Sad days

Although I am technically done with my internship in terms of hours, I am going to keep working up until I leave to go back home. Even with two additional weeks that I am staying, it is still very bittersweet. I have really enjoyed my time at MCPL, both last semester while working the main reference desk, and here in the Indiana Room. MCPL is populated with an amazing and supportive staff, and I have made some great friends there. Of course I will miss some more than others, but I just hope that whatever my future job is that I will be lucky enough to be surrounded with such great people.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that a few of the other librarians have made clear that they think I do a good job (I do believe one has referred to me as one of her favorite interns ever! I do have to share that distinction with Mary Roebuck though, but I guess I'm okay with that (: ).

My task for the upcoming weeks is basically to do whatever Christine needs me to do. I'll be rechecking all of the profiles that the History Center is sending over to MCPL for the timeline to fill in any holes and double check information (we learned that not all of the profiles are what anyone could call "professional" or even "good"). I'll also be working the desk pretty often so Christine can do some off-desk stuff. We are right in the thick of things for this project and it snuck up on everyone! Even with the craziness, I'll be extremely sad to see it end.

Article #9: Once a librarian...

Anderson, A. J. (1986). Once a Public Librarian, Always a Public Librarian. Library Journal, 111(17), 51-52. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

This article follows one librarian's plight as a job hunting librarian. After many years working in various public libraries, including a five year stint as an assistant director and eight years as a director, the librarian took her glowing recommendations and published professional articles and began applying for academic librarian positions. She felt as though she had accomplished what she wanted in public libraries, and was ready for new challenges and a new type of library. She was rejected by the academic libraries and told that her skills were best suited for the public library field.

This lead to her questioning of why are the different branches of librarianship so different, and why do they find it so difficult to understand and accept each other? Are the skills not the same? Why, unlike so many other fields and businesses, aren't libraries willing to court those from different fields? Librarians become "branded" once they take their first job as being that type of librarian. Although no answers are given, if there are any, this article brings up a great point to think about for librarians just leaving school and entering the job market. It is also, in a way, a word of caution to pick carefully and to be as broadly educated and experienced as you can.

Just a few words

I am finally done with scanning my City Directory. I guess "finally" is a little strong of a word to use - it only took about three shifts, but it was so boring and I would much rather do other research related work. Although I could do some of that while scanning, as each page took about 1 1/2 - 2 minutes to scan, it was distracting to try to do that and keep track of it all and work on something else. However, I did catch up on my celebrity gossip!

Ego stroking

The trust and faith that my boss, Christine, has in my abilities really strokes my ego. It is such a great feeling when we are talking about some research topic and are just thinking about where else to look for information, and she'll just say that I ask great questions and things along those lines. As a newbie librarian working amongst many tenured librarians, it really feels great when any of them tell me I'm doing well or ask me my opinion. It helps show that I am on the right track, and that I just may make it as a librarian!

We were actually quite busy tonight. It wasn't so much the amount of patrons coming in, but rather the types of questions being asked. I also ended up being on the phone with one homebound patron for an hour, although I had to put her on hold quite a few times for other phone calls and patrons at the desk. The homebound patron was actually really fun to talk to and great about having to be put on hold, so I really didn't mind being on the line for so long - in fact part of the reason we were on so long is because we were just chatting about this and that. She wanted me to look through some of our vertical files (files we keep on many different topics and anything from the newspaper on that topic is cut out and placed in the file). I had to go through two huge files and try to find what she was looking for - which I did - and then photocopy them to be sent to her.

I also had a crazy patron call, and ended up having to get Christine to deal with her (I was still on the line with the homebound patron and also had no idea how to deal with the crazy lady). She started off asking a question for a phone number or some such, but then began ranting about how Tiger Woods and other rich men have sex slaves, and then started wondering if Donald Trump has sex slaves and that he probably did. I rushed her to hold and Christine took over from there. The woman did end up asking for numerous businesses phone numbers along with her crazy rantings. Thankfully, those calls are few and far between, but it definitely ended up making my day a little more interesting.

Is it just me, or is it weird when a patron calls asking for another library's phone number...

As the title of this post may suggest, a patron called the Indiana Room today wanting to know the phone number of the phone number of another county's library. She then called again a few minutes later asking for yet another library's phone number. Should I be insulted?

I was desperate to ask why she wanted the phone numbers and why we could not help her here. Are we not good enough? Our library is far and away better than these other libraries. My precious librarian's heart was crushed (well, not really - I was just curious). I did not end up asking such an impertinent question and have instead chosen to come up with my own outlandish reasons why she needed those phone numbers. I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to come up with your own stories.

P.S. - the phone actually rang about 6 times during my shift! I think that's a record.

Scanning!

We finally got the City Directories unbound for us to scan (actually it happened a little while ago, but I just started my scanning as I was in the middle of a different project). Once these are scanned into the computer, we will be learning more about ContentDM and uploading them into that. Although the scanning itself is deathly boring, I am excited to see a bit more about ContentDM. It'll also be pretty great to actually see something that I did in the Indiana Memory collection online. I'll be able to point to it in the future and say "I did that!"

Gotta love newspaper microfilms

The Republican Progress newspaper on May 7, 1884 had a column titled "Humor" (this was not unusual for newspapers back then, but it was unusual for the column to be on the front page). These columns usually just had a bunch of one-liners, just one right after the other with no real pattern or main topic. Here are a few of the good tidbits:

"A lady and gentleman accidentally touched each other's feet under the table. 'Secret telegraphy,' said he. 'Communion of soles,' said she."

"A ready-made rejoinder: He - 'You made a fool of me when I married you ma'am.' She - 'Lor! you always told me you were a self-made man!'"

"A Baltimore man killed himself because his wife would not support him. It beats thunder how lazy some women are getting nowadays."

"'No, love,' he said, 'I cannot afford to take you sleighing, but I"ll do the next best thing. Come down to the store any day and I'll let you see me shoot a rat.'"

Article #8: Public domain

Tamara Sheppard. (2009). Putting the public in the public domain :The public library's role in the re-conceptualization of the public domain. New Library World, 110(5/6), 207-218. Retrieved from ABI/INFORM Global.

The purpose of this article is to examine the meaning of "public domain" and what it means, if anything, to the public at large. It is understood that public domain is a place where works go when their copyrights expire and the materials are now free for anyone to do what they want with it without the approval of the author. It is no longer controlled by an individual, rather it is now controlled by the group. Due to different legislation, the public domain has been increasingly diminished. The general public's perception as to what the public domain is, is also diminishing it. The public needs to see the importance of public domain in order to keep it alive.

What a night

I worked the desk of the Indiana Room tonight and, although it was pretty slow, I was on the phone a lot. And by a lot, I mean for 35 minutes to the same patron. She has called before, and I think I actually blogged about her - she had called for the phone number of Bed Bad and Beyond and was very impatient, but once I got her the number became very chatty and oversharing. This time she was in a fine mood, and wanted to know where property taxes went to. Her mother's property taxes were doubled this year, and she wanted to know where that money was going. I gave her the answer, and then we somehow got launched into a girl living across the street from the patron's niece who apparently sells meth and prescription drugs out of her house. This then went into a discussion about a local cop in that town who the patron has been talking to about this woman (who is apparently a very unpleasant woman all around), the cop gives the patron too much information about other goings on around the town - and although he is married, he seems to be interested in the patron on a personal level. The patron is not interested back and is not a believer in adultery. We got back to the original question - property taxes - and segued into her taxes and that she needs to get them done. This turned into a discussion (I say discussion, but the woman would barely let me speak) about what household improvements she is going to use her refund money on. I was almost freed from her about 5 times, but whenever the conversation was slowing down, she would go into another subject.

It is hard because there was no real way for me to get her off the phone without being rude. This woman obviously needed someone impartial to talk to and vent about a variety of things, and I was not busy otherwise. However, it was just a weird position to be in when the woman was going into some personal details (such as her taxes and money), and generally the Indiana Room is a quite place for people to research and study in.

Eventually the other phone rang, and I told the patron I had to answer the other phone. About 8 rings later (I was in a panic, and felt bad that it was taking so long to answer the phone), I finally hung up with her. Thankfully, it was not a patron on the other phone but my boss, Christine, calling to save me! I'm sure there will be times like this when patrons call and just keep talking - but I am definitely going to need to find a good way to get off the phone with them, especially at a busy reference desk (although that is probably why she calls the Indiana Room instead of the main desk - she knows the person isn't very busy). So that was my adventure today!

Back at it

After a nice (but short) break from the library, I was back at it again today. After weeks of researching the two editors of the Bloomington Republican, Christine wanted me to write a page about each man. An almost impossible task. I have not only researched the men themselves, but also their families to try and see if they had any descendants living in Bloomington (as far as I could tell, neither did - although I did not get to a few great-grandchildren). This made my task even harder, because I had gotten attached to the families (both men only had surviving sons oddly enough - what daughters they had did not live past their 10th birthday). There was relevant Bloomington-related information for a few sons that I really wanted to include, and it just did not seem right to only discuss one son and not the others, so I got to them all. Magically, I ended up with exactly one page for both John F. Walker and Clement Whitaker. Believe me, no one was more surprised than me.

We finally got the City Directories back from getting unbound. Now instead of having a research shift every week, we will be getting a scanning shift. MCPL has many old City Directories that are in very rough shape, with the binding falling apart and are therefore unable to be in the stacks. Our task is to digitize them, so Christine had them completely unbound for us to scan (although if someone desperately wanted to donate a book scanner we would definitely not turn that down, and would no longer have to unbind books to scan). I may not be doing this, as Christine has encountered something she wants me to transcribe. We'll be talking about that this weekend. I am also currently transcribing another copy of the Bloomington Republican, one from September 6, 1862. We had originally thought that the only surviving copy was the one we received from the Lilly Library - the one I transcribed earlier in the semester. We discovered that we had this copy from 1862 on one of our local history microfilms. It is only three pages, whereas all other newspapers had four, so I wonder if it is missing a page - but it would only be advertisements so it is no major loss as I will not be transcribing the ads this time around.

As I begin my job hunt, I have definitely realized how spoiled I have been in my internships at MCPL. When at the main reference desk, there is always at least two other librarians on desk with you - always someone to pick up the ringing phone or to have as backup with a difficult patron. Even the Indiana Room is a luxury; local history, tons of microfilms, the separate collection along with separate librarians. *sigh* My ultimate dream job would be to work in a library similar to MCPL, and work in Adult services but also have two or three shifts in something like the Indiana Room. It is a great change of pace and a totally different atmosphere than the main reference desk. We will just have to wait and see what comes my way...

Article #7: Adding History

Marquis, K., & Waggener, L. C. (2011). Historical Collections Is Adding One Right for Your Public Library?. Public Libraries, 50(2), 42-48. Retrieved from LISA.

This article consists of basic potential guidelines for how to create a historical collection in a public library, provided by two professional archivists. It includes where to begin the collection, what questions libraries should ask when developing their collection plan, who the users will be, basic archival information. It also addresses what all needs to be invested in for the collection, in terms of money and space.

For the libraries that decide an archive collection is too much work or does not fit into their libraries goals, there are also guidelines for creating a simple local history section, or a virtual archive. Both do not require as much special attention, as well as space requirements.

Article #6: Building Support

Nelms, W. (1979). Using Local History and Genealogy To Build Library Support. Library Journal, 104(6), 686. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Public librarians are now in the local history and genealogy business. American's are more interested in local affairs and their family backgrounds than they ever have been before, and expect their local library to be the place to find such information. Libraries need to see this need and desire for this information and act accordingly by improving their collections. However, space and budgets are two major things that can prevent building these collections. This article provides different ways to increase their genealogical and local collections without breaking their bank.

Although this article is rather old being printed in 1979, the tips are still very much useful for today's public libraries.

Tidbits

Thanks to my off-desk project (and to be honest on-desk project when I'm not helping patrons) I have been using the microfilms A LOT. Thankfully, I totally love going through old microfilms. They are full of the weirdest stuff that would never be printed today. If I could I would just spend my whole shift going through old newspapers and reading the strange things they printed. I have taken to printing off articles that catch my attention and posting them on the Indiana Room blog as well as the Adult and Teen Services blog. Needless to say, many people have come up to me and commented about the articles.

One such thing that I found today was from the 1969 Bloomington Telephone. It was an "Ask Abby" column and it was a question sent in my a newlywed man. I am not sure what his ultimate question was, it seemed more like a complaint than anythings else. He wrote that before the wedding his wife was always really well put together, hair done, makeup done, nice clothes - but now that they were married, she slathers moisturizer on her face before bed and puts on a sack thing that ties around the middle for a nightgown. I was so taken aback by this - it is such a foreign thing to me, and did this man think that she went to bed with makeup on? It really speaks for the generations, and how different things are now. And, it makes me really not like this guy.

Article #5: Rewarded by History

Pierce, J. (2003). HISTORY IS ITS OWN REWARD BACK HOME IN INDIANA. American Libraries, 34(7), 46. Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier.

Focusing on the Allen County Public Library in Indiana, this article looks into the relationship between the residents of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the library. It notes that the genealogy department at ACPL has played a significant role in sustaining the economy within the community.

Contrary to most library practices, the genealogy collection has a budget proportionate to other departments. It also holds the largest collection of genealogical materials outside of Salt Lake City. The department constantly watches the antiquities market for books, and solicits unpublished work of family members for the collection. People specifically go to Fort Wayne to do research at ACPL, and the local restaurants and hotels are reaping the rewards. The collection has impacted both local tourism and the town's relationships across the state. Each year, the genealogy department serves between 98,500 and 110,000 visitors, who then have an economic impact of between $7.2 and $9.8 million annually. The library is a local treasure.

And now for another Microfilm goodie

While searching through the book Miami County Schools 1830-1930, I found this great accounting of something that happened at the Struble School sometime between 1867 and 1918,

"Mike Wahlig recalls an incident that happened while attending this school. A certain teacher was unusually cruel to the children. During spelling class one day, a certain boy was requested to pronounce and spell a word. He spelled it, but failed to pronounce it. It so happened that the boy was rather large for his age, so he challenged the teacher to a fight. The whole school saw the boy emerge from the struggle as the victor! The teacher disappeared that evening and has never been heard of since."

No age was given for how old the boy was, but I like to think of him as around 10. Just makes the story that much more amusing.

Oh, the gems you find in the Indiana Room

Article #4: To boldly go

Peter Michel. (2005). Digitizing special collections: to boldly go where we've been before. Library Hi Tech, 23(3), 379-395. Retrieved May 1, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global.

This article looks at issues in the digitization of academic special collections, both currently and historically. More and more digital libraries are being created, and where to special collections fall within this new trend? Libraries are seeking to put their potentially popular collections online, but is this because it is a popular trend or because it will help serve the needs of their users.

This article focuses on what UNLV has been doing with their special collections in terms of digitization. They have undertaken many different digitization projects, such as creating an Early Las Vegas project that is a gallery of photos, maps and manuscripts from the year Las Vegas was established. With technology ever changing, librarians need to constantly re-evaluate their goals and potentially switch their focus to fit any new needs, as well as help with funding.

Deadsville

Tuesday night's shift at the Indiana Room desk was the slowest I have ever seen the Indiana Room. Although the desk is not usually very busy, there are generally a good amount of people in the room either studying quietly, using the microfilm, or researching in the genealogy and grant computers. On Tuesday there were never more than three (3) people in the room at a time, and two of those people were there the whole time I was (and they are regulars). I spent most of the time transcribing (which I finished on Wednesday! Such a relief).

The odd thing was, that although the room was the deadest I've ever encountered, I had one of the most frustrating phone calls in the whole time I've been interning at MCPL (although I guess 5 months is not very long - but I did work the main reference desk for 3 of those months! That has to count for something!). A woman called the Indiana Room wanting the number for the Bed Bath and Beyond store in Greenwood. She was already in an awful mood, and kept telling me not to take a really long time, and also launched into her awful experience she just had at the store she wanted the number for. She started insulting everyone under the age of 30 (of which I am one) because apparently we all think we know everything and are spoiled know-it-alls. While she is ranting, I Googled the number and when it doesn't show up there, I go to the stores website to do a store locater which usually has the phone number. Apparently Bed Bath and Beyond does not list their phone numbers online. I then have to try to put the phone down for a minute to go across the room to get the phone book. While I try to do so, the woman keeps going on about how she needs the number and not to take forever to get it. I was literally stuck listening to her rant about how long I was taking because she would not let me put the phone down to get the phone book! Finally I put her on hold, got the number for her and gave it to her, thinking that we would then hang-up and I could get back to my business and she could rant to the next person. Nope. That was not to be. She spent the next 5-10 minutes with her rant about Bed Bath and Beyond, as well as those horrible spoiled under-30's and how they don't have to work for anything. All I know is that I am under 30, and I was working very hard to keep my patience.

I need my own Microfilm reader...

During the course of my job, I spend a lot of time looking through the microfilms. There are some serious gems of randomness that I constantly find and I generally post them on the MCPL blog. This time I'll post something here too!

This is from an article in the New York Times from February 23, 1861. The title of the article is "Personal" and it has many little tidbits from around the country. Here is something about the best husband ever!

"A man living near Fentonville, (Wis.,) who shall be nameless for the sake of his children, was riding with his wife some weeks since, when, in crossing a railroad-track, he came in collision with a passing train of cars. His wife and both the horses were killed. At the time the wretch said that he did not care for the woman, but the railroad company would have to pay for his horses, and now he has brought suit to recover $400 damages, $200 of which he says is to remunerate him for the loss of the former and $200 for that of the latter."

What a gem.

This next bit from Monroe County is actually pretty sad,

"Miss Jones, of Monroe County, Indiana, was ruined a short time since by a scoundrel named Braham, who promised to marry her. She procured her seducer's arrest and made affidavit of the fact, but Braham introduced a witness who deposed that Miss Jones had told him that she had not been seduced under promise of marriage. The poor girl in her despair then said she would not disgrace her family, and calling for a glass of water suddenly emptied into it a deadly poison, and refusing all aid died in a few minutes. The people talk strongly of lynching Braham."

It's too bad that (almost) all the Monroe County newspapers from this time period were destroyed. I'm curious to know if they ended up lynching Braham...

The family who's purpose in life is to drive me crazy.

In between helping patrons at the desk, I have been focusing on the man who was the editor and owner of the Bloomington Republican newspaper during the civil war. I was not able to do any more transcribing when I was working the desk - the computers there just did not want to load the newspaper images, so I had to take a step back. I started looking into Clement Whitaker. Finding him in Bloomington in the 1860 census was easy enough, as was finding out where he was born as well as where he was in 1850 and 1870. I even found some of his marriage records. However, he was not in the 1880 census - but his family was. Naturally, I started looking for his death records, while simultaneously researching more into what happened to his wife and children. I wanted to follow his family tree. Both searches were futile. There was no record of Clement's death, no divorce record, no cemetery record, no nothing on what happened to Clement Whitaker after the 1870 census. It was driving me crazy. I then also could not find a single trace of his wife or three sons after the 1880 census. This family just fell off the map. I searched for hours, enlisting the help and advice from any librarian that came across my path, and nothing panned out.

Dirk, one of the librarians at MCPL that does some shifts in the Indiana Room, did what I did not even consider. He googled Clement. What a shocking notion! There was one record that popped up, and it did give a date for when he died, but there were no accompanying sources, and the site seemed a little unreliable. I had given up. This family had been put on this earth in the 1800's to make me insane a century and a half later. All of this happened yesterday during my shift. I spent about four hours, when not helping patrons, looking into this family and was running around in circles, spending a lot of time sighing and putting my hands on my hips - I guess I thought the Superman pose would get the brain juices circulating.

And then it happened. The revelation. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the Superman pose had nothing to do with it. Just my long suffering father who has to listen to my rambling on the phone.

I realized that all of the dates on the googled website were correct, so why didn't I just look at the newspaper following his supposed date of death to look for an obituary or death notice. It would only take a few minutes, and would be another thing to cross off of my list of where I looked. Of course, this revelation did not occur until 10 minutes after my shift ended and the library closed. I had to patiently wait until my shift today to act on my revelation. And there it was. A short write up about the death of Mr. Clement Whitaker in 1873 at the age of 47. There was not much information given, just that he seemed to have died of old age, or just plain sickness. No mention of his family, but I did not really need his family's information for my purposes as they had nothing to do with the newspaper. I do, however, still consider Mrs. Whitaker and her three sons to be my nemeses. It is amazing how such a small thing such as when a man died in the 1870's can become such a large issue. It is also amazing how relieved I felt once I finally found his death notice. I feel as though a large chapter of my life has been closed, when really it was only a chapter about a day long. And I owe it all to my dad, who probably cursed himself for answering the phone while trying to remodel the bathroom.

Article #3: Ivory Towers

Allen, S. M. (2003). Special Collections Outside the Ivory Tower. Library Trends, 52(1), 60-68. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Contrary to public thought, special collections are not only in academic libraries. They can also be museums, public libraries, state and national libraries, and independent libraries. These such libraries hold some of the greatest and more valuable special collections out there. This article focuses on special collections in independent research libraries.

Independent research libraries have no affiliations, are private, and are not-for-profit. Often their collections are of national or international significance, rather than just being for local use. In 1972, fifteen such libraries formed the Independent Research Libraries Association (IRLA). The creation of this association was in response to previous threats to funds for independent research libraries. Currently there are 18 member libraries of the IRLA. These libraries focus their collections to support research rather than an academic curriculum. Funding and visibility are the two main challenges that these libraries face in the coming years in order to stay alive.

Long time, no blog

I can't believe how long it has been since my last blog. Time is going by amazingly fast. I've got to get better at remembering to write here!

Since I last blogged, I have finally chosen my research topic to work on for the Monroe County timeline. Christine wanted us to focus on something or someone from the Civil War due to a grant that we have until April. I kept waffling between a prominent family or a business. When I finally sat down and looked at the list of research areas that has been compiled for the librarians to choose from, I narrowed it down to the Bloomington Republican newspaper, or one of the (in my opinion) more interesting families. The Lilly Library here at IU, has several original copies of the Bloomington Republican and has scanned and emailed the pages to Christine. After looking over one of the pages, I decided that the newspaper would be my topic to research. I think it offers a more varied research venue than a family would have. This way I can research the building it was housed it, the editor of the paper during the war, and also use the paper itself for additional research. The concept of an actual Republican or Democrat newspaper was very foreign to me before starting this internship, so that was also a factor in my final choice.

Right now, I am slowly transcribing the paper. The Lilly had four dates from the Civil War, and I am working on November 1, 1861. Transcribing is a new experience for me - there are so many things you need to consider while you are doing it, especially in the old newspapers. There are misspellings aplenty, major grammar errors, upside down letters, words that I don't even know what they mean or if they are just so badly misspelled that I can't figure out what they are. As the transcriber, you need to make your own judgement calls in those situations and keep it consistent. I think I finally got the hang of it, and I am really enjoying reading this 150 year old newspaper. The odd organization (really the lack thereof), the letters from soldiers detailing their companies movements and various battles, advertisements - the newspapers from so long ago are totally different from what we have today.

One letter from a soldier (at least that is who I think these updates are from, maybe the paper had people traveling with the companies as correspondents - definitely something I'll need to research), detailed the movements of the 22d Indiana. He also noted that the "boys" would steal whatever they needed from whatever town they were currently residing near. They would take cows, pigs, chickens, etc - and in fact the writer himself had just stolen someone's chicken the night before. He said "all's fair in war." Another correspondent detailed a major battle, in which the Union quite destroyed the "rebels" - only 5 Union soldiers died, whereas 600 rebels died. He wrote about the battle in Missouri for three full columns, and went on to note towards the end in a very small paragraph, that the soldiers (Union) were so angry at the townspeople for not joining their side that they burned down houses, and destroyed peoples belongings. This was said so nonchalantly and matter-of-fact that it really struck me. The senseless violence and destruction to the townspeople, and only because they would not betray their state. On the flip side, the people were also not fighting for the Confederacy, and did nothing to deserve their homes to be destroyed.

I am very glad that I chose to research the newspaper, rather than a family. I am even more glad that the Lilly Library actually had copies of the paper from the Civil War times - they are the only ones left from that time. It is such an interesting topic to study, especially in that time period.    

Article #2: Genealogy Research

Davidson, R. I. (2004). Providing Genealogy Research Services in Public Libraries. Public Libraries, 43(3), 142-143. Retrieved from LISA.

"It is a challenge for librarians, as information professionals, to provide themselves with the
knowledge and ability to assist this special client group in the library." This article presents case study of the Palm Beach County Library System. In 2002, the library system added three new services to aid researchers in genealogy research: Gale Publishing's "Ancestry Plus" database; an interactive "Genealogy Research @ your library" website; and an email question-response service on the Genealogy Research website. Prior to this, the only recourse researchers had was using the reference librarians at the desk, and a separate serials section librarian that performed obituary searches. The Genealogy Research website receives about 700 "hits" monthly, and the library system averages 20 email requests for genealogy research per month.

The genealogy industry has become a $200 million/year industry, with more and more people being interested in such research. Many novice historians and researchers search inaccurately, and many genealogy information providers are having to review the ethics of their services due to potential identity theft, invasion of privacy and misinformation.

Article #1: A Gentle Reminder

Gilman, T. (2010). A Gentle Reminder to Special-Collections Curators. Chronicle of Higher Education, 56(33), A54-A55. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

"Why librarians shouldn't act like dragons guarding the hoard" indeed. Many curators of special collections view the collection as being "theirs" and are extremely protective of them. Although these collections are often open to the public, this makes no difference to the curator. This unfriendly atmosphere and attitude sours the potential users and visitors of such collections, and also sours people on librarians and curators in general. These such librarians and curators feel justified in their behavior, thinking that people should not be able to just show up and want to see the collection.

Killing Time

Today would normally be one of my shifts using the scanner and working on my off-desk project. However, that project isn't ready to be started yet, so I spent the shift playing with the various genealogy databases the library has. I have wanted to look into my family's genealogy for years, but have not had the resources (such as ancestry.com) to start. Thankfully, MCPL has three different genealogy databases that I can use. I found some interesting things on my father's side of the family, but could not come up with anything at all on my mother's side. Very interesting, not to mention frustrating!

I also spent some time looking through different indexes and collections that have been put together by the Indiana Room and the Monroe History Center. One thing that I spend some time morbidly looking through was the Coroner's Reports from the 1896 to 1935. I went up to the letter C, and discovered that a major cause of death at the time was people getting hit by trains. It seemed as if at least 2 out of every 5 reports involved a train. There were also a high number of suicides. I can only guess that there were so many suicides because of the economic times.

It is amazing how many different collections and indexes have been put together regarding Monroe County information. The hours it must have taken, especially when dealing with quite old reports such as the coroner's reports from early the 1900's. These documents were generally all handwritten, with the occasional typewriter being used, and must have been difficult to transcribe. I have to commend the people who put together these amazing collections and indexes, all of which were created on the possibility that someone might be interested in the information.

Adventures in the Indiana Room

Today was my third shift so far working in the Indiana Room. And let me tell you, it is a very different world than the main reference desk.  It is such a specialized collection that has been shifted and morphed into (almost) exactly what they want it to be. They have sectioned out genealogy, grants, county histories, family histories, yearbooks, city directories, small business information, and zoning information; while still maintaining a general collection.  There are so many areas to look that it is a little overwhelming!

Today was an interesting day. It was very slow at the desk, so my boss, Christine, had me looking for the original document from 1883 on microfilm that had the newspaper list of deceased from those who were from Monroe County and were in the Civil War. The 1971 newspaper ran a reprint of the list, and that is the one that was being used to create a comprehensive list. Christine mainly wanted me to find the original document for me to get more practice with the microfilm machine, and to have that original copy for posterity's sake.  We were extremely glad that I looked for this original list.  Not only was there an accompanying article and speech, there was also a continuation of the list on a separate page that was not included in 1971. Huge oversight on the 1971 paper! The article was on the front page and stated that it continued on page two, but on the microfilm reel that I was using it actually was on page four (the pages were not numbered). Our guess is that the person who copied this list looked on the page after the front page and after not immediately seeing the continuation, they gave up. In actuality, the rest of the list was fairly easy to see, it just was slightly farther down on the reel. It's sad that the list was not reprinted in its entirety, especially considering that it was the same newspaper that printed the list both times. I have a feeling that this kind of thing is part and parcel with such a special collection, especially dealing with old newspapers.