DOCTOR WOLF WOLFENSBERGER, human services
thinker, leader, reformer, and inventor of Social Role
Valorization (SRV), left a very extensive archive of
materials upon his death in February 2011. These archives are
held at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha,
Nebraska, where Dr. Wolfensberger held one of his first
positions in the 1960s-early ’70s. His time in Omaha was also
one of his most active in designing and implementing
services that were not institutional in nature—some of the
first in the country—and based on the then-new principle of
normalization, the forerunner of SRV.
This presentation will explain the history and contents of the
archives, which include—among other things—papers, audiovisual
teaching materials, recordings of presentations, and
books. It will also explain how the archives are organized and
how to access them—both in person and electronically—as
well as some of the hopes and plans to preserve the archived
materials and make them more widely available.
The presentation will be about 50 minutes to an hour in
length, followed by 30 to 40 minutes for questions and discussion.
The presentation will be conducted by Susan Thomas of
the Training Institute at Syracuse University that Dr. Wolfensberger
founded in 1973 and directed for 38 years, and Darby
Kurtz of the McGoogan Library at the University of Nebraska
Medical Center, who is the archivist with responsibility for
the Wolfensberger materials there.
ISRVA
