June 5, 2012 — Greg Thompson, associate dean for special collections at the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah, will receive the Snowsports Builder Award for 2012 from the Far West Ski Association. The awards event will be held at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center on Saturday, June 9, 2012.
The award recognizes Thompson’s tireless efforts in developing the Utah Ski Archives, one of the largest ski and winter sports collections in the United States. Thompson’s work has resulted in a remarkable collection of ski history, preserved in perpetuity. Oral histories, rapidly vanishing snowsports records, photos and memorabilia span the very beginning of the region’s ski industry to the present day.
Established in 1989, the Utah Ski Archives was created to preserve a comprehensive history of skiing in Utah and the Intermountain region. It provides a unique opportunity for historical and contemporary research into Utah’s prospering ski industry. The archives document the evolution of the sport and industry, including the history of ski competition on local, national and international levels. It also contains the Salt Lake Olympic Committee Records as well as the Bid Committee records.
Material formats in the various collections include photographs, correspondence, competition rosters, organizational minutes, architectural drawings and site plans, news clippings, and miscellaneous items ranging from lift tickets to scrapbooks. Sound and visual recordings, graphic presentations, photos and oral histories are frequently found in almost all of the collections. The oral histories are an especially useful and fascinating section of the holdings and number over 100 interviews.
A charter member of the Alf Engen Ski Museum Foundation’s Board of Trustees, Thompson has lectured widely and published numerous articles on the history of skiing in the Intermountain area. He co-authored with Alan K. Engen “First Tracks: A Century of Skiing” published by Gibbs Smith, Publisher in 2001.
In addition to his passion for building the Utah Ski Archives, Thompson competed in the 1950s as a junior Nordic skier in Colorado and New Mexico. He joined the J. Willard Marriott Library in 1983 and has contributed broadly to the overall wealth of Special Collections.
For more information, visit the Utah Ski Archives online at http://www.lib.utah.edu/collections/ski-archives/
Link to Ski Archives newsletter: http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/epubs
ABOUT THE J. WILLARD MARRIOTT LIBRARY
The J. Willard Marriott Libraryis the flagship academic library for the Utah State System of Higher Education and the largest state-¬funded academic library in the six-¬state region of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. As the primary service hub and destination for students, the Marriott Library is integral to the teaching, research, and public life missions of the University of Utah. The library’s mission is to inspire the creation, discovery, and use of knowledge for Utah and the world. Library holdings include 3 million volumes and nearly 200 unique digital collections containing countless photographs, maps, books, audio recordings, newspaper articles, and other items. Important collections span Utah, the Mormons, and the West to extensive science, engineering, medical, and legal archives. The library also holds more than 1 million historical photographs and extensive film collections.