By Sharon Hoffhines

He wore a black hat and jingling silver spurs, carried two six shooters on his hips and was The Western Hero to millions of baby-boomers. Hopalong Cassidy. His films and tv shows aren't around any longer, but Hoppy -- or rather actor William Boyd -- and Topper, his white horse, are. Topper's saddle and Hopalong Cassidy six-shooters, hats and boots, toys for then-young fans, are at the American Heritage Center (AHC), the special collections library at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

The William Boyd Collection is one of numerous collections housed at the center. Opened in 1945 as the Western History Research Center, its original focus was a repository for manuscripts on Wyoming and the American West. "But we have gone far beyond that," said Director Mike Devine. In 1974 the library was renamed the American Heritage Center, and its current collections range from rare books from around the world to its most heavily used collection -- the Montgomery Ward catalog dating back to the 1870s. Transportation, particularly railroads; American popular culture; the petroleum and mining industries; economic geology; journalism; conservation; and water resources are the core areas covered by the materials. Specific collections include:

• Anaconda Collection -- 90 years of exploration and development by the Anaconda Company in 47 U.S. states and 110 foreign countries.
  
• Nola Collection -- books from the National Outlaw and Lawman Association.
  
• Toppan Rare Books Library -- 5,000 19th Century British and American first editions on exploration, hunting and fishing donated by Frederick W. Toppan.
  
• Arthur Conan Doyle Collection.
  
• Medieval copies of the Koran.
  
• Clay tablets from Mesopotamia (about 2,000 BC).
  
• Papers of Wyoming Senators Alan Simpson and Malcolm Wallop.

The center's collections attract more than 5,000 researchers annually, some University of Wyoming faculty and students, but the majority from off campus -- public school students working on research papers, scholars, journalists, people from the mining and petroleum industries and government agencies. Ken Burns, documentary film maker, is a patron of the American Heritage Center where he has researched his films. Requests come in by phone, fax, mail and e-mail, and the reference staff responds by fax and mail. Many are for copies of old photographs.

Nothing is loaned out. "The materials are extremely valuable and one-of-a-kind. Sometimes they're in a very fragile or delicate condition," Devine explained. Materials, however, often are in exhibits displayed in the center or loaned to other libraries. AHC staff does a lot of outreach to promote its collections, including training, publishing a newsletter and sponsoring annual symposiums. This year's symposium's guest lecturer is David Brown, producer of The Sound of Music, Patton and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

A staff of 25 FTEs and an operating budget of about $1 million annually run the center. About 40 percent of the budget is allocated from the university (state funding, tuition and fees); the rest comes from endowments and user fees. The online catalog is a fairly recent addition and includes only about 20 percent of the rare book collection and 25 percent of the manuscripts. The remaining materials are gradually being processed. AHC is a BCR member library, contracting for OCLC services and BCR custom cataloging.