On January 3, 2012, Dr. C. Robert Barnett will presented "Memoirs as History: Small Town Life in West Virginia in the 1950s" at the Tuesday evening lecture in the Archives and History Library. The program began at 6:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Dr. Barnett discussed the differences in style and content between history, autobiography, and memoir. He used examples from his book about growing up in Newell, in the northern panhandle, in the 1950s to illustrate these differences and showed how his memoir is more than a personal story because it is set in an historical context. Barnett also will use other popular West Virginia memoirs to illustrate social history.

Bob Barnett is professor emeritus at Marshall University, where he taught sport history for 35 years. He has written numerous articles, reviews, and academic papers, and his work has appeared in such publications as Goldenseal, the West Virginia Encyclopedia, and the Journal of Sport History. His most recent publication is a memoir, Growing Up in the Last Small Town: A West Virginia Memoir (2010). Dr. Barnett currently is working on a book on the history of sports in West Virginia.