June 14, 2013
By Ned Kehde
On June 1, 2012, we posted a blog entitled "Archives of angling." It focused on the birth of The Bass Fishing Archives and the work of Terry Battisti and Pete Robbins.
It also lamented that historical societies across the nation have failed to collect the archives of the angling world. And we hoped that Battisti and Robbins' work and their Web site would provoke some archivists to become interested in collecting the various records about angling so that historians of this sport a hundred years from now can examine them and write a thorough and enthralling history of what transpired and why 30,000,000 Americans purchased fishing licenses each year during the first decade of the 21st century.
To our delight, Bob Knecht and Nancy Sherbet of the Kansas State Historical Society arrived at our house around 10 a.m. on June 12. They picked up 24 cubic feet of a collection called the Midwest Anglers' Archives, which chronicles about 30 years of certain segments of the angling world in Kansas, Missouri and nearby states.
Now we hope that Knecht and Sherbert's work will spawn other archivists across the nation to start collecting the archives of angling.
Endnotes:
(1) Here's the link to the "Arhives of angling" blog:
http://www.in-fisherman.com/2012/06/01/archives-of-angling/
(2) Here's the link The Bass Fishing Archives: www.BassFishingArchives.com
