Love Letter to the BDC's Past and Present Volunteers

The BDC Research Room is very lucky to have 6 talented volunteer "Points of Light" at the moment. Their names are Deborah, Joe, Kathy, Laura, Peggy, and Nancy. Each has a project that contributes to the BDC's goals and mission to provide access to research materials about local history. In ways large and small, they help us spread light onto the long and storied history of Beaufort District, its peoples, its places, and its challenges through time. I don't know what I would do without them.

Joe, Laura, and Peggy have been helping in the BDC for many years on a variety of projects.

Joe is a retired Beaufort County employee from GIS who finished digitizing the Reed Collection of Civil War era photographs and is now digitizing the Behan Papers. The Behan Papers consists of approximately 1600 pages of “land genealogies” of early properties and property owners and their families from the late 17th– early 19th centuries in Beaufort District, SC compiled over 15 years by Bill Behan of Callawassie and Sun City.

Peggy, a retired degreed media specialist, who has helped me with some Culp indexing in the past, is currently indexing and re-foldering the Behan Papers contents so that in-room researchers can more easily access that which they seek. In other words, they will be able to call for a particular file from the storage area rather than go page by page through a binder to find the property or family that they are most interested in learning more about. Her project also has the added dividend of protecting both BDC staff backs. No longer will we have to haul out the heavy box each time a researcher wants to see just a part of the collection. Doing so also helps maximize storage in the stacks.

In the past several years, Laura has done almost all the behind-the-scenes work on the BDC's "Wales Journal" project. She did the transcriptions, digitization, and created the bulk of the metadata. The "Susan Wales Journal, 1887 - 1895" is a charming daily record of a young woman's time abroad in Europe. Most pages contain a small sketch or painting of people, places, things she encountered that day.

Laura is now helping with the merging of vertical files from Hilton Head Branch and Beaufort Branch into the BDC's array folder by folder. This often includes photocopying decaying newsprint, researching clipping dates, and organizing individual folder contents in reverse chronological order. It's a time consuming task that requires the ability to see both the big picture and the granularity of a particular item, an understanding of the research process, and how to keep things organized.

Kathy also a degreed librarian and a former BCL administrator is indexing obituaries. She has indexed about 5000 obituaries in the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet since she became a BDC Docent in 2021.

Deborah is a retired degreed librarian, former Library Director, and an archivist who is working on finalizing the Finding Aid for the "Beaufort Three-Century Project" collection. When she's done, you'll see the collection featured as a "Finding Aid Friday" post. It is rare to have someone who led a community project who has the skill set to serve as a volunteer processing archivist for the stewardship organization who holds the archive in trust for that community post-project. Long time residents may recall that Deborah was the Executive Director of the Beaufort Three-Century Project that celebrated the City's 300th birthday in 2011. She joined the ranks as a BDC Docent in January 2023.The BDC is fortunate indeed.

Nancy is my newest volunteer. She is a retired former state employee who has a library degree. She's helping create metadata for the BDC's upcoming digital projects.

Truly without them, and the dedicated BDC docents before them, your access to local history materials would be considerably diminished. There would be no online Donner collection or Civil War and Reconstruction era photographs collections, or BDC map index, or the 9-11 Oral Histories. If you run into one of them when you're out and about, please say "Thank you for your service to the Beaufort County Library."

I'm in the trenches each and every day but it is they who help lead me towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Never could I have lasted so long on this job without the dedication, support, and loving kindness of all the SC Room and BDC volunteers lo these many years. Let's give three cheers for these and former dedicated, loyal, and skilled Beaufort County Library volunteers: Hip! Hip! Hooray! Hip! Hip! Hooray! Hip! Hip! Hooray! Thank you, Beloved BDC docents. 

"There's More to the Story": National Library Week 2023

Latest update: Added links to State of the Libraries Report 2023 and Right to Read Day. - gmc 24 April 2023 12:45 PM

I eagerly await National Library Week every year. Ironically, it's almost as old as I am. Most of the following comes from the landing page on the American Library Association's website for National Library Week 2023: 

First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association and libraries of all types (even the special collections ones like the BDC) across the country each April. National Library Week 2023, April 23-29, will be celebrated with the theme "There's More to the Story."

Most people know about the wealth of stories available at the library, from picture books and large print to audiobooks and ebooks. But there's so much more to the story of libraries. 

Libraries are welcoming spaces that bring communities together for entertainment, education, and connection through book clubs, storytimes, movie nights, crafting classes, lectures, and more. Beaufort County Library offers a wide array of programs, classes and resources, including some brought to you by the system's special local history collections and archives unit, the Beaufort District Collection.

Some days within National Library Week highlight specific facets of library services: 

Monday, April 24: State of America's Libraries Report released, including Top Ten Frequently Challenged Books of 2022. It's also "Right to Read Day." 

Tuesday, April 25: National Library Workers Day, a day for library staff, users, administrators, and Friends groups to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers.

Wednesday, April 26: National Library Outreach Day (formerly National Bookmobile Day), a day to celebrate library outreach and the dedicated library professionals who are meeting their patrons where they are.

Thursday, April 27: Take Action for Libraries Day, a day to rally advocates to support libraries.

If you haven't checked out Beaufort County Library lately, you're missing the full story. Stop by one of our branch libraries, visit the bookmobile, or set up an appointment to come work inside the Beaufort District Collection Research Room (843-255-6468 or bdc@bcgov.net).  The system is offering a number of programs at the various branches to celebrate. Check out the system calendar for more information. 

I will make some National Library Week posts on the BDC's Facebook page. 

On the final day of National Library Week, the Beloved BDC Docents and I are going to gather together to celebrate them and their individual projects preparing materials of historic value for current and future customers. Because of the limited work space inside the Research Room, they seldom get to see or interact with each other. Some of them are even working on the same project - just on different aspects of it. I want them to see how the pieces fit together and how much I appreciate what they do to help me help preserve and share historical materials about this wonderful place and its people through time. And for the record - the number of BCL's digital collections on the Lowcountry Digital Library would be considerably reduced without the dedication of our docents. Preparation of the Donner Collection, L.A. Hall Civil War and Reconstruction Era Photograph Collection, Civil War and Reconstruction Era Stereoscope Photographs of the Port Royal Region, and the Richard L. Johnson Medical Record Book  digital collections heavily relied on the docents who did the transcriptions, tagging, and digitization. The three projects that I hope to complete before I retire are also heavily dependent on the contributions of the docents: The Wales Journal; the Reed Collection; and the Behan Papers. Work continues on each of these.