Open to public research. To access the collection a patron must have the following information: collection number, box number, folder number and item number. The materials do not circulate and are available in USU's Special Collections and Archives. Patrons must sign and comply with the USU Special Collections and Archives Use Agreement and Reproduction Order form as well as any restrictions placed by the collector or informant(s).
It is the responsibility of the user to obtain permission to publish from the owner of the copyright (the institution, the creator of the record, the author or his/her transferees, heirs, legates, or literary executors). The user agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the Utah State University Libraries, its officers, employees, and agents from and against all claims made by any person asserting that he or she is an owner of copyright.
Permission to publish material from the the Skaggs Foundation cowboy poetry collection must
be obtained from the
Originally created by a donation from the L. J. and Mary Skaggs Foundation. Recent acquisitions have come through university purchase or donations from poets and collectors.
Register created by Susan Gross & Randy Williams, April 2004. Last revised by Randy Williams, February 2007.
Skaggs Foundation cowboy poetry collection, 1890s-2008 (FOLK COLL 011)
Chronological by year.
Folk Coll 11 is Utah State University's cowboy poetry collection. The collection, originally created by a generous donation by the L. J. and Mary Skaggs Foundation, includes books that were gathered during a fieldwork project in the early 1980s to document cowboy poetry in the U.S. west. (See Folk Coll 11f.) From this important fieldwork project came the impetus for the first Cowboy Poetry Gathering held in January 1985 in Elko, Nevada. Since that time, each January, the Fife Folklore Archives staff take the collection and Access database (that details each book, poem, author, first line and key words), to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering for offsite use. Through University purchases and generation donations from poets and collectors, this collection continues to grow.
The collection consists of 20 linear feet of books on cowboy poetry, including press and self published works. The collection can be accessed through USU Libraries online catalog.
The link above will provide access to a database of the entire Skaggs Foundation Poetry Collection comprising of 29,485 total records.