This may be my first annual report to the community about the successes and continuing challenges of the Beaufort District Collection. Because of staff turnover and frequent staff shortages through the many years of my stewardship, most of the time I was just trying to keep on keeping on with what had to be done on a daily, weekly and monthly basis embodying the adage: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Doing that left little time for reflection and gathering statistics to share with the public at large.
Getting a third full-time position in January 2024 and having that position filled by Cassandra Knoppel as the Library Specialist in charge of archives processing - and the hiring of Sydney Whiteside as the most recent BDC Library Assistant in November 2024 - has been absolutely critical to the BDC's FY2025 success.
Here's what the BDC accomplished:
1. BDC Clients
- We appreciate the 293 registered visitors who came into our Research Room excited to explore the historic materials we have collected and safeguarded for them to use for their projects.
- Alas we did not keep track of all the folks who called or emailed asking for help with their historical and genealogical projects. Counting gets more complicated because how one "counts" archival visits and questions is different than how one "counts" reference questions within public libraries. But ...
- We estimate that BDC staff answered some 600 reference questions of varying scope and depth. [The Augur system kept crashing and sometimes we forgot to go old-school hashmark].
- We appreciate the unknown-to-us people who accessed our social media platforms.
- We appreciate the unknown-to-us people who enjoyed our digital collections hosted by the Lowcountry Digital Library.
- We appreciate those who attended our local history programs or stopped by to speak with us during our community outreach efforts.
Materials are carefully selected and curated for lasting value and long-term access within the Beaufort District Collection. The Beaufort District Collection may collect materials, in any format, that support its mission. Because of the nature of a local history research collection, some materials may include terminology and concepts reflective of the creator’s place and time which are now deemed offensive. Additional South Carolina, Southern, or Civil War materials may be collected if they relate to the primary collection or are of help in using the primary collection when appropriate storage is available.
- We added about 232 items (books, DVDs, illustrated prints, maps, posters, vertical files, etc.).
- We were gifted 11 small archival collections.
- You can learn more about some of the items and archives through our "New (and New-To-Us) posts of April 13, 2025, April 16, 2025, and July 6, 2025.
- Cassandra has completed more archival Finding Aids than the BDC has ever managed to get done before: 17 new Finding Aids - all but one which have been posted online. She also updated a number of Finding Aids with accretions from organizations who were making additional donations to their records.
- We uploaded two new guides: Cassandra prepared "The American Revolution in Lowcountry South Carolina Resource Guide" and I created one about Fort Frederick.
- We updated 55 posts to ensure accuracy of the links provided and availability of the resources listed through the SCLENDS consortium.
- The number of views of this blog increased by 6% to 16,300.
- Our new visitors increased 12% to a total of 11,300 visitors.
- In case you're wondering, the most popular posts last fiscal year were:
- Cassandra and Sydney now share some of the Connections responsibilities with me. Together we posted 74 new articles:
- Cassandra researched and wrote 7 posts.
- Sydney researched and wrote 13 posts.
- I researched and wrote the remainder.
- Blogger analytics leave a bit to be desired so I doubt that the 22K number is correct but I do like the way it sounds.
- We have about 750 followers who do not appear to interact with the content very much - except for a few faithful "likers" and even fewer who comment on our posts.
- Changes at Facebook - emphasis on monetization and algorithm shifts - have not been to the BDC's benefit.
- Nevertheless, I see the Facebook platform as a way to share educational content and promote materials in our collection to the community though I have scaled back the BDC's posts somewhat over FY 2025.
Although we have yet to return to our pre-COVID per session program attendance numbers - and I seriously doubt that we will because the way people interact with the world has changed in the pandemic's wake - we are making some progress in numbers of attendees and scope of in-person program delivery - which was definitely helped by the quality of our presenters. We are so very, very grateful to all our presenters who gave freely of their time and expertise to help us reach a banner year of BDC programs!
- We sponsored and/or hosted 31 local history programs at various library branches - far more local history programs than the BDC has ever hosted even when taking into consideration the intense "Civil War 150" series of 2013.
- We held more local history programs south of the Broad River, mostly on account of our new partnership with the Hilton Head Chapter of the Archaeological Society of South Carolina and the willingness of the Beaufort County Historical Society and the Beaufort County 250 Committee to cross the river.
- We sustained our partnerships with the Beaufort County Historical Society, Beaufort History Museum, and the Beaufort County 250 Committee.
- We had 614 people attend BDC local history programs.
7. BDC Community Outreach
We participated in a record number of community outreach opportunities during FY 2025, including the once in a lifetime Lafayette 200 celebration.
- We added appearances at OLLI - USCB North, a field trip to Fort Frederick, and talks at the Coastal Discovery Museum and Brays Island.
- Lafayette 200 led by the Historic Beaufort Foundation in cooperation with a host of cultural heritage and genealogical societies was acknowledged as an outstanding community celebration by the American Friends of Lafayette organization.
- We staffed booths at the Beaufort History Museum's Civil War Encampment and at the Annual Symposium of the Institute for the Study of the Reconstruction Era.
- We interacted with 342 people through these events.
8. BDC Projects
- Thanks to the diligence of Valerie Lesesne of the Library's Technical Services unit and Laura Lewis, veteran Beloved Docent, we finished the vertical file merging project at long last!
- We have 6 dedicated Dearly Beloved Docents who are steadily working on their respective projects: transcribing manuscript materials, indexing key sources, and performing critical preservation tasks.
I could not be prouder of the quality and quantity of the work done by the BDC Crew during Fiscal Year 2025 – nor of the depth of your support, Dear Reader, for our efforts to acquire, preserve and share Beaufort District’s long and storied history through a variety of formats, platforms, and ways. Thank you. 
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