbers soon that show all she’s doing and all I’m doing. But we are adding to this rather quickly right now, so look for that later this summer.
• I’ve booked travel to Lake City and will work with Rev. Jones and Rev. Sanders (the new Cornerstone Archives Director) to scan local histories during camp meeting this June.
• I need to upload all the materials Rev. Jones helped me gather on the chaplains.
• I am working on two more things for General Conference: bookmarks and brochures. Then I will work on exactly what materials we are putting on display.
• I hope to finish work on the King House materials and then travel there late June to put in two locking display cabinets as well as the materials.
• I am making a plan for our new internships for June 2026. I want to provide a great learning experience for students needing to complete a college internship, but I also need help with some things in archives.
• I have been asked to write an article for next General Conference on the 1925 Conference, so I am going to work on that as well.
• My mom is still scanning some King House materials I brought back with me. There were a great deal of photos and handwritten pages that needed to be put into protective sleeves, so she has been doing that. It’s slow work.

May 2025:

• I scanned in more items for the King Collection and well as our Chaplains page. Rev. Jones reached out to chaplains for photos and bios, and now I have a lot of those to add. Thanks Rev. Jones!
• A great deal of time was spent loading digitized items to our online database. I found Flickr could quickly handle the many photos we have had digitized and uploaded around 1,000 of these.
• I have scanned in minister’s licenses from the early to middle twentieth century.
• We have located some materials that are rare and made sure they are on the library database.
• I scheduled a meeting with Zach Tomlinson next week to work on the Holmes and the Greenville Library digital partnership. Update: I scanned for 7 hours the Tuesday after Memorial Day and go back on Monday, June 2.
• I spent quite a bit of time creating the information and the forms for our new awards. Update: These are now on our website.
• I have begun work on the content needed to share regarding three new internships we will host here next summer in June 2026. These are paid.
• I am in OKC two weeks this month. We have created materials and planned out the Archives Breakfast for General Conference in July 2026 (next year). I’m meeting with vendors and processing digital materials. I’ve spent quite a bit of time updating the IPHC website as well.
• I booked travel to the Lake City, SC Camp Meeting in June so I can work with Rev. Jones on scanning local histories in his archives.
• I booked travel to Falcon, NC in October to attend the Heritage Lectures and Archival Training offered by Rev. Nelms, Director of the NCIPHC Archives.
• I completed my graduate certificate in Archival Studies! Hurray! The IPHC did not pay for my tuition or books, but some of my time set aside for working for the IPHC archives was used to complete the coursework. 
  • The courses I took were:
  • LIS 7408 Introduction to Archival Theory, Principles & Practice | Credit hours: 3
  • LIS 7704 Archival Arrangement & Description | Credit hours: 3
  • LIS 7504 Preservation Management of Physical Records | Credit hours: 3
  • LIS 7703 Advanced Seminar in Archives | Credit hours: 3
  • LIS 7705: Introduction to Museum Management | Credit hours: 3
  • I earned an A in each course.
• I visited the Cornerstone Conference Archives to work with the new director, Kristen Sanders. I scanned several items and added them to our database.
• I visited a donor, Joyce Dixon, to scan in more items from her father’s ministry. He was a North Carolina minister named John Bates.
• I am spending two weeks in OKC. We are planning for General Conference (this will be July 2026).
• I will begin studying to become certified as an archivist in 2026. I will go through the Academy of Certified Archivists.

April 2025:

• I am planning to meet with a donor, Joyce Dixon, early May to scan some more of the new John Bates collection.
• We are getting estimates on restoring a silver tea set from the King House.
• The Oklahoma History Center digital partnership is finished, after I worked to get several descriptions edited more carefully: https://gateway.okhistory.org/explore/partners/IPHCA/. This website gets over a million hits a year, so I’m hoping it raises visibility for the IPHC. In the near future, I’m adding items from the King collection and the Rex collection. Next year, I want to add items from Dan Muse’s collection.
• We are working on a book for the King House.
• Zach Tomlinson, IPHC Archivist for the Upstate and now for Holmes, is working with me on a digital collection for the Greenville Library. We meet late April.
• I’m completing my last graduate archives class.
• We are adding resources to the new Bishop/Superintendent’s page still: https://iphc.org/gso/iphc-superintendents-or-bishops/
• We have reached out to Darrin Rodgers, Director of the AG’s archives, about adding books to the Pentecostal Consortium: https://pentecostalarchives.org/. This is a widely used online archives that he oversees. Dr. Hunter put many materials on this, and now we can work to add more.
• Cherie has been logging in some new donations recently, which includes creating a new inventory of cassettes to be digitized. This does take a bit of time! She’s logged 130 tapes so far.

March 2025 (Remote and on site work labeled);

• We are digitizing sermons on cassette and videos. This is where a significant portion of our budget goes right now, and we make these available for free on the new library database. Why? Because your tithes support our ministry. Please see what we have: https://www.librarycat.org/lib/IPHCArchives. Some of our work is done remotely, and adding these to Dropbox and then creating an entry for these on the library database takes about 3-7 minutes per item. Currently, we have 2,244 items, but some have several links, such as when a cassette is digitized and I group those together for an event or a person. Remote work.
• We are scanning and uploading pictures, sermon notes, and other documents. We also do much of this work remotely, and I currently have all of the 4-6 inch thick yearbooks at my home in South Carolina. These are compilations of minutes, and they are extremely important for telling the story of our denomination. We are working to scan these and add them to our library database. This will take several months. Each is several hundred pages long. Remote work.
• We are scanning books and pamphlets published by all IPHC authors. We are getting closer to finishing this particular task. Much of this is also done remotely. Books out of copyright or with the copyright owned by Advocate Press or the IPHC are linked, full text, to the library database. Those still in copyright are saved both the the M drive (backed up to a server and the cloud) and to two separate hard drives. There are more books than you may realize. Take into account that our leaders, ministers, theologians, and historians started publishing over a hundred years ago. It’s been a huge task, but we have been working on it since I started in July of 2023. Remote work.
• We are turning cds into mp3s and then linking those to the database. There are literally hundreds, and we are moving slowly on this as we have prioritized scanning the IPHC authors and linking the digitized sermons. Remote work.
• We developed a strategic plan for the archives, and I applied for a grant last fall. While we did not get the grant, much good came of articulating our goals clearly. One thing we did was count the boxes and materials that we have in the vaults. There are about 1,500 boxes total. This doesn’t count the other materials. We made “addresses” for each box by labeling every shelf, rack, cabinet, and drawer. We guesstimate that it will take several years to publish a location for each box and the items in each box, but for now, we made a map for each vault and have the collections named. This took us a great deal of time, and it is a major goal for archives to make it easy to find any item (any photo, any document, any book, etc.) in our collection simply by looking it up on our library database and reading the “address.” We are looking for volunteers or interns who may wish to assist with this in the summer. On site work.
• We have been collecting items for an Oklahoma history display since we are located in Oklahoma. We also began a partnership with the Oklahoma History Center, and they have 72 items we digitized for them. It’s been a few months, but the beginnings are now on the partner page. We will be sending them more items. This is very important. Their research center gets over a million visits a year, and we want our history to be accessible or we will be forgotten. Today’s graduate student expects immediate, online access. They do not have the time or financial resources to visit us, so we must work diligently to continue making our resources easily accessible. Both remote and on site work.
• We will be creating a video of our Oklahoma history display when it is done. This is to help those who can’t visit us to see our wonderful treasures! On site work.
• We are preparing for General Conference and the Archives Breakfast. It is a lot of work to plan our display, and our list of speakers and awards that we are planning to share. Both remote and on site work.
• We have been collecting and digitizing items for the 50th anniversary of the Global Ministry Center. That’s this year! 2025! On site work.
• The King House collection exploded after my mom and I were allowed to bring items to OKC. My assistant, Rev. McDade, has been scanning in King family photos and such for the last few months, and mom and I brought a huge amount of photos, letters, and items that we sorted while in OKC this March 2025. We have a collection of letters between Mrs. King and her son while he served in WWII, for example. These treasures are going to be turned into a book that we will sell and donate the profits to the maintenance of the King House in Franklin Springs, Georgia. So stay tuned for progress on this project. I’m also taking display cabinets to the King House, and doing some displays there within the next month or two. On site in Georgia at the King House, as well as remote and on site in OKC.
• Rev. McDade is scanning hymnals when she is not creating amazing Facebook posts and chasing down items for the (surprisingly) many requests we receive for archives. When I became the director in July 2023, I really didn’t think we would get much attention, but we get a request or two at least twice a month. These can take a few minutes or they can take several days. I couldn’t do this job without her! Click on the link below to see that our Facebook business page shows we had 9,509 views in the last 28 days. Click on the second document to see who is following us. We are up to 1, 282 followers. Please join us! Link to our page. Both remote and on site work.

FB

FB followers

• We are sorting out the physical copies of the Advocate into archival sleeves. There are over 3,000. It’s taking us a while, to say the least. On site work.
• Rev. McDade put most of the Worldaramas online, and she’s working on the Links. This has been a huge task! Visit our library database to see. Remote work.
• I redesigned the IPHC website, and I’ve visited the local archives. I’m working with Zach Tomlinson on some projects for Holmes, and Rev. Jones has agreed to let me scan some of his collection of local church histories. Remote work. Also, on site at Holmes and in Lake City, South Carolina.
• I go to the Society of Pentecostal Studies conference each year, and I have a “vendor’s” table. This is an extremely important conference. Why? Because this is where I connect with the other Pentecostal archives director, share how to access our archival resources with graduate students and scholars, and stay current with what’s happening in the realm of Pentecostal studies. Somehow I got roped into being a Special Interest group co-leader last year, and I help form panels for that. Travel.
• What else? Let’s see…I’m scanning in items related to the Noel Brooks collection, and we worked hard to make sure all of his books are online. Remote work.
• Over the last year or so, I linked items published by our IPHC authors to the website, and made comprehensive lists of texts. I am working to scan in the dissertations, with the help of Rev. McDade. Remote work.
• As you can see, our IPHC website will take many more months to develop. Remote work.
• I also have received a substantial donation from Joyce Dixon. Her father was John Bates, and IPHC minister in North Carolina. Many of his sermons will be linked soon. Both remote and on site work.
• I’ve created some simple timelines, but I hope to do more in the future. Remote work.
• I collect the conference minutes for all of the conferences, and I’ve been working to update our records on E-Archives, with Rev. McDade’s help on both. Remote work.
• I interviewed a missionary to India, Rev. Howard, and I hope to see with Leroy Baker this summer. If you would like to be interviewed or know of someone who would like to share their stories with us, please reach out. Both remote and on site work.

Summary of the July 2023- December 2024

• Spent lots of time cleaning out old boxes, extra copies that were not needed, old supplies (for example, cassette tape holders), etc. We filled up 7 small dumpsters.
• Had all boxes moved from off site storage to archives and then cleaned and organized.
• Obtained a new, high speed scanner and got rid of old equipment.
• Got a security camera and changed the locks on the entry and vaults. Terry is supposed to change the locks on the other doors to match one key.
• Redecorated and put out displays. This includes two quilts, some pictures, and two blankets. We put out much of J.H. King’s library for display in a closed cabinet and labeled significant books. We donated the student desks to Southwestern. We put extra copies of books out in the bookcases. Archives keeps three copies of books, so we keep two in the old office. My mother donated her desk, matching wooden file cabinet, and hutch for the front office.
• We grouped boxes in the vaults in terms of their contents. We labeled every stack of shelves, as well as individual shelves, and made a spatial inventory for the first two vaults. We moved all valuable items out of the back storage since it has pipes overhead which have now been repaired twice for leaks.
• I met with the Episcopalian Archives Director in OKC and learned from her. As a result, I got a Dropbox account for me, Cherie, and Zach Tomlinson to use to upload photos, scanned texts, audio recordings, and videos.
• I learned about different “library” systems and chose Tiny Cat. We pay $6 a month (for now—it’s a little more once you hit 5,000 items) and currently have 1,935 items on there. Some are sermons, books, videos, and scanned books. These are all links to the Dropbox file. Others are just the information on the print books we have in closed stacks. Others are photos. All have copyright labels.
• Collected, sorted, and saved conference minutes for most of the conferences that were behind because of Covid. I’ve already asked for minutes again this year, and I’ve received them from a few.
• We currently have 152 books and pamphlets scanned. We have a lot more to go. We are scanning all IPHC authors.
• We have 29 videos digitized.
• We have 589 digitized sermons. Not all of these are on the library database yet. They have to be uploaded to dropbox and then information manually entered for each one. Cherie and I have carefully typed inventories for the vhs and cassettes we’ve sent out.
• I started a partnership with the Greenville Library to get a spot on their digital archives for Holmes. This project was not finished, and I will follow up later this fall to see who will work with me. If we do not make the history accessible, it will not be valued or remembered or used in research for local histories.
• I finished scanning and gathering 72 items for the beginning of our partnership with the Oklahoma History Center. Chad Williams has received the list with the descriptions and key words. He is processing these now. I would like to apply for the $20,000 grant for archives, but I need to build a strategic plan first. I can apply for a smaller grant to build that plan, though, and I will be looking into that soon.
• I attended the Heritage Lectures in Falcon, North Carolina in the fall of 2023. I visited the upstate archives run by Zach Tomlinson in the summer of 2024. I spent a night in Lake City, South Carolina and toured the archives Larry Jones oversees. I plan to make several trips this year with the high speed scanner I purchased to use in South Carolina because he has around 200-300 short histories he’s collected. He’s agreed to meet me in the archives to let me scan those and make them available. I’ve been out to Holmes a few times and Mrs. Thompson let me spend time in that archives. I’ve been to the King House twice now, and I toured it once with Miss Beacham. I took books out there for ministers and their families to read.
• I attended the Society for Pentecostal Studies in Atlanta in March of 2024 and hosted a table for the IPHC archives. I became a co-leader of the Theology and Education Special Interest Group and have worked with Dr. Frederick Ware off and on all summer to get all of that in order. I created social media accounts and have posted to them. I will attend SPS in 2025, and I’m chairing one of the sessions.
• I attended the Leadership Summit in OKC in October 2023 and gave an archives update, and I shared early IPHC history at the Chaplains’ Retreat in OKC in July 2024.
• I’ve created several infographics and added several pages to the archives website. I would like to streamline the website.
• Cherie and I have responded to many requests for documents or information. I’m surprised by how often we are contacted. I would guesstimate 4-6 times a month.
• I interviewed a retired missionary this summer, and I am going to work on shaping a narrative to go with it. I believe Tal’s people are editing this.
• I organized and inventoried all of the closed stack books as well as the contemporary books kept out front.
• I cancelled the off site storage for the microfilm. Because it is very expensive to digitize it, and because we have so much, I’m going to see what each reel contains, see if we have it on the E-Archives, and then decide what to digitize. Chad Williams says I can come on Mondays when the Oklahoma History Center is closed to use their microfilm machine and make digital copies. It will be time consuming, but I plan to spend part of my summer doing that.
• I’ve made several trips to OKC to work: July 2023 (3 weeks), October 2023 (3 days), December 2023 (1 week), March 2024 (1 week), May 2024 (3 weeks), July 2024 (1 and a half weeks). I hope to be there in October 2024 and December 2024 as well. The total number of days on site (which counts Saturdays when I worked them) is around 48 days.
• I bought a small safe and scanned 300 or so pages of inventory information. We have some valuable artifacts, but I need to do more to identify, find, and protect them.
• I started a blog and post periodically.
• Cherie has done phenomenal work with Facebook. We have 1,069 followers. In the last 28 days, we reached 2,601 people and 883 engaged with our posts. Interest varies depending on what Cherie finds in the vaults. For example, 2, 434 were reached by her post on the 1^st Pentecostal World Conference. Other posts receive 50-350 or so as their reach.
• I’ve ordered a few books for the archives, trying to fill in gaps, but I need to pay more attention to this.
• I’ve made some “how to” videos for people trying to use our new database and WorldCat.
• We have copies of some dissertations I would like to scan once we are done with the books.
• Cherie has focused quite a bit on the King House collection, and she has scanned most of it. I helped inventory the books we put on display.
• I started working on an archives certificate through Louisiana State University. I hope to sit for the SAA exam next year to be certified through that organization as well.
• I’m still working on an anthology of IPHC women preachers with Keisha Gordon and Kristen Sanders.
• Cherie and I have been planning for the archives breakfast at the next general conference.