NC Room archive project, rare book research

9:00 am -2:00 pm
5 hours
Total hours to date: 95.5

Today, I was able to spend the entire time in the NC Room. First, I tallied and shelved materials from the previous day. I am learning my way around the materials in the NC Room much better, and I am able to help patrons more easily. Then, I continued work documenting old books found in the archive collection. The most interesting of these, to me, was the 1st edition copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852. It is in very good shape, relative to its age, and is probably pretty valuable. Research was done a few years ago, determining its value to be around $250. I also hadn't realized that this novel was published in volumes, because the version held by the BCPL is volume 2, containing chapters 19-end. It's fascinating to handle these historic works in the archive collection. Many of the items don't hold much value, but for now, the library is holding on to them, documenting them, and will later determine which items to keep, sell, donate to another library, etc.

Other books that I documented today were also from the 1800s and most were religious in nature, possibly originating from the library of a local religious leader, named John Carter. While I was at the library today, I completed documentation for 6 archival items, shelved materials, and helped a few patrons. It is amazing to me how much time it took to document these items, and I can see how difficult it must be for Gale to be able to complete this type of assignment with all of her other duties. It is time consuming, and low on the priority list. Some of these items that have been donated might have local interest value, while some others might be useful for specific research. Others might not be appropriate for this library collection but might make more sense in another library collection where they might see more use. I am hoping to finish documenting these items, get them added to a spreadsheet, and formulate a plan for future volunteers to continue the documentation process so that it will no longer take years for items to go from donation to the documented and cataloged library collection.