Diversify Your Reading Challenge: Non-Fiction

The Research Room has a lot of titles which meet the "Non-Fiction" rubric for the November challenge. 

Non-fiction is defined by the Google dictionary based on those by Oxford Languages as "prose writing that is based on facts, real events, and real people, such as biography or history." There are shelves and shelves of non-fiction titles stored in the BDC stacks. In other words, there are way too many choices for me to highlight just one book - but I can share what is the most used set of books in the Research Room - because I use them on an almost daily basis: The History of Beaufort County South Carolina, a set of three volumes by Dr. Lawrence Sanders Rowland with co-authors Dr. Stephen R. Wise, Alexander Moore, Dr. George C. Rogers and Gerhard Spieler. 

In fact my personal copies of this work, along with Walter Edgar's South Carolina: A History at home, and my 20+ years of experience managing the BDC, allowed me to answer about 65% of the reference questions that came in during the COVID shutdown while working from home in Spring 2020. 

As I just wrote, the History of Beaufort County, South Carolina set consists of three volumes. 

Volume 1,  entitled The History of Beaufort County, South Carolina, 1514 -1861, covers the period from the European  exploration to the start of the Civil War. Co-authors for volume 1 are Larry Rowland, Alexander Moore and George Rogers. It is also available as an e-book on Hoopla, the BCL's streaming service. 

Volume 2 has a wonderfully alliterative title, Rebellion, Reconstruction, and Redemption, 1861 - 1893 to cover the Civil War and Reconstruction periods as former ways of life are forever altered for former masters and enslaved. Co-authors for volume 2 are Larry Rowland, Stephen Wise, and Gerhard Spieler. 

The final volume, Bridging the Sea Islands' Past and Present, 1893- 2006, begins with the Great Sea Island Hurricane of 1893 and covers real estate development and military installations that lead to Beaufort County being one of the fastest growing counties in the United States by the late 20th century. Rowland and Wise were the co-authors of this volume. 

However, let's say that a a 3 volume history of the county that covers almost 500 years of written history is just a bit much for you to handle. If you prefer to focus your attention on a category of non-fiction I have a few more suggestions for you to consider. 

The 000s have bibliographies, general works, and items about South Carolina newspapers. I'd say that the most classic item on this particular shelf is the 6 volume Bibliography of South Carolina compiled by former Beaufort resident Robert J. Turnbull. In the days before computer databases, it took him years and years of work in libraries throughout the southeast to create this title of titles about the Palmetto State.  

The 100s cover philosophy and psychology related titles. The Research Room has only 6 titles stored in this particular Dewey Decimal classification. Of those, A Sermon upon Duelling delivered by the Rev. Arthur Wigfall of the Holy Trinity Church in Grahamville in 1856 is the most notable. He hated the practice of dueling. It is a rather rare item. 

(Looking ahead: We will be offering an in-person local history program about "Dueling in Beaufort District" with Neil Baxley at Bluffton Branch in May 2023. If you want to see the recording he made for us during the COVID restrictions period, view it on the Library's YouTube Channel.)

The 200s cover churches and spiritual matters. We have 4 shelves worth of local church histories and general reference works about denominations.  You can read more about the congregational histories we have in an earlier Connections article. Plus we have a virtual Author Book Talk about one of the titles housed in this section, The Means of Grace by Eric Plaag on the Library's YouTube Channel. 

We have 35 shelves worth of Social Sciences related materials in the 300s. We have a fairly large amount of items in this section because of Gullah related titles, Marines related titles, government documents, high school annuals and folklore. You can read more about the Legislative Manuals we have stored in this classification range in an earlier Connections article. This is also where the book Jackpot: High Times, High Seas and the Sting that Launched the War on Drugs by Jason Ryan is stored. He's coming to Beaufort Branch to talk about his book in May 2023. 

The 400s are mostly related to the Gullah language titles we hold. It has only a dozen items, including the seminal Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect by Lorenzo Dow Turner. 

I think of the 500s as the flora, fauna and hurricanes section. 

(You can view my "Tide of Death" presentation about the Great Sea Island Hurricane of 1893 on the Library's YouTube Channel to get the basic information about how the biggest, baddest storm to date in Beaufort District's long and storied history killed people and destroyed the economy for many years afterwards.) 

In the 600s one will find titles related to Technology or applied sciences such as medicine, folk medicine, agriculture, rice, cotton, indigo, shrimping, cookery, and timber. We have about 6 feet worth of cookbooks created by local organizations in this particular section. Beloved former BDC assistant Kristi Marshall updated the "Food for Thought and Thoughts on Food" article about cookbooks in the BDC in during the COVID shutdown of 2020. Perhaps you'll find something to your taste there. (Bad pun intended).  

(Looking ahead: We will host an Author Book Talk with Beverly Jennings about her Shrimp Tales in March 2023 at the St. Helena Branch Library and I will interview Capt. Woody Collins about his book Where Have All the Shrimp Boats Gone? in January 2024. Yes, I do plan local history programs 12- 18 months out). 

The 700s Dewey Decimal Classification covers artists, architecture, garden design, music, and sports. Featured here are works about and by Beaufort's own native sons Jonathan Greene and boxer "Smokin' Joe" Frazier.

We have 4 shelves full of items cataloged in the 800s as Literature. There are some general reference materials about people who create literary works, such as Literary South Carolina by Edwin C. Epps and the multi-volume Library of Southern Literature which once resided in the Beaufort Township Library. Most of the materials shelved here were produced by local poets. You can read more about the poetry books in an earlier article in Connections. 

The Research Room's 900s Dewey Decimal Classification section has twice as many shelves of material than is dedicated to any other classification. We have 74 shelves worth of geography, genealogy and history related materials. The three titles taking up the most space in the 900s are all related to the Civil War: The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, 128 volumes; Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 100 volumes and the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, 13 volumes. Though there is still a considerable amount of shelf space left for my successors to fill, if push came to shove the OR for the Armies; and the OR for the Navies could be discarded to free up 30 linear feet of shelf space because there are stable digital library copies available at no charge posted online.  

Some libraries include biographies in the 900s but here in the Beaufort County Library we have a "B" section for biographies. I have almost 36 linear feet of biographical materials on 12 shelves. Among the local luminaries featured in this section are Robert Smalls, Pat Conroy, James Louis Petigru, legendary Beaufort County Sheriff Ed McTeer, and Teresa Bruce's book The Other Mother: A Rememoir about dancer Byrne Miller. 

Some of the titles housed in the Research Room are also available through the circulating Local History sections at the physical branch libraries. Everything circulating through the local history sections is supposed to have a permanent copy already in the Research Room. The largest local history section is currently at Beaufort Branch Library - mostly because it's a busy branch located in the historic downtown area where folks expect to find local history titles. Usually Bluffton Branch Library and Hilton Head Branch Library compete for 2nd place in the monthly statistics of local history titles after Beaufort Branch. The next time you're physically in one of our branch libraries, ask where the local history section is and explore the offerings. 

Once the Technical Services staff complete the inventory, I will be able to tell you precisely how many books and recordings we have in the non-fiction section.