Reid’s official papers to land at UNR

WASHINGTON — Sen. Harry Reid is donating his official and personal papers to the University of Nevada, Reno, a trove of almost 35 years of documents and electronic files a school official says will provide treasure for researchers seeking to understand the powerful Nevadan and his role in recent U.S. history.

About 30 boxes of documents from Reid's early days as a U.S. congressman already are in the school's possession.

But that is expected to be dwarfed by what the retiring Reid will have compiled during a 30-year Senate career including eight years as Senate Majority Leader between 2006 and 2014. The university is expecting more than 2,000 boxes to be delivered before his service officially ends in January 2017, as well as three terabytes of material stored electronically.

"There are so many pivotal issues that I think will be illuminated by his papers," said Kathy Ray, UNR dean of university libraries. "We all feel this sense of stewardship about making sure we do the best job of making these available and helping people use them, especially historians."

Landing Reid's papers represents a coup for the Northern Nevada school, which also is the caretaker of manuscript collections donated by former Sens. Paul Laxalt, Alan Bible, John Ensign and Richard Bryan, as well as former Reps. Barbara Vucanovich and Jim Santini, who died this week.

The papers of former Sen. Pat McCarran are held by the Nevada Historical Society, which is located on the UNR campus but is not part of the university.

The Lied Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, holds the papers of former senators Howard Cannon and Chic Hecht and former Rep. Shelley Berkley.

Reid grew up in Searchlight and lived there for many years, spent his early professional years in Las Vegas, and is retiring to a home in Henderson. But he said in an interview there was never a question but that his papers would end up at UNR.

Reid said he and the university signed an agreement 30 years ago signaling his intentions to place his papers at the Northern Nevada school. Ray said university officials checked back about five years ago to see if that remained his desire.

More recently, Jacquelyn Sundstrand, manuscripts and archives librarian, has visited with Reid staff on document transition, according to Ray. Most of Reid's collection is housed in government storage lockers in suburban Maryland.

In an interview, Reid said he had an affinity for UNR stemming from it graduating his older brother Don in the 1950s. Donald Reid died in 2013.

"No. 1, I had a brother who graduated from there," Reid said. "Most people don't realize I was not the only one (of four brothers) to go to school. My brother struggled so hard to get out of school."

Reid said there were several other reasons.

UNR "always has had a really strong history department," he said. "I've watched it become so good."

Also, he said, "I do so much for Southern Nevada — that is my home — I thought it was important that I do something for the northern part of the state. These papers are nice for somebody to sort through and I've got thousands of boxes."

Patricia Iannuzzi, dean of university libraries at UNLV, said she inquired about Reid's collections when she joined the school in 2005, "but they already had been earmarked for UNR.

"We are happy that his papers will be available, even if they will not be housed at the UNLV University Libraries," Iannuzzi said in a statement.

Reid's collection would join others at UNR housed in the 295,000-square foot Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center, a state of the art facility completed in 2008 that combines traditional library resources with high tech digital technologies.

Ray said it was not known yet how long it will take to sort and catalog Reid's material, which is expected to provide insight on his long career including advocacy of environmental legislation in Nevada, his judicial appointments and his work on the Senate Appropriations Committee to steer millions in earmarked funds to the state.

Reid's papers also should shed light on the fight against Yucca Mountain, his activities in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, debates over the war in Iraq and the Affordable Care Act, and his relationships with Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

"We don't have a good sense yet of what we're going to get," Ray said. "We can't immediately process two thousand boxes so we have identified secure and environmentally protected areas on campus to simply hold the collection so we can process it."

In addition to electronic records, Reid's collection will total more than 2,000 cubic feet of material, Ray said. A cubic foot is roughly equivalent to a standard-size file box.

By comparison, the collection of Laxalt, who served in the Senate from December 1974 through the end of 1986, totals 785 cubic feet, according to the university. Bible, a senator for 20 years between 1954 and 1974, had a collection totaling 320 cubic feet.

Ray said a portion of material at Reid's request will be embargoed for release 15 years after he retires. Karen Paul, an archivist in the U.S. Senate Historical Office, said it is not unusual for senators to write embargoes into agreements for their official papers.

Contact Review-Journal Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@reviewjournal.com or 202-783-1760. Find him on Twitter: @STetreaultDC.