Index to "Answer Man" Columns Completed

One of Sydney's duties as the BDC's Library Assistant involves indexing local history material. With her pilot project indexing of the Beaufort Today's "Lost & Found" newspaper column done, she moved on to completing the index to Dennis Adams' "Answer Man" column in the Beaufort Gazette. Dennis provided us with a printed keyword index to most of his articles but about 2 years' worth remained. Once again Sydney modeled her index on the one that long-time BDC docent Laura Lewis created for Gerhard Spieler's local history column that ran in the Beaufort Gazette for more than two decades.

"Answer Man" was a weekly Beaufort Gazette newspaper column about a broad variety of topics, some of which related to Beaufort District history. The primary author of the column was Dennis Adams, Information Services Coordinator of the Beaufort County Library System. The premise of the column was for readers to send in questions for Adams, a very experienced Reference Librarian (and one time "South Carolina Librarian of the Year") to answer which resulted in a variety of explored topics. Additional authors included Library staff Grace Cordial, Jim Hicks, and Patricia Porter and Pat Frantangelo.

This spreadsheet index includes all of the "Answer Man" columns which ran from 8 December 1995 to 23 August 2009 with the occasional gap as well as an additional column written by Adams for La Isla Magazine in September 2009. The Beaufort District Collection holds microfilm reels of the newspaper from 16 July 1903 to 31 March 2015 as well as a binder with photocopied "Answer Man" column articles in the Reading Room. The binder includes all of the articles in chronological order.

The Master Article index is followed by an index of articles by category:

• American History
• American Letters series
• Ancestry
• Beaufort County Library
• Black History
• Culture and Language
• Facts and Trivia
• Holidays and Traditions
• Local History
• Money
• Music
• Nature and Weather
• Origins
• Religion

Here's an excerpt of the articles found under the "Ancestry" category:

You'll notice columns for date of the Beaufort Gazette issue; page; article title; then a lot of keywords that relate to the content of the column. Inside the Research Room, BDC staff will be able access this index on your behalf to identify additional information on a variety of topics. 

As it turns out at a recent dinner with friends, the topic of human chimeras arose during our conversation. How very coincidental it is that on this randomly picked index page there is reference to an "Answer Man" column about just that topic. (I promise you I did not set this up! I was reviewing the "Ancestry" page to see if any of the articles were about the Ancestry Library Edition the Library provides to our in-house customers. There weren't.) 

• "Human Chimeras Double up on Genetic Material," Beaufort Gazette, June 19, 2005 on p. 4C. 

It's not a local history topic, but BDC staff could tell you that we have this article as a result of Sydney's and Dennis's indexing work.  If you were interested in reading this particular article, we'd welcome you to our Research Room - though for assured service it's best that you make an appointment first: 843-255-6468 or bdc@bcgov.net. Or let's say that you'd like a copy of this particular "Answer Man" column but cannot visit our Reading Room. In that case, we could look it up, scan it and send it to you via email. Again our contact information is: 843-255-6468 or bdc@bcgov.net.   

Reminder: The Library will be closed on Good Friday, April 18 and again on Tuesday, April 22 for Staff Development Day.