2019--Week 5--At the Library

As a child, I was pretty indifferent about the library.  I didn't like to read, so a place with books and a "hush up" policy just didn't appeal to me.

Ironically, for the entire 4 years of my college career, I worked in a specialized economics library.  I learned about cataloguing books, repairing damaged books, ordering books, and, of course, shelving books (making a yucky face here).   I also helped with a little bit of research for professors and economists working on my campus.  But I wasn't an economics major, or even a business major, so while I was aware of the titles and subjects of our contents, I couldn't have cared less.

That's me in the foreground in the Economics Library where I worked all four years of college.  Circa 1971.

In the late 1970's, when I started graduate school as a young professional, I was grateful to find I didn't have to go all the way into Washington, DC to the library of American University to research my papers.  My local library had a large business section and microfilm of a variety of periodicals and newspapers, and I spent many a Sunday afternoon there. I still hadn't fallen in love with the library at this point though.  However, I must not have been totally asleep at the wheel, and all those experiences primed me for being the library groupie I am today.

Time passed, and somewhere in my middle age, I suddenly became enchanted by our local libraries.  I'm sure it wasn't really "suddenly", but it took a while before it dawned on me that I enjoyed just spending time there.  I love to research...not just genealogy...but just about anything.  The thrill of the hunt! Most likely, this nascent skill emerged  as we accumulated enough financial stability and work seniority that we began traveling on vacations to places other than our hometowns in Tennessee and Texas, and I was the chief trip planner.

Before the internet, the library was the best place to find information about places to visit throughout the world: Fodor's, Frommer's, Lonely Planet........I get giddy just thinking about the possibilities.  I love being surrounded by all that information waiting to be found.

And as I visited more frequently, I found more and more of interest to me.  There are at least 3 public libraries within a 5 mile radius of my house, and a fourth only slightly farther away. I have attended Spanish language classes and conversation groups there; I have listened to jazz performances and  well known authors.  I've gotten copies of my tax forms there.  I've bought used books on sale from the library's "friends" events (sometimes worried I'm buying back my own donations).  I've used their computers when I've had internet problems at home.   Before the advent of cheap 3-way home printers, I spent lots of coinage at the copy machines there.  Now I don't even have to physically go to the library to check out books of interest; I can download e-books to the Kindle app on my iPad.

One nearby library is the home of the Virginia Room which holds lots of resources for those with ancestors hailing from the Old Dominion as Virginia is sometimes called.  It's possible, even probable, I have relatives who came through Virginia on their way to other places, but I've not made my way back to them yet.  Nevertheless, the Virginia Room is also the repository for a variety of genealogy resources on other topics.  Further, the special interest groups of my local genealogy society meet at the library.  The librarians have helped me with an interlibrary loan from a local university to check out a book about the history of vaudeville, so I can learn something about my great-grandmother's background.  I can access Ancestry.com from any library in our county!

Perhaps the libraries of my youth offered similar (low tech) opportunities for learning, but I really don't think so.  The library is now so much more than books.

Last year, in 2018, I attended my first ever National Genealogical Society (NGS) Conference in Grand Rapids, MI.  One of the optional excursions was to the Michigan Library and Historical Center in Lansing, and even though I wasn't sure what to expect, I signed up for that day long trip.  I was not disappointed.  The Western Michigan Genealogical Society did a fantastic job of organizing a fun day.  Besides getting to spend a day with other people who didn't roll their eyes when I talked about looking for my Dutch 3rd great grandmother, I learned a lot from the experience.  Our time in the Archives was limited to ensure we all had equal access, and we could then spend whatever time was left in the library.  I perused the local city directories and found entries for my 3rd great grandmother (yes, the Dutch one), under the several married names she had.   Michigan has made excellent efforts to digitize their records, but I enjoyed the process of looking through the stacks at this library to see what I could find!

I have at my doorstep the wonderful resources of the Library of Congress, but I'm still a relative novice at genealogy research, and I've only recently reached a point where I think I could benefit from a trip there.  I've started making notations about which ancestors I might find fruitful to search for there. It's on my list of things to do this summer when I get a chance to attend one of the monthly orientation briefings.  I might never come home.........