Design of Town Reports

The State Library has a lot of very cool headlining collections but this post is written to support the more mundane. Earlier this spring we posted some well written blog posts by our Government Documents Librarian about M.G.L. ch.6 §39B. This law mandates that all state agencies submit copies of their published materials to the library. But what do those published materials look like? Luckily for you, I, an intern here at the State Library, conducted a thorough inventory of the annual reports of every town. These reports, held in the town room in the library stacks, often span from the 1800s to the current year. (Per law, we’re supposed to have physical copies of every report from every town from every year.)

For the most part, towns send in their annual reports with little to minimal prompting. What happens to these reports once they’re in the town room? They get inventoried by enterprising young interns like myself. The reports don’t move unless someone wants to look at them and there isn’t a digital version available in our online digital collection. Is this a sad fate for the annual reports that end up here? It doesn’t have to be, especially when you are surprised by an interesting and thoughtful report design. When I was working through the ‘S’ section I came across a period in the 1970s when someone with a passion for graphic design made the Springfield Public Health Department annual reports. Some of my favorite include:

Left: Springfield Health Department 91st Annual Report 1972.
Right: 1978 Springfield Health Department 97th Annual Report. If the smaller circles are difficult to read: From 12 O’Clock and going clockwise: “Child Hygiene,” “Tuberculosis Division,” “Communicable Disease Control,” “Environmental Sanitation,” “Immunization,” “Dental Clinic,” “Health Education,” “Food & Milk Division”

Left: Part 1 of the cover for my favorite issue. Open to reveal... 

Right: Part 2 of my favorite cover. Not what I was expecting! Reads: ‘LOOK’ 86th Annual Report Springfield Health Department 1967

Nowhere, in any of these reports, could I find an indication of who designed the cover. But they’re admirable – unique, colorful, thoughtful, and even funny at times. The designs stand out in a room that is literally full of reports just like them.

Other town report designs include drawings by children (some of which are indicated to have won a town design contest), photographs and engravings of key aspects of towns (gates, buildings, natural landmarks), images of community in the town, and even images of standout town members in memoriam.

Nahant Annual Report for the Year Ending
December 31, 2012. Below the image:
A true Nahanter Robert F. Cormier | 1928-2012

The challenge all of these town reports face is how to be memorable in a room full of reports just like it. And the truth is that these reports can’t be memorable, not just by the cover. As fun as I find the covers to be, the best way for a report to make a lasting impact is for it to be seen by people who aren’t library staff. Researchers come in to the library to study town reports for a variety of reasons (academic, legal, personal interest) - we had a researcher come in regularly over the past year to study town reports in an effort to gather data about municipalities and working women. You can find out a lot about your town (or other towns) in these town reports: how many people registered for a dog license, how your public schools are doing, what services were accomplished with your tax dollars. Civic literacy extends from the highest levels of the federal government to the most local levels of the state government, and unlike the federal government, these documents have more unique cover art.

There is a saying that is widely hated, at least from my observations as a student in library and archives school, that something was “found” in the archives. You can generally be sure that if something is in a library or archive then that item is not lost. It has been documented, it and its location is in the official record, and it is kept in a safe environment. It may be lost to your memory, and maybe you never even knew it existed, but it is not lost to us. If these reports are lost to you, though, you can rediscover them in our reading room or from the comfort of wherever you are with our online repository. Go forth and discover!

Emily Buff

Government Documents Intern

Reference Tip: Locating Historic Attorney General Opinions

In 1832 the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office began issuing formal opinions on legal and constitutional matters. These opinions can be found in the AG’s Annual Reports (Public Document No. 12) which the State Library has in print and digitized in our digital repository.

• In addition to the Annual Reports, historic opinions can also be found in a set of numbered volumes entitled, Official Opinions of the Attorneys-General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Volumes 1 - 8, 1891 through 1929. You may come across citations to these volumes in Westlaw or Lexis. As an example, 5 Mass. Op. Att'y Gen. 670, 672 is a citation to Volume 5 (1917-1920). The full volume is in our digital repository here. The opinion begins on page 670 and ends on page 672; the opinion is from 1920. These volumes contain a subject index and table of statutes cited. Once you have the year, you could also locate this opinion in the 1921 Annual Report, Report of the attorney general for the year ending January 19, 1921. In addition, it is important to note that beginning in 1967, opinions were issued chronologically and numbered.

For more information on Attorney General Opinions, see our previous blog post. It goes over AG Opinions in Shepard’s Citations. 

If you need assistance locating Attorney General Opinions, please feel free to contact the Reference Department. 

April Pascucci
Legislative Reference Librarian

John Davis Long and Theodore Roosevelt

One of the State Library’s most popular attractions is the bronze bust of past President Theodore Roosevelt, which stands immediately to the left of our Reference Desk. Aside from depicting a major figure of U.S. history, the bust is an object of curiosity because its sculptor was the man who would later sculpt the Mount Rushmore Monument, John Gutzon Borglum. TR isn’t the only major historical figure represented in bust form at the State Library. We also have busts of Cicero, Arthur Buckminster Fuller, George Frisbie Hoar, Caleb Tillinghast, and John Davis Long on display in our Reading Room. These figures are significant in some way to Massachusetts history, State Library history, or (in the case of Cicero) American political philosophy. 

While reading up on these historical figures, I found an interesting connection between two of them: Theodore Roosevelt and John Davis Long. Long served as Secretary of the Navy while Roosevelt was the Assistant Secretary. Unfortunately, the two men did not get along (Thomas, 1997, p. 32). For example, they disagreed over events leading up to the Spanish war, with Long suggesting that Roosevelt wanted to launch a naval assault before war had been declared. You can read Roosevelt’s response to this accusation in his letter to Long (digitized version available here).

I can’t help but wonder if the person responsible for the arrangement of these busts knew the history these men shared. Maybe it’s coincidence that they are positioned on opposite sides of the reading room, avoiding each other’s gaze; however, I like to think that the arrangement was intentional and that the room designer thought it best to keep the two men as far apart from one another as possible.

More information on the State Library’s art and architecture can be found here.

Maryellen Larkin

Government Documents & Reference Librarian

Sources:

• Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to John Davis Long. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o186176. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.

• Thomas, Richard F. 1997. Virgil, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Davis Long Neighbors in the Widener stacks. Harvard Library Bulletin NS 8(1): 31-48. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:4727677

Parrots Land in the Library!

Welcome the summer with the bright and colorful Carolina Parrot (Audubon Plate 26)! The Carolina parrot, also referred to as the Carolina parakeet, has been officially listed as extinct since 1939 but you can visit us from July 11 to August 8 to see it on display in our library. When this print was made in the 1830s, the Carolina Parrot made its home all the way from southern New York and Wisconsin to the Gulf of Mexico. It was the only parrot species native to the eastern United States, and one of only three species native to the entire country. The closest living relative of the Carolina parrot is the sun parakeet, which is now endangered. You can read more about the factors that lead to the parrot's extinction in this article by the John James Audubon Center at Mill Grove.

This print shows the adult male and female, along with a young parrot, which is identified with green head feathers instead of yellow. They are all shown among the branches of the Xanthium strumarium plant, also known as the rough cocklebur. It's appropriate to show the parrot among the cocklebur, as it was one of its food sources. The cocklebur is a poisonous plant, so farmers liked having the Carolina parrot around as a way of clearing this dangerous plant from their land. 

Parrots are extremely intelligent birds, and with their curved beaks, the parrots in this print look like they are smiling at the viewer! We're grateful for the opportunity to share such a detailed and beautiful depiction of a now extinct bird with our visitors, so be sure to stop by throughout the month to see it on display. 

Elizabeth Roscio

Preservation Librarian

Service Spotlight: Interlibrary Loan for State Employees

State employees: is there an article you need, but we don’t have a subscription to that journal? Is there a book you’d like to consult to help with a project you’re working on, but you don’t see it listed in our catalog? We’re here to remind you that full-time, permanent state employees can take advantage of the State Library’s Interlibrary Loan program at no cost to you!

You can fill out a form to request a journal article or book chapter and you can also fill out a form to request a book. Alternatively, you can email your request to interlibrary.loan@mass.gov. The more citation information you can provide on your request form or in your email, the better. This will allow staff to be sure they are requesting the correct material for you and you’ll receive your material faster.

The State Library is part of the Boston Library Consortium and we can borrow materials from other libraries via OCLC WorldCat. You can also request materials from other Massachusetts libraries through Commonwealth Catalog, or ComCat, with a valid Massachusetts public library card.

To learn more about interlibrary loan at the State Library, please see our previous blog post and our webpage. Feel free to reach out to us by email with questions as well


Jessica Shrey
Legal Research Reference Librarian

State Library Newsletter - July Issue

Swing into summer with the State Library's newsletter! Catch up on our past Author Talk season, our displayed items, and a special highlight of a recently completed intern project. 

Pictured here is a preview, but the full issue can be accessed by clicking here. And you can also sign up for our mailing list to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox.

On Display at the State Library

The upcoming July 4th holiday celebrates America’s birthday, the date in 1776 when the Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Here in the State Library, we’re marking the occasion by sharing our copy of the Declaration. We have previously written about and displayed a version printed in The New-England Chronical by Edward Powers and Nathaniel Willis, but now we are excited to share our broadside copy, which was printed by Ezekiel Russell in Salem on July 17, 1776. Visit us throughout the month to see it displayed in our reading room.

After the Second Continental Congress signed off on the final wording of the Declaration, the text was sent to Philadelphia printer John Dunlap, who printed two hundred copies as broadsides. The text was then distributed to the thirteen colonies, where it was printed in newspapers and as broadsides. The version authorized and distributed to printers throughout Massachusetts included the following instructions for further dissemination (for ease of reading, in this transcription the “long s” which is printed as an “f” has been written as an “s”):

“In Council, July 17, 1776. Ordered, That the Declaration of Independence be printed; and a Copy sent to the Ministers of each Parish, of every Denomination, within this State; and that they severally be required to read the same to their respective Congregations, as soon as divine Service is ended, in the afternoon, on the first Lord’s-Day after they shall have received it: --- And after such Publication thereof, to deliver the said Declaration to the Clerks of their several Towns, or Districts; who are hereby required to record the same in their respective Town, or District Books, there to remain as a perpetual Memorial thereof.”

Note that the Council approved this order on July 17, 1776 and that it was sent to Massachusetts printers almost a full two weeks after the Declaration was first ratified. Though we all know that news in the colonial period was not instantaneous like it is today, this lag time emphasizes the duration that it would take for news to spread throughout the colonies. Once printers received it, it was then printed in their own newspapers and as broadsides that were sent to ministers to share with their congregants at the next Sunday service, as described above. In Boston, it was also read from the balcony of the Old State House to crowds gathered below on July 18.

The printer of the displayed broadside, Ezekiel Russell, lived in Salem during a portion of the Revolutionary War and was a prolific publisher. In addition to this broadside, he was also the printer of The American Gazette or The Constitutional Journal. Following the instructions from the broadside, Russell was authorized to print the Declaration at his shop and distribute it to ministers throughout the North Shore. Written in iron gall ink on the back of the broadside is the notation “To the Rev. Mr. Holyoke, Boxford” so we know which congregation received this specific version.

In December 2016, this broadside received conservation treatment at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC). The broadside was cleaned, tape was removed, and paper tears and losses were filled in with Japanese paper and wheat paste. The result is the beautifully mended and stabilized broadside that we can now safely display. And for those who can’t visit us in person, once the broadside was conserved, NEDCC’s Imaging Services Department provided us with a high-quality digital version which we can share in our digital repository. During the 1700s, broadsides were meant to be printed and distributed quickly to disseminate important information and keeping them intact to save for future generations was not necessarily the objective. We’re lucky to have such a well-preserved version in our collection and hope that you’ll be able to visit us this month to see this inspiring document in person.


By Elizabeth Roscio
Preservation Librarian