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	Personal Papers of President William V. S. Tubman, Tubman Farm in Bong County
	About 30,000 items were estimated to exist in this collection of personal papers when Christopher Clapham, a consulting African Studies specialist, prepared a report for President Tubman’s widow in 1979. Although not official government documents, the materials show the nearly complete integration between Tubman’s personal and political lives. Clapham states that given Tubman’s stature as an African Head of State during the de-colonization era, these papers are of particular value for the study of the OAU’s early years, as well as for the study of West African diplomacy. The bulk of the collection clusters at the beginning [1944-1950] and end [1961-1971] of the Tubman administration. Clapham found the materials to be in fairly good condition in 1979, but when Professor Dunn later saw the collection, he reported that it had not been well cared for.
	In 2003 Charles Taylor’s forces were rumored to have confiscated this collection, but Dunn and Stone found the papers still remained in the former President’s country home at Tubman Farm in Bong County. The condition of the papers is very poor: Looters rifled through each folder looking for money and other valuables and then tossed everything on the floor. In Liberia’s tropical climate, the papers were limp and damp. Also found were many well-produced photo scrapbooks created by the Liberian and US government press offices documenting President Tubman’s many trips in Africa and to the US and other countries. Although stored in the damp climate, most of these books were in better condition than the papers. However, the immediate need for conservation and preservation measures is high for both the papers and photo books, followed by restoring the arrangement.