Herman Robert Otness Papers, 1916-1995

Most material in this Manuscript Group was in no apparent order when received, the exceptions being the material relating to his sabbatical travels and the educational tests. Series order was, therefore, imposed during processing. Some material was in folders and in these cases the original folder headings were retained.

Material relating to Dr. Otness's teaching career at the University of Idaho are in the first series. This material was divided into several sub-series, the first of which includes class handouts, lecture notes and tests; these materials are arranged by class. The second group of material concerns his sabbatical in 1966 during which he visited university psychology departments and agencies which treat handicapped individuals in the Northwest, Western Canada, and Scandinavia. The material includes notes on people and institutions visited and brochures. These are arranged alphabetically by institution or location. The final sub-series includes material related to his teaching such as information on the State Hospital North, Orofino, where he often took students on field trips, conferences on exceptional children which he organized, theses committees on which he served, and lectures on mental deficiency given in Moscow.

The second series concerns his pre U of I career, most notably The Training School at Vineland, New Jersey, the U.S. Navy, and Rainier State School, Buckley, Washington. The Vineland material includes information on the school, a collection of psychological and intelligence tests used at the school, and a list of books which he donated to the school in 1989. The Navy material includes reports on offenders, questionnaires, and manuscripts and related correspondence of articles Otness wrote on naval offenders. The final folders in this series concern Rainier State School and include correspondence, newspaper clippings, writings of mentally defective children, and items on the 50th anniversary celebration of the school in 1989.

Non-professional involvements or personal material is contained in series three. Included are Otness's published articles; guest lists and photographs from the children's parties he and his wife hosted on July 4 and Christmas; correspondence, both personal and professional; articles on friends; material of Lillian Otness; and folders reflecting his interest in magic, the Moscow community theater and Special Olympics. Also included are hand written notes made during lectures, speeches he gave, and papers, class notes, etc., from his student days at New York University. These materials are arranged alphabetically by subject. The correspondence is in chronological order, with the exception of several folders which Otness had labeled by subject.

Series four contains items of professional interest. Most of these materials are magazine articles, brochures, or printed charts. The subjects containing the most information are Vision, Hearing, and Mental Retardation.

As a clinical psychologist, Otness collected a large number of educational and psychological tests which are in series five. These he arranged by type, e.g., Aptitude, Intelligence, Personality, etc.; they are then arranged alphabetically within these divisions. Also included are a clock test which Otness developed in which elementary students were asked to draw a clock and identify the time shown on the face. This test was given at Moscow elementary schools and also the Alberta Guidance Clinic in Red Deer, Alberta in the fall of 1966, in conjunction with a "draw a figure test."

The final series, series VI, consists of reel to reel tape recordings of radio programs and speeches. Identification on the boxes or reels was sparse, so not much is known about the contents.

Multiple copies of test and manuals were removed from the collection. Published books were also removed unless they related to test material.. The donation included a number of large home-made display posters, occupying over 30 linear feet of shelf space, with pictures cut from magazines mounted on them; these were discarded. Magazine articles mounted on the posters were removed from the cardboard and placed in folders. A folder of X-rays was discarded. The arts and crafts of handicapped people were sent to the College of Family and Consumer Science for classroom use; only a few small samples were retained in the processed collection. The Otness clock and draw a figure test were sampled; two sets were retained for each grade in Moscow schools, and the first and last sets were retained from the Alberta Guidance Clinic. Travel brochures and theater programs were also removed. Case studies done by Otness of navy offenders were also sampled. Researchers using this material are requested to respect the confidentiality of these records by not using names of the individuals in any research or reports resulting from such use. In all the collection was reduced by 40 feet. 2025 Finding Aid and Collection Update

This collection was reprocessed in July 2025 by Zoe Baum once it was determined that related, unprocessed accessions donated by H.R. Otness were to be added to the existing collection MG 379. The pre-existing processed materials were kept in the original processed order when appropriate; however, some materials were notably misplaced and were moved to follow the appropriate pre-existing organizational pattern. Since many of the series were organized alphabetically, archivists followed original order when appropriate but rearranged some folders to follow a topical pattern. Every folder and box was relabeled and renumbered to reflect the reprocessed collection and added materials. Series and sub-series titles that were not created by Otness were updated to reflect current appropriate verbiage, when appropriate. Series VI and it's sub-series maintained the original titles. The materials added from the accessions processed in 2025 included 11 boxes of photographs, scrapbooks, film, negatives, tapes, and other ephemera. Duplicates of prints and negatives were discarded. Photographs were grouped according to pre-labeled folder titles, by subject, personal family materials, and date. Item counts, subjects, dates, and other information are written on the archival envelopes in which the prints and negatives are stored. Titles and labels for folders were maintained when possible and provided by the donor, however a self-imposed organizational system was given for unlabeled or unidentified materials. These materials were added to new subsequent series in the collection, so as to retain the original processed order from 1997. The scrapbooks were scanned to retain the original order of the photographs before the prints and/or negatives were rehoused. These scans are available with advanced notice.