The Courageous Men of the 104th Infantry Regiment

Detail of Richard Andrew’s  “Decoration of the Colors of the 104th United States Infantry,”
painted in the State House in 1927.

If you’ve ever visited the Massachusetts State House, you’ll know the halls are filled with wonderful works of art.  Portraits, plaques, murals, and sculptures throughout the building all pay homage to notable people and events in Massachusetts history.

A large mural on the third floor features a group of WWI era soldiers standing with two flags.   The men are from the 104th infantry regiment of the 26th “Yankee” Division, and in this painted scene they become the first American military unit to have its colors (flag) decorated by a foreign government.

French corps commander General Fenelon Passaga awarded the decoration for the unit’s exceptional bravery during the Battle of Apremont on April 20, 1918.  “I am proud to decorate the flag of a regiment which has shown such fortitude and courage,” he said.  “I am proud to decorate the flag of a nation which has come to aid in the fight for liberty.”
 

Almost 10 years after the decoration ceremony, a reenactment was held at Camp Devens in  Ayer, Massachusetts. 
This photograph of the scene served as inspiration for the mural.



Julian T. Martin of Company L,
104th Infantry Regiment.

The State Library of Massachusetts is proud to own a collection of over 8,000 portraits of World War I soldiers from the Yankee Division, including many men from the 104th infantry.  Part of the collection was recently uploaded to our digital repository, and anyone can browse the online collection for soldiers with last names from O to Z.  Click here to see the DSpace collection of World War I photographs, or visit the State Library’s Special Collections department to request to see photographs in person.   The Library also has many materials on the history of the Yankee Division, including select regimental histories, newsletters, newspaper clippings, calendars of record, and more.

The mural of the 104th Infantry Regiment is located on the third floor between the Senate Leader and Senate Clerk’s offices, opposite the entrance to the House of Representatives.  The State Library is open from 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday.
 




Bianca Hezekiah
Reference Department

World War One Soldier Portraits Now in Dspace

A portion of our World War I photograph collection has finally made its way online! Digitization of over 8,000 soldier portraits begun in 2007 and was finally completed last summer. After careful review of files and metadata, 1,800 images were recently uploaded to the State Library’s digital repository.

Now patrons are able to browse photographs of members of the 26th “Yankee” Division who were based at Camp Devens (now Fort Devens) in Ayer, Massachusetts. Many soldiers have more than one image in their record because of material written on the reverse side of their portrait. Valuable information like hometown, address, promotion, and even names of family members may appear here, so make sure to click “show full item record” to check for more files and a transcription of the text.

Click here to browse photographs of soldiers with names beginning with S – Z, and stay tuned for more notices about future uploads!

Bianca Hezekiah
Reference Department

Massachusetts Photographers in the 19th Century

May is National Photography Month! People are taking more photos now than ever before, thanks to the advancements of digital photographic processes. And because of the Internet, photographs can now be uploaded and shared almost instantaneously with anyone in almost any part of the world. The State Library is currently working on its own photographic digitization projects: in the works is the digitization of our collection of WWI Massachusetts soldiers, and also of our legislative photograph collection.

Due to the ease and accessibility of photography nowadays, it’s hard to imagine what it must have been like to experience the very concept as it was in its early stages. Early photographic processes were quite time-consuming and labor-intensive, and images were difficult to reproduce. Despite this, photography flourished throughout Massachusetts in the 19th century, and cities and towns both large and small saw commercial and portrait photographers setting up shop all around the area.

  

Boston in particular was home to many famous first generation American photographers, some of whom captured the images of notable men and women active during this time period: John Adams Whipple (1822-1891) and James Wallace Black (1825-1896) worked both as partners and individually, and are known for their photos of people such as Daniel Webster, Walt Whitman, and John Brown; the photographic firm Southworth & Hawes (Albert Sands Southworth (1811-1894) and Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808-1901)), also produced an extensive collection of famous portraits, including images of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Sumner, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

One great primary resource for early Massachusetts photographers are advertisements found within our collection of 19th century Boston directories, which provide insight about the various types of services that were provided. For example, an 1848 advertisement for Southworth & Hawes states: “We take great pains to have Miniatures of deceased persons agreeable and satisfactory, and they are often so natural as to seem, even to Artists, in a quiet sleep.”

Another more exhaustive resource, organized by town or city name, is “A Directory of Massachusetts Photographers, 1839-1900”; the authors of this book compiled information on nearly every photographer in Massachusetts between the years 1839 to 1900, including their business addresses, examples of their work (if available), and other pertinent info that the authors were able to uncover in their research.

As a final note, this is a good opportunity to invite you to please check out the State Library’s official Flickr page! Our Flickr is full of images from our collections, including those of WWI Massachusetts soldiers, over 100 photographs documenting the damage caused by the hurricane of 1936, and a large collection of photographs depicting Massachusetts roads and highways from 1892 to 1893.

Kaitlin Connolly

Library Technician, Reference Dept.

A Celebration of Facial Hair in the Legislature

Anyone who has been on a library tour I've given in the last four years will know that one of my favorite library collections is Photograph 361, which contains approximately 3,000 images of state legislators from 1855 through 1908. While my love for old photographs plays a part in my devotion to this collection, the anthropological study of facial hair trends presented in this collection is really the draw for me.

Changes in facial hair styles have a long history, and until recently were primarily guided by the ruling monarch or clergy, some even specifying in law or edict which class of men should shave and which should grow their beards. The last true heyday of facial hair in the United States occurred in the last half of the 19th century when, heavily influenced by European trends, men grew all styles of moustaches, sideburns and beards. In fact, from Abraham Lincoln's presidency (1861 - 1865) through Grover Cleveland's second term (1893 - 1897) only one President lacked some form of facial hair: the clean-shaven Andrew Johnson.

Members of the Massachusetts legislature did not escape these trends. For example, in the 1880 House of Representatives photograph album, 230 of the 244 representatives pictured wear some sort of facial hair! The diversity of styles worn is truly amazing and I highly recommend visiting the Special Collections department to look through these albums.

As shaving technology advanced (led by Massachusetts-based King C. Gillette) beards began to fall out of fashion. By the early 1900s a safety razor with disposable blade made it easier, safer and less expensive for men to shave regularly. The impact of this technology can be seen in the 1915 volume of Who's Who in State Politics. When facial hair is present, it is predominantly relegated to a well-trimmed moustache. Very dapper, but quite the contrast to the free-wheelin' 1880s styles.

Today there is a resurgence of men growing full and intricate moustaches and beards. With the second annual National Championships of Beard Team USA set for this weekend in Lancaster, Pennsylvania I thought it appropriate to comb our digital collection for a few fine examples of beards and moustaches from the past. Please click over to the State Library's newest Flickr set, "A Celebration of Facial Hair Trends in the Legislature" to see some amazing styles and learn a bit about the men who wore them so elegantly.

- Lacy Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

World War I Scanning Project Completed

As part of a long-term State Library project to make as many collections as possible available to the public through the web, we have been at work since late 2007 digitizing a collection of World War I portraits given to the State Library by the Boston Globe in 1935. With over 8,000 photographs and three times as many corresponding biographical cards, we have also created a database that includes basic information about each soldier – assignment, rank, merit awards, and sometimes even extra facts from newspaper clippings.

On July 20, scanning was finally completed—8,487 New England soldiers yielded over 11,000 images! The final photograph is of J.W. Zwinge, member of the 101^st Field Artillery, Battery A. Although the last photo scan suggests the end of an era, the database will continue to grow with over 25,000 biographical cards that have yet to be added. In addition, over the coming months these images will be added to our digital repository. To view a selection of photos from the collection, please visit the State Library's Flickr page.

Five Feet High and Rising

On a rainy May 16, 1874, residents of Williamsburg and surrounding towns were struck by disaster. Early that morning the Mill River Dam, which harnessed over six hundred million gallons of water, gave way, wiping out four villages, destroying homes and factories, and taking 139 lives early that morning. The explosive wave of water ranged between 20 and 40 feet wide, and was the length of a football field. It only grew larger as it barreled down the river bed, ripping sediment and trees out of the ground as it gained momentum. Survivors of the flood described it as an enormous cloud of dirt and debris (including furniture, farm animals, and even people) speeding downstream.

There was a coroner’s inquest to discover who was at fault. It was apparent that the mill owners who commissioned the dam construction in 1865 had no formal engineering training. After consulting with engineers on the potential project, the mill owners felt the proposals ranging around $100,000 were beyond their $30,000 budget. They instead decided to consult with a railroad engineer to write up an inexpensive and flexible design, and found contractors to do the work for a mere $22,000. After construction was complete, there was much speculation among professional engineers as well as villagers living around the dam as to its safety. These accounts of concern are well documented in the interesting and engaging book, In The Shadow of the Dam: the Aftermath of the Mill River Flood of 1874 by Elizabeth M. Sharpe.

In 1875 the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed an Act which would hold builders of dams accountable for the first time. Plans for building would now have to be approved by county commissioners before construction began, and inspections would continue to take place even after construction was complete, in order to assure the safety of the structures. You can view the State Library's copy of An Act To Provide For The Supervision Of The Construction And Maintenance Of Reservoirs And Dams online.

-April Pierce, Special Collections intern

Newspaper image taken from Hartford Daily Courant, May 18, 1874, Hartford CT (courtesy of Newsbank and the American Antiquarian Society, 2004).

Discovery of Five Brothers Serving in World War I

In the Special Collections Department we are nearing the completion of a large scanning project to digitize a collection of photographs of World War I soldiers. The collection was given to the State Library by the Boston Globe in the 1930s and contains approximately 9,000 photographs. So far we have scanned 8,180 photographs. There is also a corresponding collection of about 30,000 index cards that contain biographical information on individual soldiers, often with newspaper clippings glued to the back. The data from these cards has been entered into a spreadsheet along with the information from the photographs and their envelopes. This spreadsheet contains a wealth of information on New England soldiers who served during World War I.

Occasionally, when scanning the photographs, we come across interesting individuals and unique stories. A previous post by intern Samantha Westall describes the discovery of two men with the same last name who looked nearly identical. Just this past week, I came across the photographs of Paul G. Watts, Robert E. Watts, Seymour H. Watts, and William H. Watts, Jr., four brothers from South Boston who were all serving at the same time. In the folder for Seymour H. Watts' photograph there was also a newspaper clipping from the Boston Globe with the title "Five Sons in United States Army." The subtitle explains the story further: "Mr and Mrs William H. Watts of South Boston Have Another Boy Who Longs to Be of Draft Age." Besides the four sons whose photographs are in the collection, the newspaper clipping mentions another son in service and a 6th, a 16-year-old, who is waiting until he is old enough to join the army.

One might wonder how their mother feels knowing that she has six sons serving in the army. Having just one family member fighting in the war would be difficult to deal with, but according to the paper: "The mother is also very patriotic and did not hesitate to allow her sons to step forth to battle, knowing that the country expects every man, woman and child to do their bit." "Stand by Uncle Sam" is the motto of this family, according to the paper. I don't think anyone could doubt their patriotism!

This is just one of dozens of unique stories that have come to light through the World War I photographs digitization project. Stop by the Special Collections Department to view these amazing photographs for yourself!

- Katie Trexler, Special Collections Intern

Photographs of Legislators

Did you know that the State Library has a collection of over 3,200 photographs of legislators?

The earliest photographs are from 1855 and the collection continues into the early 1900s. The photographs range in size from tiny tin type to oversize collages. All are housed in the climate-controlled library vault and are available for the public to view in the Special Collections department.

The collection is currently being digitized by a library intern and once complete, the images will be posted in the library's digital repository, DSpace. At left is one of the digitized images - Charles Dillingham (1821-1902). Mr. Dillingham was in the state Senate in 1861 and 1862, then in the state House of Representatives in 1886 and 1887, representing Sandwich during those periods. As you can see at the bottom of the image, this photograph was taken during his tenure in the Senate.

Images of legislators can also be found in several publications that the library has already digitized and are available online. Each book is listed on the Public Officers of the Commonwealth page of the library's web site. Click on any year and the digital version will open through the Internet Archive web site.

- Lacy Crews Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

Preserving for Digitization

As mentioned in a previous post, the library was awarded a grant to digitize collections relating to transport- ation systems in the Commonwealth. The first batch of materials are being scanned and the digital images created thus far are wonderful. The second batch of materials is being preserved prior to digitization.

One step that happens before items are sent to be digitized is making sure that the original materials look as good as they possibly can prior to going in front of the camera. Recently I have focused on preserving and preparing a batch of letters written in the 1800s that correspond to the railroad maps also being digitized. Above is a before-and-after shot of such a letter (click image to enlarge). While some staining remains, the original is greatly improved and as a result the digital image will be much easier for users to read. Stay tuned to the blog for more updates as this grant project progresses.

- Lacy Crews Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

Digital Commonwealth Conference Summary

I want to begin by congratulating the Digital Commonwealth's conference staff for creating a day of interesting speakers and thoughtful dialog between colleagues. I came away from the conference with new ideas to expand the State Library's outreach work and a refreshed sense of excitement for the digital projects libraries in general, and the State Library in particular, are undertaking.

Tom Clareson provided the opening keynote address which focused on Fundraising for Your Digital Collection. The crux of Clareson's talk was that libraries need to think about the ways in which traditional grants can be repurposed to provide funding for particular aspects of digital projects. For instance, using a National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grant to survey library collections, which could turn up prospective collections for digitization, or using a NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant to help organize and catalog collections, which will aid metadata creation. Clareson also emphasized the use of small grants as building the foundation for larger grant projects and thinking locally of potential funders, not just of the big federal resources. The talk concluded with a discussion of the functions of a grant proposal and some helpful do's and don't's when writing a grant. The number one do: describe a current condition in your community and clearly describe how your project will fill that need.

In the morning breakout session I attended From Artifact to Digital: Changes in Preservation Concerns, presented by Gregor Trinkaus-Randall and Bill Donovan. Trinkaus-Randall began by presenting an overview of the changes in traditional preservation methods, touching on security (such as at the Bodleian Library where books were chained to the shelves), the practice of silking, and deacidification, to name just a few. He also discussed the relation of information density to life expectancy, illustrating his point with a graph that showed as culture has moved from scroll to disc, the amount of information stored per inch has greatly increased, while the life expectancy of the storage media has greatly decreased. Trinkaus-Randall concluded by discussing the definition of digital preservation as defined by the American Library Association. Bill Donovan picked up the thread of digital preservation and spoke about MetaArchive Cooperative, a project between multiple cultural memory organizations to create a system of distributed digital preservation. The MetaArchive Cooperative was founded in 2004 with an emphasis on being a non-vendor based, peer to peer network that aids digital preservation through distributing multiple copies of (preferably open format) files to institutions in geographically dispersed sites. It was helpful and enlightening to hear about an institution taking digital preservation into their own hands in the goal of creating a lasting collection of digital content. Donovan ended by pointing the audience to a free resource: A Guide to Distributed Digital Preservation.

Over lunch conference goers were treated to the second keynote speaker, Roy Tennant, who discussed Engaging Users. Tennant began by speaking about discovery on the web and the two main types of users: natural affinity users and free-floating web users. The natural affinity users are those people who are, as Tennant put it, within "shouting distance" - users who may already know about your resources, or are affiliated with a group with a similar purpose to your institution. Free-floating web users are those people who find out about your resources through search queries or by following links. Tennant spoke about the importance of understanding both how people search for information on the internet and how Google crawls the web to populate its search results. After showing examples of important (and easy) ways to make web content more visible, he stressed the fact that libraries need to engage the passions of the patrons who discover their content by providing interactive aspects such as tagging, commenting, rating and reviewing. Tennant's talk provided helpful information for libraries performing at all points along the spectrum of web outreach and energized the audience to do even more for our web users.

The first afternoon breakout session I attended was Fix it or Sleeve it? Use it or Freeze it? - Conservation Assessment and Preparation for Digitization given by Priscilla Anderson. This session focused on preservation and conservation concerns surrounding the digitization process including preparing an item to be digitized, handling during the digitization process, and assessment of the original after digitization. Anderson began with the two main questions she asks about an item when digitization is suggested: 1. Is the text or image visible to the camera? and 2. Can the original withstand being handled? Anderson provided examples of when an item would not be visible to the camera (overlays, dirt, creases) and how to treat these problems prior to digitizing (removal of adhesive, surface cleaning, humidifying and flattening). She also discussed when an item might not be able to be handled (tears, brittle paper, vulnerable media) and how these problems are mitigated (mends, enclosures, scan on specialized equipment). Anderson also discussed various imaging equipment and the situations in which one might be favored over another, for example the use of an angled book scanner for volumes that cannot be opened fully. The session ended with a discussion of how storage options and locations might be reassessed once an item is digitized, with the intention that the original will be used less once a digital representation is available.

I ended my conference day by attending Metadata II given by Jim Keenan. While I was apprehensive about attending the second session without having attended the first, Keenan provided an upbeat and thoroughly accessible presentation on using XML within the Digital Commonwealth portal. The session began by refreshing everyone's memory regarding the tags used for Dublin Core and Keenan narrowed our focus to the 15 basic tags included in the metadata element set. Keenan stressed that while the Digital Commonwealth provided a tool kit and the ability to use Excel in lieu of XML, XML was not difficult to produce and that formatting your own metadata gave you increased control. He encouraged practicing making metadata records for mundane items (your pen, a flash drive) until you got the hang of it. As an example he walked the audience through creating a metadata record for our conference program, which helped put theory in to practice. Keenan also stressed the importance of starting with only a few records and going from there - don't think that you're going to put a 10,000 item collection into the Digital Commonwealth portal in two weeks. By taking your time and doing a little bit consistently, you (or your successor) will get all of those records done eventually. I left this session feeling that XML and Dublin Core were very accessible and that I wouldn't mind trying my hand at creating a few records.

The conference overall was a great experience that provided a wonderful variety of information for all different levels of experience. Be sure to check out the blogs below for more coverage of the conference and breakout sessions.

Henry Whittemore Library
Worcester Public Library

- Lacy Crews Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

Fourth Annual Digital Conference: Afternoon Update

The Digital Commonwealth group has done a fabulous job packing the conference schedule with interesting speakers. Highlights so far have included a wonderful and energetic lunchtime talk from Roy Tennant about engaging web users, an overview of MetaArchive from Bill Donnovan of Boston College, and a discussion of processes for assessing collections prior to and after digitization from Priscilla Anderson of Harvard University. Check back to the blog tomorrow for full reports on these sessions and others.

- Lacy Crews Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

Reporting from the Fourth Annual Digital Conference

The Digital Commonwealth is hosting the Fourth Annual Digital Conference and Vendor Fair today, March 25th, at the College of the Holy Cross. The State Library's blog was chosen as a host for reports on the keynote speakers and several breakout sessions.

The conference will feature two keynote speakers: Tom Clareson and Roy Tennant. Clareson will speak about fundraising for your digital collections and Tennant will speak about engaging users. Check back later today and tomorrow for reports from their talks.

Three breakout sessions will also be covered on the library's blog: From Artifact to Digital: Changes in Preservation Concerns; Fix it or Sleeve It? - Conservation Assessment and Preparation for Digitization; and Metadata II: Moving Forward with Metadata and XML. Look for reports from these sessions later today and tomorrow.

You can find other session summaries on these blogs: http://whittemorelibrary.wordpress.com/ and http://wplrefblog.blogspot.com/.

You can also follow the conference on Twitter, tag: #digicomm10

- Lacy Crews Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

Learn About the State Library's Scanning Projects

An ongoing initiative at the State Library is the digitization of historic Massachusetts state documents. Small collections tend to be digitized in-house using state-of-the-art scanners, while larger projects are sent to the Boston Public Library’s scanning center. So far, the State Library has digitized around 1000 items, and that number increases daily.

The in-house scanning projects include the Legislative Biographical File, which contains information about members of the Massachusetts General Court and its predecessors, Massachusetts constitutional officers, and members of Massachusetts constitutional conventions from the colonial period to date. Also being scanned at the State Library is a collection of photographs of World War I soldiers from New England and the Zimmer Newspaper Index, which is a card index to "current events" from 1878-1937 for use by Massachusetts legislators and the public. The Zimmer Index was created as a result of the “Act to Authorize the Preparation for the State Library of an Index of Current Events," passed by the Massachusetts legislature in 1892.

Larger scanning projects, such as the journals of the House and the Senate, are sent to the scanning center at the Boston Public Library’s Central Library in Copley Square. Some items from a grant-funded scanning project are also being sent to the BPL; this project involves a collection of nineteenth-century transportation materials, including photographs, maps, atlases, annual reports, and manuscripts.

Digitized items are preserved both in the Internet Archive and the State Library’s online institutional repository, known as DSpace. The Internet Archive also includes other Massachusetts-related documents, such as town and regional histories, which have been scanned by other institutions.

- State Library Staff

Discover Digital Collections with DSpace

As the legally designated depository library for Massachu-setts state publica-tions, the State Library has the most complete collection of Massa-chusetts government documents in existence. As more and more state documents are being published electronically rather than in print, the State Library has adapted its method of preserving these documents through the use of an online institutional repository, known as DSpace.

Typically, the documents in DSpace are no more than 10 years old and are downloaded from state agencies’ websites for permanent preservation in the library’s institutional repository. Some examples include the Office of Campaign and Political Finance Reports, MBTA bond issues, and Division of Insurance Annual Reports.

Some older state documents are also available in DSpace. For example, the Acts and Resolves are available online from 1692 to the present, many volumes of which are located in DSpace. Other older materials include the Manual for the General Court (1858-2005), the Massachusetts Election Statistics (1890-2004), and the Annual Reports of the Attorney General (1832-present).

Please visit our online institutional repository and explore the many state documents there that are freely available to the public.

- State Library Staff

Preservation Update

It has been a busy couple of weeks in Special Collections and Preservation! Two major initiatives are underway and in the midst of these projects, I traveled to New Jersey to finish up my term at the Preservation Management Institute.

The Massachusetts Room Preservation Project
This is a multi-year project focused on rehousing unique documents produced by state agencies and concerning the Commonwealth. Many of these items were produced during the era of brittle paper (approximately the 1850s to 1950s) and are very fragile as a result. The preservation intern for the fall is working on rehousing fragile and thin items into acid-free folders and envelopes to provide support on the shelf and protection from light damage that can further degrade brittle paper. So far this season over 150 items have been preserved as part of this project. Stay tuned to the blog for updates on the project and posts about interesting items discovered in the process.

Mapping Massachusetts: the History of Transportation in the Commonwealth
This year the State Library received a grant as part of the Library Services and Technology Act to digitize collections relating to transportation systems in the Commonwealth. These materials include manuscript maps of railroads (built and proposed), materials from the Land and Harbor Commissioners, and materials relating to canals and tunnels in the state. Preparation for digitization has begun and that includes making sure that items look their best before they go under the cameras. Over the next few weeks I'll be cleaning up and making any minor repairs necessary to our first batch of items to be scanned, approximately 300 railroad maps. It is a great experience to see and work on these hand-drawn maps. With some stretching to over six feet long, they are really a testament to the care and diligence of state mapmakers of years past.

Preservation Management Institute
As mentioned in previous posts, the Library was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grant last year to support my year of study at the Preservation Management Institute, a program of the Rutgers University School of Communication and Information. This October I traveled to Rutgers to complete my third and final week of the program. The class had some very interesting discussions about mission statements and current trends, the future of libraries in light of growing digital collections, managing change during times of restructuring and budget shifts, and a very enlightening presentation on digital imaging and what saving as a jpeg means for data/image loss. This week of discussions and presentations brought together ideas discussed in the previous two weeks of class and the hands-on experiences I've gained at the State Library over the past year.

The highlight of week three for me was our "backstage" tour of the New York Public Library (Mid-Manhattan Library). We spent a rainy afternoon there touring the preservation and conservation labs, the microfilming lab, the Office of the Registrar which handles exhibits, the main reading room, and the map room.
There were so many amazing things it is hard to express all we saw, but I guess I can sum it up by saying, we walked right by a Gutenberg Bible and only noticed it on a second pass through. What could be the crown of some collections is just sitting quietly in its own exhibit case with no fanfare. A slightly dark picture of the Bible is included at left. (No flash photography was allowed.)

We ended the day by visiting the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division. I know their collections are amazing, but I was most taken by the compact map shelving and beautiful decor of the reading room. Below at left is a picture of the ceiling of the reading room. While I appreciate that new technologies can provide library services in remote locations, there's something to be said for providing library services in amazing reading rooms.

For those of you looking for a beautiful space to access library resources and wi-fi here in Boston, the State Library has huge windows for natural light, a beautifully renovated reading room, and a flat screen television on the balcony for viewing House and Senate sessions.

- Lacy Crews Stoneburner, Preservation Librarian

Essential New England Books

Recently the Boston Globe listed 100 Essential New England books on their web site. The State Library holds many of these titles, some of which can be accessed electronically through the library catalog as an e-book or audio book file to download with a valid State Library card. Title, author, and call number information is listed below. If you see something that piques your interest, stop by for some summer reading!

All souls : A Family Story from Southie / Michael Patrick MacDonald F73.68.S7 M33 1999

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao / Junot Diaz PS3554.I259 B75 2007
A Massachusetts Book Award Winner

The City Below / James Carroll PS3553.A764 C58 1994

A Civil Action / Jonathan Harr KF228.A7 H37 1995

Cod : A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World / Mark Kurlansky PN6071.C66 K87 1997

Common Ground : A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families / J. Anthony Lukas F73.9.A1 L85 1985

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court / Mark Twain E-Book and Audio Book File

The Emperor's Children / Claire Messud PS3563.E8134 E47 2006
A Massachusetts Book Award Winner

Ethan Frome / Edith Wharton Audio Book File

Girl, Interrupted / Susanna Kaysen RC464.K36 A3 1993

John Adams / David McCullough E322 .M38 2001

The Last Hurrah / by Edwin O'Connor PS3565.C55 L3 1956

Little Women / Louisa May Alcott Audio Book File
Also available as an E-Book in the Collected Works of Louisa May Alcott

Looking Backward, 2000-1887 / by Edward Bellamy PS1086 .L6 1995

Massachusetts : A Novel / Nancy Zaroulis PS3576.A74 M37 1991

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War / Nathaniel Philbrick F68 .P44 2006
A Massachusetts Book Award Winner

Mystic River / Dennis Lehane PS3562.E426 M97 2001
A Massachusetts Book Award Winner

Olive Kitteridge / Elizabeth Strout Audio Book File

One Boy's Boston, 1887-1901 / Samuel Eliot Morison F73.5 .M6

Paul Revere's Ride / David Hackett Fischer F69.R43 F57 1994

The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea / Sebastian Junger QC945 .J66 1997

Profiles in Courage / John F. Kennedy E176 .K4 1956
Inaugural and Memorial editions are also available.

Promised Land / Robert B. Parker E-Book

The Rascal King: The Life and Times of James Michael Curley, 1874-1958 / Jack Beatty F70.C85 B44 1992

Science and Health: With Key to the Scriptures / by Mary Baker Eddy BX6941.S4 1994

The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists are Unraveling the Mysteries of our Favorite Crustacean / Trevor Corson QL444.M33 C675 2004

Summer of '49 / David Halberstam GV875.B62 H35 1989

The Very Hungry Caterpillar / by Eric Carle PZ7.C21476 Ve 1979
A Massachusetts Book Award Winner

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail / Bill Bryson E-Book


- Lacy Crews, Preservation Librarian

Electronic Documents in the Jarrett Barrios Collection

A second accession of the papers of State Senator Jarrett Barrios is currently being processed in Special Collections. This collection is causing the staff to quickly make decisions about description and access to electronic documents. Although Paige Roberts, Head of Special Collections, is working on a pilot project for electronic files in legislative collections, the department does not yet have a standing policy for handling electronic files. So when I discovered a tote bag of compact and floppy discs in the collection, as well as several discs mixed in with photo files, we needed to decide how to move forward with minimal processing of the collection. The digital files are mostly pictures of the Senator at events and with constituents, but there are also PowerPoint presentations, Word documents and Excel files documenting a number of office functions.

We have not yet come to a final decision on processing in this case, but some of the questions we will need to answer are:

• Should we reformat any of the material, for instance providing web access or printing hard copy to file in the collection?


• How much detail should we use in describing the materials?


• How should the discs be stored?


• What is the research value of the pictures in particular? How useful will they be to library users?


• How should we handle privacy issues? One of the discs is marked "confidential." Will we treat this the same as a confidential paper file, or use new criteria to make a decision?

-Katie Chase, Special Collections Librarian

From the Preservation Lab

Over the next few weeks the preservation intern and I will be building phase boxes for twenty-nine editions of the Public Officers of the Commonwealth. This series, also known as the Bird Books, contain photographs and biographical information for legislators and public officials of the Commonwealth. These items are particularly useful for tracking the term of a legislator and for the pictures of early Twentieth Century legislators. The library maintains a copy of record, library use copies in both the main library and in the Special Collections Department and digital access copies available through the Internet Archive.

The library use copies located in the Special Collections Department are the focus of this boxing project. The leather covers on the editions from 1919 to 1943/1944 are deteriorating, a condition known as red rot. Red rot is a process of leather decay caused by the interaction of sulfuric acid within the leather fibers. It results in weakened leather and a powdery rust colored dust. By housing these volumes in phase boxes the leather covers will be protected from further deterioration due to abrasion from pulling these items off of the shelf. The picture above shows the volumes to be repaired as they are shelved. You'll notice that some appear to be bound in brown leather. In fact that coloring is due to red rot - all of these items are bound with black leather.

For each volume we will be building custom-sized boxes made from acid-free folder stock. These boxes will not only provide the above-mentioned protection from abrasion but will also provide stability for these historic items and will facilitate easier handling by library staff and library users.

The State Library recently scanned all of the Bird Books from the early 1900s to the most recent edition. While digitization is an exciting means of providing greater access to an item and a digital copy can diminish the need for handling the original item, technology's forward moving hardware and software requirements prove a challenge in creating a digital copy that can be guaranteed to be readable in 100 years or more. Traditional preservation, on the other hand, can provide the conditions under which an item can survive for hundreds of years and still be readable. Both digitization and preservation have complimentary points and the processes dovetail nicely: the digital image provides an access copy to legislative researchers the world over and preservation of the primary source provides access to legislative researchers into the future.

-Lacy Crews, Preservation Assistant

World War I Photographs Being Digitized

The Special Collections Department is currently working to digitize a collection of portraits of soldiers in World War I. This collection, which numbers about 8,000 photographs, was given to the library by the Boston Globe. Most of the photographs in the collection seem to be professional portraits taken for military record displaying the soldier’s name, rank, unit and division. If the paper published a story about a soldier (usually if he had been wounded or killed), the photo is accompanied by a "cut slip" with more information on the soldier's service and the article that appeared in the Globe.

There are also a few candid snapshots in the collection. Some of the photos are also accompanied by a metal plate used for printing the picture in the newspaper. Each picture represents one of the many stories to be told about soldiers in the Great War. When the collection has been scanned, the State Library will create a website where patrons can search for soldiers by name and hopefully discover previously unseen photos of relatives who were soldiers in the Great War.

As a library Page I am quite honored to work with a collection such as this, and as a recent graduate who studied history in college I am thrilled. For me each photo holds its own unique story and life that is woven into the story of a nation at war. Having studied both World Wars in great depth, I am excited to help preserve the faces of the men who proudly served our country. As a history major I learned how some the great historical mysteries were pieced together, this collection is another mystery. Some days I feel as though I am a detective who is trying to find the answers as I scan each picture. The face of each soldier who has left behind a story, a family, a life for someone to discover makes this collection exceptionally moving.

-Shawna Smith, Regis College 2008, Library Page

Electronic Documents added

Several dozen new documents have been added to the library's electronic documents repository. Most of these documents are agency reports from the last 3 to 5 years.