![\"Headshot](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/pirtle-nov24.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Scholars and researchers from all over the world know precisely where to go when they want to study all facets of Texas history: Baylor’s Texas Collection<\/a>. Part of the Baylor University Libraries, the Texas Collection holds one of the largest Texana collections in the world, as well as volumes of information on the Southwest, Mexico, westward expansion and beyond.<\/p>\n In 2022, West Texas native Jeff Pirtle<\/a> jumped at the chance to make a career move, leaving Hollywood for the Baylor Libraries as director of the Texas Collection, University Archives and W. R. Poage Legislative Library. It was a perfect match… and perfect timing, too, as Baylor\u2019s vaunted special library began preparations for its 100th anniversary<\/a> in 2023. Pirtle just happened to have experience celebrating centennials for two top brands you don\u2019t often associate with museums: JCPenney and NBCUniversal.<\/p>\n Pirtle\u2019s pathway to his life\u2019s work with museums and archives began when he was a graduate assistant at Texas Tech\u2019s Southwest Collection\/Special Collections Library. After graduation (and a short stint working at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo — home of the free 72 oz. steak dinner, if eaten in one hour!), he snagged a coveted graduate internship with the Getty Research Institute\u2019s Conservation Lab in Los Angeles. This experience set his career in motion, first at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, and later as the Museum Manager and Corporate Archivist at JCPenney\u2019s corporate headquarters in Plano.<\/p>\n In 2002, Pirtle helped guide his first centennial — JCPenney\u2019s 100th anniversary — which he described as a \u201chighlight of my time there.\u201d<\/p>\n But the siren song of Hollywood beckoned Pirtle back to L.A. During his two decades at Universal Studios and NBCUniversal, culminating as director of archives & collections for Universal Studios and NBCUniversal, Pirtle was called upon again for his centennial expertise to help Universal Pictures celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2012. The iconic movie studio\u2019s celebration included selecting a \u201cbaker\u2019s dozen\u201d of 13 films for restoration and reissue from Universal\u2019s 5,000-feature library, screening classic films, curating exhibits of the studio\u2019s props, wardrobe and design sketches, and even rolling out a new Universal Studios logo.<\/p>\n A bonus to working at a movie studio was rubbing elbows with some of Hollywood\u2019s biggest stars. Pirtle helped Kirk Douglas write a book about the making of Spartacus<\/em>, co-curated an exhibit about Universal at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and participated in interviews with national media outlets.<\/p>\n Now firmly settled in at Baylor, Pirtle witnesses each day how the materials in the Texas Collection offer endless research potential into numerous topics for scholars and the public, ranging from Texas history, culture, military affairs and education to African-American histories, religious institutions and culinary expressions.<\/p>\n \u201cOne aspect I love about working in archival collections is when a researcher identifies with and becomes passionate about material they\u2019ve discovered,\u201d Pirtle says. \u201cThe researcher may find a person in history with whom they share talents and abilities, they may find primary source material from a historic event they heard about from relatives, or learn more about a painful historic happening that will hopefully never be repeated. To provide the content that resonates with each individual researcher, it\u2019s important for the Texas Collection to have that material available.\u201d<\/p>\n Sic \u2019em, Jeff Pirtle and the Texas Collection!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scholars and researchers from all over the world know precisely where to go when they want to study all facets of Texas history: Baylor’s Texas Collection. Part of the Baylor University Libraries, the Texas Collection holds one of the largest Texana collections in the world, as well as volumes of information on the Southwest, Mexico, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}