A few weeks ago, I got an email at the library from a librarian working towards a Masters Degree in American Studies. She was researching Mark Twain, and specifically whether public libraries during his life censored his works.
She was contacting all the libraries in the country that were open at the time (Chelmsford’s Adams Library is usually dated at 1894, but various library associations in the town date to the 1790’s), hoping our accession records would indicate which Twain books were held by the library, and whether they were shelved as adult or childrens books.
Up until this question, I had a vague understanding that we had old library records, but I didn’t know how extensive they were, what condition they were in, or what was in them. So I was happy to get this question, as in the course of helping someone, I also had an excuse to check out these records.
It turns out, there is a lot in the library archive. Much of it are treasurer reports or invoice logs, and were either uninteresting (to me) or indecipherable (just columns and columns of numbers). But I also found library member rolls from the late 1800’s, and one ledger even had the circulation history of the patrons (all done in longhand).
But getting down to brass tacks, I was very happy to find book lists from the era, which listed the books, author, publisher, date, call number, and a few other things. And it turned out that there were two libraries operating in Chelmsford at the time, which were later merged into the single library I work in today. So, I was able to research this question in both sets of records.
But here’s the best part: one book in the archive was entitled “List of Books (not all juvenile) for Boys” and was prepared by Librarian Emma J. Gay. It consisted of handwritten pages broken up into sections (Stories, History, Biography, Travel, Scientific, Natural History, Games and Amusements, and Miscellaneous). The title page, along with a title page for each section, was professionally typeset and printed, and the whole book was professionally bound in hardcover.
In the Stories section, there is the following entry:
Clemens, S. L. (Mark Twain)
Adventures of Tom Sawyer 1505 [accession number]
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 1803 [accession number]
I really want to do something with this book, but I don’t know what. I’m guessing it dates to the 1880’s, and it was interesting flipping through seeing what books back then appealed to boys.
And for the record, here are the Mark Twain holdings I could locate in the archive:
Title
Author1
Date
Call No.2
Source3
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
1881
c625.2
NCLA
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
1885
c625.1
NCLA
A Tramp Abroad
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
1889
c914.8
NCLA
The Innocents Abroad
S. L. Clemens “Mark Twain”
1894
c625.2
NCLA
Prince and Pauper
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
1895
c55.7
CFPL
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
1895
c55.13
CFPL
Sketches New and Old
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
1895
c55.9
CFPL
American Claimant
Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain)
1895
c55.1
CFPL
Joan of Arc / Personal Reflections of
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
1896
c55.2
CFPL
A Tramp Abroad
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
1896
c87.22
CFPL
Notes:
1: It was interesting to see the different ways his name was written, and that “Mark Twain” was always secondary
2: Most of these are a mystery to me
3: NCLA: North Chelmsford Library Association; CFPL: Chelmsford Free Public Library
Some of the records were too fragile to use, and some of the handwriting illegible, so I don’t think this is a complete list. I emailed what I found to the patron, and she was very happy, and it was fun to this kind of real historical research for a change.
One of thing I love about my job is the absurd way unlikely resources sometimes need to be cobbled together to answer a question.
A patron called the desk asking for the phone number of a laundromat/cleaners in town. She knew it was just down the street from the library, and I pass it every day, but neither one of us could remember the name.
It was lunch time at the library, so there are no coworkers around to ask. I checked the yellow pages under laundromat, cleaners and dry cleaners, but the only businesses listed were not at the address we’re looking for. I tried a few internet searches for “laundromat chelmsford” and the like, but had no immediate luck.
If there was another person to cover the desk, I would have just walked up the street and called her back with the information. But it was this thought - seeing the sign from the street - that gave me the brilliant idea of trying Google Street View.
I typed the Library’s address into Google Maps, switched over to Street View, and then walked the little yellow man up the block to the laundromat. From this view, I could make out the name of the business (actually, I got lucky and their van was parked in the lot), and from there I could look them up in the white pages.
The patron was not only happy to get the phone number, but amazed at hearing about Street View for the first time. She was so interested that we stayed on the phone for another five minutes while I explained what it was, how it worked, and how she could get to it on her own.
Interesting postscript to this story:
The Chelmsford Library is located on an “island” between two one-way streets. However, this is poorly marked, and I sometimes see non-local cars going the wrong direction. Apparently, whoever was driving the Google photo car is also not from around here. By rotating the Street View down to see the car itself, you can tell by the side mirrors that it’s driving the wrong direction - but best of all, you can follow the car’s hasty U-turn in the library staff parking lot. Happily this did not cause an accident, but I’m surprised Google publishes photographic evidence of its drivers breaking traffic laws.
Sometimes, a very simple question can be the most satisfying:
The phone rang one morning, and it was a colleague and friend from the Newburyport Library (another library in my consortium). She had checked the catalog and found that Chelmsford had a copy of a book she was looking for on the shelf. She gave me a call number and a page number, and asked if I could fax it over to her.
No problem. The whole process took maybe ten minutes to find the book, copy the page, and send the fax, and we even had a nice little chat.
Later that afternoon, I got the following email message from her:
Brian,
Thanks for the recipe—a patron called and was in the middle of cooking the soup when she realized she didn’t have the whole recipe! The recipe you copied did have the last two steps she was missing so now her family can enjoy a big pot of minestrone tonight.
Not only did I get to help a friend and fellow librarian, but this simple act provided a positive library experience for a woman and her family thirty miles away.
There is always lots of talk about how important the local library is to its community. Which is true, but as this question shows, individual libraries don’t exist in a vacuum. I think it’s the spirit of networked cooperation between Public Libraries in general (and other types of libraries too) that is our true strength, and that’s what allows us to have a positive impact on the lives of the people in our shared community.
At the risk of being too luddite-preachy, I would also like to point out the technology involved here: an opac, a telephone, a photocopier, and a fax machine. I use Library 2.0 tools all the time, but I like that a lot of good library work can still be done without flickr, Google apps, Wordpress, del.icio.us, Twitter, Facebook, et. al.
An elderly patron called and said she looking for a list of senior discounts. The library does not maintain such a list, so I told her I’d do some searching and call her back. She then said that she was coming to the library in an hour, and I should have it ready by then.
So, with that time limit in mind, I started searching. My first stops were the AARP website and the local Senior Center. AARP did list member benefits, but because this is a national organization, they were all very general - too bad there isn’t a “search by zip code” feature.
And sadly, the Senior Center’s website wasn’t much help either. They did have a list of available services, but it didn’t include discounts. I know they’d be the best resource for this, though, so I gave them a call and explained what I was looking for. The woman I spoke with said they didn’t have such a list either, and the only discount she could think of was that the Town gives seniors a break on their water bill - and that I should try the AARP website.
From there I searched the internet, but was surprised I couldn’t find very much:
When the patron arrived, I didn’t have much for her. She did like the idea of printing online coupons, because most of those websites (from the last bullet point above) allow you to search by zip code. But, not being computer-savvy herself, she said she and her daughter would go through them later. And not being computer-savvy, she did not at all enjoy this other AARP membership benefits interface.
I gave her the phone numbers for the Senior Center and the Elder Services of the Merrimack Valley, which is another senior-focused group in the area. When I mentioned AARP, she said that she thought she remembered getting some kind of list from them, so there was potential there, too.
In the end, even though I wasn’t able to give her what she asked for, she was very nice and made me feel like I made her day. I took down her name and number and told her I’d call her if I found anything else, so if anyone knows of a resource I missed, please share in the comments. Thanks.
One of our regular patrons has a radio show on a local station. He found some copyright-free songs on YouTube, and wanted to know how he could record them to play on his show.
However, most of the usual ways require more access to the computer than we allow the public to have. Patrons cannot install software or get to Windows Sound Recorder, so he wanted something easier.
An internet search lead us to the website vixy.net, which is exactly what he wanted. Enter the url of the online video you’d like to record, choose the output file type (mp3 is an option), click start, wait, and then download the audio file. Nice.
The system is still in beta, and lists right on their homepage some of the errors you might encounter (after working with it awhile, the patron said he got an error on about one in three attempts). But when it works, it works, and it gave the patron exactly what he was looking for - mp3 files he could save to his flash drive.
But let me leave you with what I told him: just because something is possible doesn’t mean it is legal. It is up to you to check to make sure the copyright on published work allows for this type of recording.
A few weeks ago, I got an email at the library from a librarian working towards a Masters Degree in American Studies. She was researching Mark Twain, and specifically whether public libraries during his life censored his works.
One of our regular patrons has a radio show on a local station. He found some copyright-free songs on YouTube, and wanted to know how he could record them to play on his show.
