SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
EXPLORE +
  • About infoDOCKET
  • Academic Libraries on LJ
  • Research on LJ
  • News on LJ
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Libraries
    • Academic Libraries
    • Government Libraries
    • National Libraries
    • Public Libraries
  • Companies (Publishers/Vendors)
    • EBSCO
    • Elsevier
    • Ex Libris
    • Frontiers
    • Gale
    • PLOS
    • Scholastic
  • New Resources
    • Dashboards
    • Data Files
    • Digital Collections
    • Digital Preservation
    • Interactive Tools
    • Maps
    • Other
    • Podcasts
    • Productivity
  • New Research
    • Conference Presentations
    • Journal Articles
    • Lecture
    • New Issue
    • Reports
  • Topics
    • Archives & Special Collections
    • Associations & Organizations
    • Awards
    • Funding
    • Interviews
    • Jobs
    • Management & Leadership
    • News
    • Patrons & Users
    • Preservation
    • Profiles
    • Publishing
    • Roundup
    • Scholarly Communications
      • Open Access

March 24, 2021 by Gary Price

Boston Public Library Announces $2.1 Million Philanthropic Investment in Founding Research Collection, Library will Clean, Catalog and Preserve 400,000 Volumes, Making Historic Collection Accessible to the Public

March 24, 2021 by Gary Price

From the Boston Public Library:

The Boston Public Library (BPL) today announced it has received $2.1 million in private funding to revitalize the library’s Founding Research Collection. Two gifts are making this work possible: a contribution to the Boston Public Library Fund through an anonymous donor, and another from the Associates of the Boston Public Library. These funds will enable the library to clean, catalog, and preserve 400,000 volumes of the collection, making them fully accessible to the public for the first time in the digital era.

“Together, these gifts represent one of the largest private philanthropic investments in the BPL’s research collections,” said Paula Sakey, Executive Director of the Boston Public Library Fund. “These investments speak to the importance of preserving and maintaining the Founding Research Collection’s extensive resources and making them accessible to the public. We look forward to returning this 16th – 20th century collection to our 21st century patrons, who will once again be able to easily explore and learn from these historic treasures.”

The Founding Research Collection has formed an integral part of the library’s holdings since its inception in the 1850s and represents some of the very first volumes collected by the BPL, the nation’s first large, municipally funded public library. These volumes provided the general public with free access to the kinds of specialized reading materials that were usually held by private subscription libraries or by larger universities. Today, this collection spans five centuries and contains more than 500,000 volumes, thousands of which date from before 1820. A large portion of the collection is only cataloged on physical cards, using a now retired classification system unique to the BPL created by founding Trustee Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, who later served as Boston’s mayor from 1868-1871.

The collection contains books, pamphlets, journals, maps, atlases, illustrated portfolios, and more. It also includes early American Bibles, hymn books, and rare specimens of early printing from nearly every state, as well as holdings in all major western languages, selections of Chinese and Japanese materials, and products of rare missionary presses from around the world. Many items in the collection are first editions or are one of few remaining copies of certain texts, making objects in this collection invaluable to researchers and scholars worldwide.

“The Associates of the Boston Public Library is truly thrilled to be a partner in this effort,” noted Peter R. V. Brown, Chairman of the organization. “For the past twenty years, we have made grants to the library to help preserve and protect the wealth of remarkable items in the BPL’s Special Collections. Supporting this new work to make certain the Founding Research Collection is also conserved against the damage caused by time, and that it is made accessible to students, historians, and indeed every interested member of the public feels like important work to us. It will be a real joy to see the gems that will be uncovered as this collection is brought back to life!”

To preserve the Founding Research Collection and make it available for public scholarship, the BPL will implement a comprehensive cleaning program to remove decades of accumulated dirt and debris amassed over the collection’s long history. This process will enable these collections to be handled, cataloged, and stored safely with long-term preservation needs in mind. Currently, many items in the Founding Research Collection are publicly accessible only on physical microfiche. For the cataloging portion of this preservation project, the BPL will create electronic records within the library’s online catalog that facilitate public discovery and retrieval of hundreds of thousands of volumes from the research collection and enable future digitization projects

“Ranging from illustrated books on natural history to rare volumes on linguistics, religion, sociology, and economics, the BPL’s Founding Research Collection’s value is immeasurable, both intrinsically and as a resource for patrons,” said Laura Irmscher, BPL Chief of Collections. “Through these generous donations, the BPL can improve preservation conditions and deliver on their intended purpose, making these research items accessible and ‘Free to All.’ It is an essential piece of Boston and national history, and we look forward to sharing it with our patrons.”

The BPL plans to kick off this preservation project later this year, and anticipates phase one will continue through 2023. Once the first phase of the project is complete, the BPL intends to continue this important work with the remainder of the Founding Research Collection. Additionally, the BPL’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Department is currently undergoing a complete $16m renovation, a project funded by the City of Boston. More information on the project can be found here.

Source

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Digital Preservation, Funding, Libraries, Maps, News, Patrons and Users, Preservation, Public Libraries

SHARE:

About Gary Price

Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Job Zone

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Infodocket Posts

Government Publishing Office (GPO) Director Intends to Adopt Task Force Recommendation on a Digital Federal Depository Library Program...

From the FDLP/GPO: The U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) Director Hugh Nathanial Halpern has responded to the Feasibility of a Digital Federal Depository Library Program: Report of the GPO Director’s ...

AP: "Boston Symphony Orchestra Plan to Digitize John Williams Concerts Almost Complete"

From the Associated Press: An effort to digitize more than 200 Boston Pops radio broadcasts conducted by John Williams from 1979 until 1991 is almost complete, the Boston Symphony Orchestra ...

Louisiana: "AG Releases Report on 'Sexually-Explicit' Content in Public Libraries"

UPDATE (Feb. 8): We’ve added a link to a statement by the Louisiana Library Association at the bottom of this post. From the Lafayette Daily Advertiser: Louisiana Attorney General Jeff ...

Minnesota: Over St. Paul Mayor’s Objections, Hamline-Midway Library Added to National Register of Historic Places; Wisconsin: Interim Vice...

Association of American Publishers (AAP) Announces Finalists And Category Winners For 2023 PROSE Awards Microsoft Will Let Companies Create Their Own Custom Versions of ChatGPT, Source Says (via CNBC) National ...

Collections: JSTOR is Introducing a New Archive Fee Model Option

From a Letter by Ithaka President Kevin Guthrie: I recently shared the 2023 priorities ITHAKA has set to help provide the infrastructure the academic community needs to support research, teaching, and learning ...

Funding: HathiTrust Receives 5-Year, $1 Million Grant From Mellon Foundation

Here’s the Full Text of HathiTrust Announcement: HathiTrust, a member-based organization hosted by the University of Michigan, has received a 5-year, $1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to fund ...

Library as Publisher: "UMass Amherst Libraries Announce Publication of Open-Access Peregrine Falcon Curriculum

From UMass Amherst Libraries (Full Text): The University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries are pleased to announce the publication of The UMass Amherst Libraries Falcon Curriculum: An Open Source, Common Core PreK-12 ...

Report From Annenberg/UPenn: "Americans Don’t Understand What Companies Can Do With Their Personal Data — and That’s a...

From the Annenberg School of Communications/U. of Pennsylvania: In a new report, “Americans Can’t Consent to Companies’ Use of Their Data,” researchers asked a nationally representative group of more than ...

Fast Company: "Study: Over 50% of Academics Admit to Pirating Research Papers"

From Fast Company: More than 50% of academics have used piracy websites like Sci-Hub in order to bypass paywalls for research they want to access, according to a recent study published in ...

AI Models Spit Out Photos of Real People and Copyrighted Images; New Web Archives from Columbia University Libraries...

AI Models Spit Out Photos of Real People and Copyrighted Images (via MIT Technology Review) California: Orange Unified School District Reinstates Digital Library After Parent Concerns (via Voice of OC) ...

Journal Article: "Libraries Advancing Health Equity: A Literature Review"

The article linked below (full-text) was recently published Reference Services Review. Title Libraries Advancing Health Equity: A Literature Review Authors Amanda J. Wilson National Library of Medicine Catherine Staley National ...

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board: "As Libraries Turn the Page on Bookmobiles, Something is Lost"

From the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board: Anyone who has spent time on a bookmobile has learned enough to know nothing withstands the change of time. Still, we lament the slow ...

ADVERTISEMENT

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER

Tweets by infoDOCKET

ADVERTISEMENT

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • Programs+
  • Design
  • Leadership
  • People
  • COVID-19
  • Advocacy
  • Opinion
  • INFOdocket
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Booklists
  • Prepub Alert
  • Book Pulse
  • Media
  • Readers' Advisory
  • Self-Published Books
  • Review Submissions
  • Review for LJ

Awards

  • Library of the Year
  • Librarian of the Year
  • Movers & Shakers 2022
  • Paralibrarian of the Year
  • Best Small Library
  • Marketer of the Year
  • All Awards Guidelines
  • Community Impact Prize

Resources

  • LJ Index/Star Libraries
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies

Events & PD

  • Online Courses
  • In-Person Events
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Submit Features/News
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Careers at MSI


© 2023 Library Journal. All rights reserved.


© 2022 Library Journal. All rights reserved.