Hip! Hip! Hooray! We've made it to 15!

Fifteen Years Ago: We dedicated the relocation of the Beaufort District Collection to the 2nd floor of the Library building at 311 Scott Street on 29 September 2010.

I remain grateful for former bosses, the Library Board of Trustee members, colleagues, family members and community groups who helped make the relocation possible:

• Library Public Services Coordinator Hillary Barnwell gave me her full support for upgrading the historical collection's facility from the very first time I broached the topic.
• Library Director Julie Zachowski agreed and allowed me to make a short presentation to the Library Board of Trustees on 18 September 2001.
• And thus began what became a 9 years 16 days odyssey.
• Library Director Wlodek Zaryczny saw things through until sufficient financial arrangements were in place to see to critical elements of the relocation plan. Wlodek never wavered in support of this project.
• County Engineers David Hughes and David Coleman shepherded the building process.
• Beaufort County government said it could not fund the $80,000 needed for the compact shelving array to triple the amount of storage available over that provided by stationary shelving.
• I thank goodness for the Friends of the Beaufort Library then headed by President Deena Culp. The FOL Beaufort group stepped up and provided $25,000 seed money to purchase the compact shelves. (It probably helped that Deena's husband Bill was among the BDC's Beloved Docent cadre at the time and advocated on the BDC's behalf. He had some personal experience with the cramped researcher and staff working conditions downstairs in the old SC Room.)
• BDC researchers Stephen Hoffius and Robert Cuthbert surprised me at a BDC Author Book Talk on Northern Money, Southern Land held on September 22, 2009 by donating all their sale proceeds after the program towards our compact shelving fund.
• The ever-stalwart Clover Club hosted a fund-raiser to help purchase the compact shelving array in the Performing Arts Center at USC-B.
• Dr. Larry Rowland donated his time to the cause as featured speaker of the Clover Club fund-raiser.
• All in all about 150 private citizens, fellow library staff, BDC researchers, and local organizations contributed to the fund-raising efforts.
• On July 19, 2010 the BDC Room downstairs closed for relocation.
• With the help of my then assistant Charmaine Seabrook Concepcion, my teenage son Ciaran Cordial and teenage almost son Kyle Gallion (who were paid in cheeseburgers), we got everything moved from the old South Carolina Room downstairs in place upstairs in our new quarters - with almost an hour to spare before the ceremony!
• The Friends of the Library also funded the reception when we dedicated the new quarters of the Beaufort District Collection on September 29, 2010. 

Look closely and you'll see Former Assistant County Administrator Morris Campbell, my former bosses Dennis Adams and Julie Zachowski, USCB librarians Geni Flowers and Mae Mendoza and former Library Board of Trustee members.   

 

 

Library Board members Patsy Hand, Theresa Dunn, and Beaufort County Council Chairman Paul Sommerville marked the occasion as well. My biggest regret is that Hillary Barnwell did not live to see the project completed.

 

It was nice that the Beaufort Gazette covered the re-opening and that the Island Packet's David Lauderdale championed the project in his column several times through the years: 

Beaufort Gazette, 30 September 2020 p. 1A.

 

Charmaine Seabrook Concepcion and I gave tours that evening and throughout October 2010 to show off the BDC's new digs in honor of American Archives Month. I still have the note cards we used to give those tours:

For the BDC's 10th birthday upstairs, Library Director Ray McBride got us a glass door for the main entrance into the BDC. That door made the Research Room more inviting insofar as potential customers could see into a section of the BDC's public area. It also has given us an area to decorate with seasonal window clings to make our entrance a bit more visible.

15 years later we have approximately 12,000 cataloged library materials (books, DVDs, microfilms, CDs, maps, posters, charts, and vertical files, etc.) and a little more than 250 discrete archival collections. [ The big jump from 80 to more than 250 was mostly discovered through work done over the past by Ashley Sylva, Amanda Forbes, Samantha Perkins, and now Cassandra Knoppel since 2015.] We've added 8 digital collections, an active Facebook page, the BDCBCL: Links, Lists and Finding Aids blog on the WordPress platform, and the Beaufort County Moments video series to the "Virtual BDC" since 2010. Our local history series offerings continue to be well-regarded and attended. In fact, the BDC had a banner year of local history programs and community outreach events in Fiscal Year 2025.

There's still shelf space to add additional library and archival materials for at least another few years. However, we've had to take a pass on some larger collections due to our own institutional capacity and issues related to ownership transfer, shelf space, prior processing commitments, and preservation supply budget. Adequate space will always been a challenge as the BDC is the only part of the Library that requires permanent storage. Through the years, our materials will continue to grow.

Advocating for more space I leave to my successor with these words to the wise: It could take some time between an "ask" for more space to seeing that space provided should my experiences with how quickly things tend to happen within Beaufort County Library and Beaufort County Government hold true after I exit the building for the last time.

For fun: You can flash back to the time and conditions in which the collection was located in the SC Room downstairs with this old Flickr photostream. 

 

Back in 2010 I reflected on the journey of moving the collection into more suitable quarters in the BDC's Connections blog at the time:

It's been an arduous 9 year journey from the initial request I made to the Library Board of Trustees on September 18, 2001 to the ribbon cutting today. Although at times I despaired that it would ever happen, I am so grateful for all the people and organizations that have helped me protect the Beaufort District Collection by giving of their time, talents, and monies. I am scared to mention anyone by name in fear that I will inadvertently omit someone. I hope the 150 angels of the BDC already know that I thank each and every one of you from the bottom of my heart. -- Grace

I remain grateful for Library Administration and staff, the Library Board of Trustees, County Administration, the Clover Club, the Friends of the Beaufort Library, the Public Library Foundation of Beaufort County, the Beloved BDC Docent cadre, former and present BDC assistants, materials donors, and community members who helped make the BDC the well-regarded special collections and archives unit it remains today. Thank you.