{"id":52918,"date":"2015-06-11T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2015\/06\/11\/library-staffer-unpacks-a-legends-lifes-work\/"},"modified":"2022-09-02T19:56:47","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T00:56:47","slug":"library-staffer-unpacks-a-legends-lifes-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2015\/06\/11\/library-staffer-unpacks-a-legends-lifes-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Library staffer unpacks a legend’s life’s work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nWhen young Wolf Wolfensberger escaped Nazi Germany for Denmark, then later immigrated to the United States, he took a few things with him.<\/p>\n

\nFor the rest of his life, he kept them.<\/p>\n

\nTurns out, he kept everything.<\/p>\n

\nTurns out, he gave everything.<\/p>\n

\nWolf Wolfsensberger, Ph.D., was an extraordinary man. He came to America. He educated himself. He was a researcher at the former Nebraska Psychiatric Institute from 1964 to 1971 and a faculty member in the department of psychiatry that would later become part of UNMC. He would become a world-renowned advocate for, and expert on the care of, the developmentally disabled.<\/p>\n

\n“He revolutionized services for people with disabilities,” said Mike Leibowitz, Ph.D., director of Munroe-Meyer Institute.<\/p>\n

\nDuring a period when the developmentally disabled were routinely shifted off to institutions, literally cast off from society, he recognized their humanity.<\/p>\n

\nWe know he gave everything because he kept everything. He saved it all. The sheer volume is staggering.<\/p>\n

\nWhen it arrived, the collection took up 1,584 square feet. “The size of a house!” McGoogan Library of Medicine head of special collections John Schleicher said.<\/p>\n

\nDr. Wolfensberger had worked at several places. After he died in 2011, most institutions looked at his collection and wanted portions. But only one – the McGoogan Library – wanted all of it.<\/p>\n

\nMunroe-Meyer Institute, the Nebraska Developmental Disabilities Council and UNMC collaborated to take the entire collection. All the scratch paper. All the boxes. All the books. All the items. A lifetime worth of stuff.<\/p>\n

\nNow, it is present day and another man is combing through it. Another man is starting to feel Dr. Wolfensberger’s passion. Another man may be finding his own life’s work.<\/p>\n

\nOf all the rarities within this collection, Cameron Boettcher believes he has become the rarest of them all.<\/p>\n

\n“A history major with a job,” Boettcher said, and laughed. “That’s me.”<\/p>\n

\nA library assistant in the McGoogan Library of Medicine, he tackles his Herculean task of unpacking, archiving, organizing, digitizing and curating the massive collection with a young man’s enthusiasm, wide eyes and bursting heart.<\/p>\n

\nThere were 35 filing cabinets; 450 boxes. There were 4,550 books and monographs, 598 journal volumes and thousands of file folders.<\/p>\n

\n“Fifty years of advances for the developmentally disabled,” Boettcher said.<\/p>\n

\nBecause of Dr. Wolfensberger’s efforts, Boettcher said, people who otherwise would have been shipped to institutions are now in classrooms, working, living full lives.<\/p>\n

\nBoettcher looked out over the collection, shook his head and grinned.<\/p>\n

\nHe’s determined to sift this vast collection into something the public can appreciate, so the world can see who Wolf Wolfensberger was, what he did and what his work meant.<\/p>\n

\nBecause he gave so much.<\/p>\nKxa HA<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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