Two to be inducted into State Archives' Heritage Hall of Fame

Former Nevada Assemblyman Joe Dini and the late Rollan Melton will be inducted into the State Archives Heritage Hall of Fame on Wednesday.

"Every two years since 1997, the Nevada State Library honors its champions by adding their pictures to the Heritage Hall of Fame," said Guy Rocha, assistant administrator for archives and records. "These are people who have taken steps to help preserve Nevada's documentary heritage by going above and beyond ordinary measures."

Dini will be inducted for his sponsorship of archives and records management legislation in 1983, his addition of a full-time archivist and state records manager to the archives staff in the 1985 budget, and his advocacy for a $50,000 state match for a grant of $150,000 from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in 1989 to help local governments establish local records management and archives programs.

The budget cutbacks of the early 1980s left the archives program with two full-time and one part-time positions, barely enough to keep the doors open.

Dini made the archives one of his priorities in the 1985 session when budget negotiations drew to an end and added needed positions to the archives and records program.

Melton will be inducted for his support of a paper conservation lab at the Nevada State Library and Archives.

Although part of the original plans for the State Library and Archives opened in 1993, cost overruns prevented the lab from being built. In 1999, Melton encouraged the institution to apply for a grant from the John Ben Snow Foundation, shepherding the grant through the process and providing seed money for other grants being used to complete the facility.

With the paper conservation facility, the State Library and Archives can partner with the conservation program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and begin a statewide program to preserve Nevada's documentary heritage.

What: Archives Heritage Hall of Fame induction

When: 12:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Koontz-Calhan Research Room of the Nevada State Library and Archives Building, 100 North Stewart St.