Guys Read at the Library — and Wherever

Children’s Book Week, May 7-13, offers a chance to poke around to discover some of what’s happening in the wonderful world of books for children..  The answer is LOTS is happening and a week offers a mere glimpse of some samples.

Guys Read in Hennepin County Library is one of scores of reading promotion initiatives sponsored by area libraries.  The HCL site is part of a national drive initiated by children’s author Jon Scieszka.   Guys Read is designed to draw attention to boys’ literacy and to motivate adults to help boys read more.  Scieszke is the nation’s first children’s laureate, officially called the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

Describing the Guys Read program Scieszka writes:

We can help boys read by letting them choose what they read.expanding our definition of “reading” to include nonfiction, graphic novels, comics, comic strips, humor magazines, newspapers, online text, getting boys to recommend reading they do like to other boys, providing boys with male role models for reading in school and at home.

The national Guys Read website offers these and countless other observations about boys’ reading as well as an extensive list of books that boys read and recommend.

The Guys Read program in Hennepin County Library is made possible by the Library Foundation of Hennepin County with support from Best Buy Children’s Foundation and the Ann and Jack Cole Fund.

 

For more information about the forty Guys Read sites in the HCL system check the Library’s website.

 

 

Musician/writer Dylan Hicks and Poet Dobby Gibson at the Northeast Library

Once again the Friends of the Northeast Library will sponsor a very special author talk on Thursday, May 17, 6;30 p.m. at the Library, 2200 Central Avenue Northeast.  The May program is a classic double-header:

Dylan Hicks, is a man of many interests, talents and faces. Readers who know Dylan Hicks are eagerly awaiting his first novel which is set for publication in May by Coffee House Press, a Northeast independent literary force.    Though difficult to categorize, Boarded Windows is already receiving national acclaim.  The novel reflects and spirit of Uptown Minneapolis in the Nineties.

One reviewer, Sam Lipsyte, writes “Do yourself a favor and read this smart, tender book.  The characters will  haunt you with their longing, and inspire you with their sweet, caustic wit.  Dylan Hicks knows his music and his prose is a song in itself.  He’s given light to the shuttered and boarded parts of life.”

The theme of the novel comes as no surprise to the many locals who know Hicks as a songwriter and musician. Earlier this year he released his first album in ten years. The book includes a free download of Sings Bolling Green, a soundtrack to the novel written and performed by Dylan Hicks himself.

Followers of popular culture know that in the past several years Hicks has melded his writing and musical talents as a prodigious writer.   He’s a familiar name as contributor to City Pages, a position he left to focus on Boarded Windows.

A search of the web discloses some intriguing information about Dylan Hicks’ life and interests.  His own website contains a forthright author statement that reveals much about Boarded Windows.  A lengthy conversation  with his colleague Brad Zellar goes into real depth about writing and music.  Zellar concludes with an intriguing observation that “there’s no Minneapolis novel.   Boarded Windows, Zellar writes “is the first book that I can think of that’s really steeped in Minneapolis, that really gets it.”  A question the author may address at the Friends program….

Joining Dylan Hicks on the program is Minnesota poet Dobby Gibson who will discuss his new collection It Becomes You, forthcoming from another independent press Graywolf Press in 2013.  The collection of poems is described as “meditative, lyrical, aphoristic, and always leavened with a wry wit.  The reviewer writes that “through Dobby Gibson’s poems you explore the divergent conditions by which we’re perpetually defined—the daily weather, the fluctuations of the Dow, the growth of a cancer cell, the politics of the day.”

Dobby Gibson’s first book of poetry, Polar, published in 2004, received the Beatrice Award and was a finalist for the 2006 Minnesota Book Award.  He is also the author of a second collection of poetry, Skirmish, published in 2009 by Graywolf Press.

Again, a web search will discover several interviews with Dobby Gibson, reviews and readings of his works of poetry.

The Friends of the Library programs are all free and open to the public.

Remembering Dorothy Porter Wesley, Librarian Extraordinaire

When Carter Woodson introduced the idea of Black History Week in 1926 his intent was to illuminate individuals, events, stories of African Americans that were generally unrecognized in common sources of information, including books, museums and libraries.  Though some dismiss what is now generally known as African American History Month I find this month a welcome opportunity to reminisce about great African Americans I have known  – or wish I had known.

Over the decades, an image of Dorothy Burnett Porter Wesley has flitted through my mind.   A bit of research has awakened me to the spirit of this visionary librarian whose indefatigable efforts have played a major role in assuring that the recorded history of African Americans is collected and preserved for posterity.

I never knew Dorothy Porter, but I remember her well.  She was Curator of the Moorland-Spingarn Collection at Howard University while I was a fledgling librarian at the public college across the street, what was then District of Columbia Teachers College.  During the 1968 upheaval following the death of Martin Luther King we were all operating in an interim mode, classes canceled, libraries closed, protests on campus.  Though its status as a federal building – coupled with the fact that there was no campus – left DCTC a relative sea of tranquility Howard became a rallying ground for student protesters.

My clear recollection is of Dorothy Porter, all five feet of her, bustling about the Howard University campus snatching banners and bulletins and whatever memorabilia she could fetch to add to her massive African American history archives – books, photos, pamphlets, art and artifacts, whatever would preserve and share the stories.

Librarian that I am (it’s in the DNA) I googled to discover what had become of Dorothy Porter, that little dynamo etched in my memory as the quintessential librarian/archivist.  A quick search revealed that she had died in 1995, that her first husband, renowned artist and art historian James Amos Porter, died in 1970, and that later she married Charles H. Wesley, former dean of Wilberforce, who died in 1987.

More than this, I found exquisite quotes from Dorothy, snippets that verified my flashes of recall.  When Dorothy was first selected to compile the Howard collection in 1930 it was an unprecedented challenge to shape a library that reflected the lives and writings of Black Americans.  The need to capture the record, written and oral, was in its infancy.  Before Emancipation slaveholders forbade their slaves from speaking their own language and from learning to write or read.  As a result, most of Black history and stories was oral.

Pioneer librarian that she was, Dorothy began the process by rummaging through dusty old boxes that contained about 3000 books, pamphlets and other historical items that had been donated to the University in 1914 by Jesse E. Moorland, a minister and Howard alumnus and trustee.  She also dug through the 1600 piece Anti-Slavery collection donated to Howard in 1873 by New York abolitionist Lewis Tappan.

And thus was launched the first research library in an American university devoted to the history and culture of African Americans. The task of collecting written records of the Diaspora must have been daunting and dispiriting to young Dorothy Porter who is quoted as saying “I recall that not many years ago the African was said to lack all sense of history because African history was not available in the form of written language.”

Dorothy Porter seized the formidable challenge with gusto.  Later she admitted that she had to teach herself Black history.    Later she recalled:  I went around the (Howard) library and pulled out every relevant book I could find – the history of slavery, black poets – for the collection.  Over the years the main thing I had to do was beg – from publishers, authors, families.  Sometimes it meant being there just after the funeral director took out the bodies and saying, ‘you want all this junk in the basement?’

And thus began the story of Dorothy Porter Wesley who went on to become one of the most prominent curators and bibliographers of all that relates to Blacks in America and in the Caribbean.  The list of awards she received during her life and continues to receive posthumously is astronomical.  Among other tributes is the Dorothy B. Porter Reading Room in the Founders Library at Howard; during the dedication the presenter quoted historian Benjamin Quarles as saying “without exaggeration, there hasn’t been a major Black history book in the last 30 years in which the author hasn’t acknowledged Mrs. Porter’s help.”  Possibly the highlight of her professional career came in 1994 when President Clinton hosted a White House ceremony at which he presented her the Charles Frankel Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Though my heart told me that Dorothy’s legacy lives on I was overjoyed beyond words to learn that her lifetime of collecting African American history and culture is today preserved and shared at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center (AARLCC) at the Broward County Library in the Sistrunk area of Fort Lauderdale, an area that was once the heart of the city’s African American community.

The AARLCC is an amazing resource built on the vision of Broward County Library Director Samuel F. Morrison who saw the need for a rich research facility, cultural center and historical archive.  The development of the AARLC is a great story in itself.

At the start, Constance Porter Uzelac, daughter of James and Dorothy Porter, took a lead role.  When she moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1990 she initiated efforts to preserve and provide access to what she called “Mama’s stuff.”   As lasting tribute to her parents Uzelac , a former medical librarian herself, was for a time the custodian of the of the Dorothy Porter Wesley Collection which houses and makes available the bibliographic collection of her mother and the art and research of her father.

Today, the work of curating the Dorothy Porter Wesley Collection resides with the Broward County Library.  Housed within the AARLCC the Dorothy Porter Wesley Collection is home to over five thousand bibliographic treasures and memorabilia spotted and saved by Dorothy Porter Wesley.

Little did I know back in 1968 that the powerhouse snatching the toss-aways of the protesters would leave the legacy that is the Dorothy Porter Wesley Collection at the AARLCC.  What I did recognize and remember so well is that Dorothy Porter was the diminutive model of a librarian.  Though the day-to-day of rummaging through basements, spotting what is rare, organizing, preserving, digitizing, cataloging is not dramatic, the results are a living legacy.  The record of human history and culture demands and deserves the sort of keen eye and intrepid stamina that Dorothy Burnett Porter Wesley demonstrated during those heated days in Washington, D.C.

Little wonder the memory was etched in my mind then and remains there now.

 

 

Seniors Catch the Surfing Wave

Recognizing that retirees and others “of an age” did not enjoy the advantage of on-the-job computer training a number of state and local agencies are working together and with public agencies including libraries to provide learning opportunities for seniors. Senior Surf Day at the St. Anthony Library is just one example of the opportunities available for seniors who want to know more about the web, search engines, senior-oriented Internet sites and more.

There’s a Senior Surf Day scheduled for 12:30-2:30 p.m. Thursday, October 27, at the St. Anthony Library, 2941 Pentagon Drive in the St. Anthony Village shopping center. This session is sponsored by the library in collaboration with Senior LinkAge Line, the Minnesota Board on Aging and MSMP. There will be another Senior Surf Dday at St. Anthony on November 17. Questions? Call 612 543 6075.

This session is one of scores of similar training sessions scheduled for seniors throughout the region and the state. For more information contact any one of the sponsoring organizations.

Who Lived Here – and When? Lots of Help Available for Curious Homeowners

Staffers who work with patrons on a daily basis in the James K. Hosmer Special Collections Library at Minneapolis Central Library report that a large percentage of their patrons are at the library to research the history of their homes, property or neighborhoods or to ask about a specific building or historic or utilitarian value.

I’m one of those patrons, constantly seeking information about the Windom Park neighborhood and surrounding environment so I probably inflate their statistics – and I haven’t even attempted house searching yet

These wise professionals are also quick to point out that the James K Hosmer Special Collections Library is not the sole source for researchers.  They have prepared an extremely useful guide to the resources of Special Collections and to other options within the information community.

The complete guide, available online, covers a wide range of research strategies, tools and resources.  Experienced staffers strongly  advise that that searchers call in advance (612 543 8200) so that staff has time to locate the information needed.  Remember there are miles of shelves packed with 125 years of carefully collected reference data!

These in-house and online resources are accessible at or through the James K. Hosmer .  All of this information is provided by library staff, with the slightest of tweaking on my part – just so I can say I had a hand in sharing the information with potential patrons.

Original building permit index card:  Searchers will start the process by obtaining a photocopy that lists the legal description of the property and every permit pulled. Permits are also available from the Minneapolis Development Review which is searchable online.

The Development Review Office is located in Room 300 of the Public Service Building, 250 South 4^th Street, Mpls).  That Office can provide building permits (1884-1973), building, moving and writing permits or house’s architect, if there was one, as well detailed information provided through the 1934 Works Progress Administration (WPA) survey which included the condition of the building and yard, type of heating, availability of water and sewer connections, refrigeration, number and necessity of the occupants.

Architecture:  Check Special Collections for information on a building’s architecture.  This is also available through the Northwest Architectural Archives at the University of Minnesota, a repository that holds the city’s most extensive collection of information about Minnesota architects, contractors, and their projects.

Newspaper clippings.  Special Collections houses the dailies as well as a good collection of Minneapolis neighborhood newspapers.  These provide access to clippings for a particular address, homeowner, architect or neighborhood.  Newspapers are listed on the library’s online catalog or ask a Special Collections librarian (in advance) to access the historic clippings.

Online photo database.   Special Collections provides access to approximately 10,000 photographs that date back to the 19^th Century.  The librarians also suggest other resources including the Hennepin History Museum which “houses a significant collection of Minneapolis home and building photographs.” The Museum photos are not online but searchers may call to see if they have the desired photos.

Special Collections librarians also note that the Minnesota Historical Society supports several online image databases (look for their finding guide online)  while the University of Minnesota’s IMAGES database and Minnesota Reflections offer other search options.

Remember the camera is not a new technology – photos abound!

Minneapolis City Directory (1859-2003)   The Directory lists the previous occupants of a house and often their occupation.  Beginning in 1930 the reverse directory makes it possible to look up an address and find the names of residents.  Available on microfiche on the 4^th floor of the Library.

Dual City Blue Book (1885-1924).  Private directory that lists the names of the city’s wealthier residents alphabetically and by address.  Available on microfiche on the 4^th floor.

Platbooks.  The Library also has digitized platbooks (1885-1898-1914) online or view paper copies.  There are additional platbooks on the 4th floor next to the information desk;  some platbooks have been digitized.   The University of Minnesota Borchert Map Library also provides access to an online collection of local platbooks.

Historic maps and atlases (1850’s to 1920’s). The collection includes property boundaries, roads, railroad tracks, streetcar lines, names of businesses, and geographical attributes.  The oldest maps of the city are available online through Minnesota Reflections.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Database (1950’s to 1920’)   Property boundaries, roads, railroad tracks and streetcar lines, the names of businesses and geographical features.  These are available in the James K. Hosmer Special Collections as well as at the Borchert Library and the Minnesota Historical Society Library.

Lot Surveys on Microfilm (1916-1965)  Surveys contain original footprint, dimensions and outbuildings of a property or building.  Because surveys are arranged by permit number, not by address, searchers must obtain the home’s original building code permit number to access the lot survey (see above.)  Available on microfilm in the general periodicals department on the 3^rd floor.

 

NOTE:

The Hosmer Special Collections librarians also suggest the following possible avenues to research a house, farmstead, public land, or neighborhood.

• Minnesota Historical Society which provides an excellent guide to Building and House History resources including its new Placeography wiki.  It’s an information-backed start for exploring the incredible resources of MHS.  [Because of the State Shutdown it has impossible to get access, much less plumb the depths, of the MHS – perhaps later when the doors and website are open again.]

• Aerial photographs from the 1930’s to present show in detail the evolution of neighborhoods over time, physical and social features of the land including road maps, land use maps and demographic maps.  A wide selection is available at the John R. Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota,

• Public Land Survey System (1848-1907).  Information about the land which a property is sited with original public land survey maps.  Handwritten notes recorded by public land surveyors are available on microfilm and index in the periodicals department at Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota.  Surveys are available online.

• Social Explorer.  Information about the demographic characteristics of a neighborhood and how they changed over time in a fun format.  Based on census information 1790 through 2010.  Everything you wanted to know about the Census, the American Community Survey, religious persuasion, population and housing characteristics for redistricting, carbon emissions and a whole lot more!

• Northwest Architectural Archives.  The Archives include  records of architects, engineers, contractors, landscape architects and interior designers from Minnesota, western Wisconsin, northern Iowa and the eastern Dakotas.  There is a partial list of building plans created by Minneapolis architects and builders (1909-1993) online.

This post is based entirely on the work of the library staff at the James K. Hosmer Special Collections Library and to their forebeaerrs to whom I am eternally grateful – for their spirit of service, their care of the collection and their commitment to preserving the story of this city. MT

 

 

 

 

What’s So SPECIAL about Special Collections? A Patron’s Perspective

In recent times I have been spending some of my happiest – and coolest – hours in the James K. Hosmer Special Collections of the Central Library on Nicollet Mall.  (It’s that quiet sanctum on the 4th Floor behind the elegant arches that were carefully removed and reconstructed from the main Minneapolis Public Library that long graced 10^th and Hennepin and that lives on in the memory of every reader who ever curled up there with a good book.)

Most of the history pieces I have researched there were written for The Northeaster, my community newspaper.  Many reappear in Poking Around with Mary and some have been re-distributed by the Twin Cities Daily Planet.   The essential point is that all reflect what I have learned from the meticulously preserved records and the superb staff in Special Collections.

In posts to come I plan to describe just a few of the incredible treasures that await the curious visitor to the elegant physical space or to the rich online resources based on the collections.  Historians, journalists, genealogists, scholars, some librarians and a broad range of learners know all about Special Collections.  In case the reader has not visited – in person or virtually -  these notes are for you.

Much of this information is online, so there are links to rich resources – clippings, photos, diaries, yearbooks, manuscripts, maps and more -  that have been spotted, collected, organized, preserved and now digitized by generations of librarians who value the record and care about the unknown future user.

My hope is that the online resources, representing but a small sample of what’s possible, will spark the reader’s interest in exploring the physical collection – learning more about our history, our city and region, our families and the contributions of collectors and of the library workers who preserved the record.

For starts, these are the main collections within the James K. Hosmer Special Collections:

• The Minneapolis Collection which covers all aspects of the city’s history and includes books, photographs, yearbooks, archival and manuscript collections, periodicals, maps and miles of catalog drawers filled with carefully identified and organized newspaper clippings.  Much of this collection is available online:
• A large collection of historic images
• A grand guide to researching the history of homes and neighborhoods of the city
• Histories of the city and of city parks
• Archives of clubs and organizations
• Personal archives
• Trade catalogs

• The Kittleson World War II Collections – books on both theaters of the war, the home front, biographies, war-inspired fiction and two thousand digitized war posters.

• The Nineteenth Century American Studies Collection – Forty-five hundred books and manuscripts, including first editions by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

• The Huttner Abolition and Anti-Slavery Collection – books by and about abolition including William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Frederick Douglas.

• The Hoag Mark Twain Collection – approximately 250 books, magazines and pamphlets by or about Mark Twain.

Complementing and working closely with the Hosmer Collections is the historically significant Athenaeum – more about the Athenaeum in a post to follow:

Call 612-543-8200 at least one full business day prior to schedule an appointment. Location Minneapolis Central Library, 4th Floor Hours Monday through Thursday, First and Third Saturdays of the month: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Email specialcoll@hclib.org Special Collections on tumblr

 

 

 

New Boston Branch of the Minneapolis Public Library – The Roots of Northeast

It was in the early eighties that a group of young men and women began building their homes in the pretty rolling woodland in what was then the extreme northeast portion of Minneapolis.  Although they may not have been first to call the locality New Boston, the name appealed to them as being a symbol of what they wished to make their settlement; for they were largely from New England and had the informed conviction that where they should live, raise their children, and build their schools and churches there must certainly be a “hub of culture”, and although the little neighborhood has now grown to a large community made up of representatives of many nations, the ideal of making it a center of culture is still one of its chief characteristics

So wrote an unidentified librarian in a “Community Study” of the New Boston Branch of the Minneapolis Public Library. (Though the carefully handwritten study is not dated, it is no doubt written about the time of the opening of what is now the Northeast Library.)  The history of the Northeast Library, which opened again on April 2, must include the story of  of the New Boston Branch of the Minneapolis Public Library.  New Boston and Northeast share a common, unswerving vision of the library’s role as a “hub of culture” for the community, even as they share their geographic permanence at 25^th and Central Northeast.

In December 1889 the Minneapolis Public Library opened its doors on Hennepin Avenue near the South end of the downtown area.  The new library was clearly designed to serve as the “hub of culture” for a growing city.  The Director, Herbert Putnam, lit a fire when he offered an early appointment to Gratia Alta Countryman, a fledgling graduate of the University of Minnesota with “no special training for library work” but a strong recommendation from the University President.  By 1892, Putnam had assumed the Director position at the Boston Public Library and James Kendall Hosmer was named Director of the Minneapolis Public Library.  It was Hosmer who named Countryman as his assistant.

Countryman wasted no time.   In December, 1892, a delivery station, “H”, was opened in Moody’s Drug Store at Central and 25^th.  In that same year several branches and stations were established.  Countryman reported that “an extra man with horse and wagon was required to make the necessary deliveries form the Main Library” to the several stations.

The Director’s Report for 1893 notes that these delivery stations “have been excellently cared for by the gentlemen in whose stores they have been located and have served a most useful purpose.”  When Mr. Moody went out of business in 1899 the deposit station was placed in Mr. Gormley’s Drug Store at Central and 24^th.  A reported 14,000-18,000 books circulated each year at Station “H” under the supervision of the proprietor of the drug store. The neighborhood did indeed have a thirst for learning and a commitment to development of a “hub of culture.

Public response to the storefront deposit station was so enthusiastic that on January 19, 1907, the New Boston Sub-Branch of the Minneapolis Public Library opened in a rented 30xfoot storefront at 24^th and Central.  “The landlord obligingly agreed to wait a year for his rent, and $150,000 was raised by the people in the community to buy tables, chairs and bookcases.”  The books were all borrowed from the Main Library which offered delivery three times a week from downtown to the New Boston Sub-Branch.

A later report from yet another unnamed librarian offers a broad stroke summary of the early years:

Many children, 200 and 300 a day, used the branch, as well as men employed in the Soo Shops, the members of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Club, a well-known women’s study club of the day in that neighborhood, and other people in the flourishing district.  24, 701 books were circulated in 1907.

The meticulous reports from the New Boston Sub-Branch indicate that the venerable Gratia Alta Countryman was a stickler for accountability!

By 1908 the New Boston Branch was beginning to take shape.  One indicator is the addition of named Branch Librarian, one Martha Ingerson, who actually signed her name to her totally inclusive annual report.  Ingerson remained with the library until 1928.  The librarian’s report for that year indicates that “we have a large well-lighted room.  During the past year we have had a neat sign printed on our front window and pictures hung upon our walls.  New shelving, a dictionary stand, magazine rack and card cabinet have been added.”

The annual report for the year reflects a fledgling operation, describing in detail the expansion of the collection, with special reference to the fact that 32% of the library’s circulation was of juvenile titles.

In her next annual report to the Administration Ingerson writes more explicitly of the collection and thus the users – e.g. the fact that foreign literature accounted for 52% of the collection and the continued importance of service to children.  The anonymous Community Study of the New Boston Branch speaks lovingly of these children:  “Not only do the children come the humblest homes attend the East High School, but their names appear in the recitals of the local music teachers and on the programs of entertainments given by churches and lodges.”

The study asserts that  “the home attitude toward education is likewise held in the community life, far more than fine buildings or large enterprises for enriching themselves, they have labored to have ‘the church spire near the school’ and to keep a quiet, orderly, Godfearing neighbborhood.  They have stood firmly against the encroachment of the saloon and other lower influences, welcoming at the same time, the advent of any institution of an uplifting nature.”  The report even covers the patriotism displayed in the names of the presidential streets in Northeast.

The New Boston Library worked closely with the schools, specifically naming Prescott, Eli Whitney, Van Cleve, Northwest, J.S. Pillsbury, St. Anthony and Thomas Lowry.  “The cordial relations, which exist between the schools and the library, had their beginning when the branch was new and principals and teachers united with the branch librarian to make the two public institutions of public benefit.´  There was a night school in the Prescott building where students learned cooking, serving, millinery, bookkeeping and much more.

Home study was another element in New Boston’s program as was service to those, “working and studying, each in a class by himself, to make his spare minutes his college.” There are mentions of the Soo line workers, the largest of the many factories and foundries in the Northeast district, of the predominance of Scandinavian and German descendents, and of the library’s extension of services to the people of Columbia Heights.

As growth in circulation and library users grew, so did the need for a self-contained library.  With substantial community support and the largesse of Andrew Carnegie the Central Avenue Branch of the Minneapolis Library opened on November 15, 1915.  The cost of library – and its architecture – were the result of Andrew Carnegie’s gift of $25,000 which the city fathers originally spurned as “tainted money”.(Carnegie’s gift of $125,000 also built the Pillsbury Library, now an office building at Central and University, and the Franklin Avenue Library, restored and the last of the Carnegie Libraries still operational in Minneapolis.)

Though the Carnegie Library was razed in 1971 the spirit, even the programs and services of the New Boston Library, endure – and at the same 25^th and Central Avenue location.  Today’s Northeast Community Library serves the same community and embraces the same vision of a “hub of culture” that has infused the library since those first seeds were plated in 1892.

The architecture is new, technology has changed nearly everything, and the clientele continues to evolve.  Still, the essentials remain and will prosper in this community where the vision of a hub of culture, built on a strong foundation, nurtured by decades of commitment, is a constant

—————–

Timeline:

1892 – First deposit station “H” for New Boston community – located at Moody’s Drug Store, 25^th and Central

1907 -  New Boston Sub Branch Library opens in storefront on 24^th and Central

1915 -  Central Library opens at 25^th and Central

1971 -  Central Library razed

1973 -  Northeast Community Library opens

2008    Merger of Minneapolis Public Library and Hennepin County Library

2011  – Renovated Northeast Library re-opens

—————————-

Kee Malesky, a Librarian’s Librarian on NPR

Whenever I hear the credit to “librarian Kee Malesky” on National Public Radio I give a nod to that unknown librarian for her professionalism –  and to NPR for overtly acknowledging that librarian’s role.  Though librarians always get sometimes condescending mention in prefaces to historical tomes and doctoral dissertations, NPR puts it right out there.  Kee Malesky, who I always assumed was a male librarian, has become somewhat of a hero to me over the years.  I knew instinctively that she – or he – has to be good to get public appreciation.  I think I even took a little professional credit for our collective contribution to combating ignorance.

 

Now I know, Kee is a woman, a delightful, vivacious, vociferous, dedicated and determined woman who keeps the information wheels greased at NPR.  I know because Kee has just published All Facts Considered: The Essential Library of Inessential Knowledge (Wiley 2010),  a catalog of some of the facts that she has researched over the years as NPR’s longest-searching librarian.  From what I heard in her conversation with Weekend Edition host Scott Simon, the book is a lovely read, especially for anyone who savors the quest for good information – anyone who understands that the joy is not so much in the fact as in the thrill of the quest.

 

Good librarians have that thrill of the quest in their DNA – time on task just sharpens the skills and expands the possibilities.  Kee’s librarian DNA comes to the fore most prominently in her affirmative drive to get ahead of the questions reporters may initiate.  “We (librarians) read all the time,” she says.  “We’re constantly looking at new sources, at websites, at all kinds of things that are happening in the world….We’re all very proactive. It’s really a part of the proper job of a librarian.”   In spite of a hint of hyperbole in her description the “proper job of the librarian” she describes is as it should be in the best of all information age worlds.

 

Kee’s work makes a difference.  For one, the NPR reporters, editors and hosts have ready access to the facts, even before they need them.  For another, she deserves and probably demands credit for her work.  She’s also created a template that other high test librarians might emulate – the compilation of the searches, whether proactive or reactive, of any good librarian offes not just a reflection of a profession but a small glimmer of the many information paths being explored within any community of ideas, whether it’s a small town, an elementary school, a corporation or a university.

 

Fun staff, particularly since in today’s technology the information barriers are minimized and the quest is of the mind.

Friends of the Northeast Library Gather in Minneapolis

Library openings and re-openings have a way of getting a community’s juices flowing.  Thus was the case with the Friends of Northeast Library, a fledgling but energetic group that gathered last week to plan how best to celebrate and capitalize on the re-opening of the Northeast Library which has been closed for renovation for many months.  On one of autumn’s last perfect evenings a dozen enthusiasts and bibliophiles gathered to anticipate and plan for the re-opening, set for a date yet to be determined in Spring 2011.

Topics on the agenda included the establishment of an endowment, coupled with much discussion about the intent and disposition of that endowment.  Attendees focused on the way in which “their” library will link with and build on a strong community with ethnic roots and a thriving arts environment.  A short-range plan calls for a fundraising book sale set for Friday and Saturday, December 10-11, 2010 at the East Side Coop.

The energy was palpable and the hopes high as attendees looked to the future, including the legacy that an endowment might leave to the community, the ways in which area residents tap a mix of public libraries, especially Bottineau and St. Anthony Village, and the role of a Friends group.

The nascent Friends group is assisted by the Hennepin County Library Foundation which is working with local groups to create and support Friends organizations throughout the Hennepin County Library system.  The challenge facing the Foundation is to incorporate and envision a mix of library Friends groups in an environment profoundly transformed by the merger of the Hennepin County and Minneapolis Public Library systems, each of which had a unique profile of Friends organizations.

Fortunately, organizational heritage was not the primary concern nor the determinant of those gathered to explore the future of Friends of Northeast.  This new group has ideas, energy and commitment to take on the challenge of the new Northeast Library soon to grace and inform the Northeast community.

Minnesota Owns Sherlock Holmes

The Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries are legendary.  As the world’s largest collection of material related to Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the collection and its curators have hosted scores of local, national and even international gatherings of Sherlockians.  The public will have a chance to glimpse a good share of the 50,000 items that comprise the exhibit in the weeks to come.   The Spirits of Sherlock Holmes exhibit is open in the Elmer L. Andersen Gallery through October 15.

Emphasis of the exhibit is on exploration of the “many meanings of the word ‘spirits’ and how they relate to Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Victorian Era.  The exhibit includes a snippet of “what Sherlockians find pleasurable”, a bit of whimsy, a glimpse at the work of Conan Doyle in the cause of Spiritualism and much more.

If you haven’t spent time with “e” and his creator on the banks now’s the opportunity.  If you’re a committed Sherlockian, you can’t spend enough hours plumbing the depths of this amazing collection of Sherlockiana on the Mississippi.  Plan to spend some serious time immersing yourself in the stories, the era, and the life of the author and his times.

The exhibit is free and open to the public.