October is always the busiest month for the BDC -- and this one was even busier than usual

Please note: I'm counting Sept. 29th and Sept. 30th as part of October. We were closed until 5 pm on September 29th to relocate the BDC.

We held the Grand-Reopening private function on September 29th, and got back to daily business on September 30th.

The BDC hosted 9 Behind-the-Scenes tours of our new facility, created a display of significant documents we have inside the new room, and I wrote an inordinately large number of Connections entries to highlight Archives Month for which there were 550 pageviews.

In addition, we coordinated 2 free-and-open-to-the-public programs and accepted a County Council proclamation on behalf of the AM Team 2010 for Archaeology Month.

Because a learning staff is a competent staff, we participated in several no and/or very low cost training opportunities in order to help us become even better stewards of the materials entrusted into our care.

99 people got a Behind-the-Scenes tour of our new facility during October.

We had a total of 42 people attend the Archaeology Month programs on Palmetto Bluff and Gullah Genealogy. The session on Gullah Genealogy, presented by archaeologists Carl Steen and Dr. Jodi Barnes, was broadcast live on the County Channel on Oct. 26th.

We also had 96 Research Room customer visits (with only 1 complaint).

I (and the Smithsonian Institution Archives) posted 31 days of blog entries about archives, management of archives, other archives, etc. Just click on the BROWSE BY TOPIC tag "archives" along the left hand column to see all 31 entries. There were 550 page views of Connections during October.

We fielded 15 e-mail or telephone reference inquiries.

Charmaine went to the PALMCOP (Palmetto Archives, Libraries, and Museums Council on Preservation) conference to learn more about preservation techniques for encapsulation, phase boxes, basic book repair, document repair, and care for photographs and negatives.

I went to the combined Society of Georgia Archivists and the South Carolina Archival Association conference at the very end of the month in order to keep my skills current. It is always a good idea to "test" what we do here against what other area archives are doing to share their holdings with the public.

Charmaine participated in 2 free online webinars sponsored by the IMLS dealing with how to use social media to tell our story offered with the public. (You may recall that the BDC was the recipient of a Connecting to Collections Bookshelf grant a few years ago, and I was the grateful recipient of a scholarship from Heritage Preservation to attend the IMLS regional symposium in Buffalo, NY last June.)

So adding it all up, the BDC touched the lives and helped meet the curiosity of 252 people plus however many unique individuals looked at this blog 550 times last month.

BDC Research Room Tours

To celebrate Archives Month in great style, we offered a number of tours to our new Research Room in the waning days of September to October 23rd.

The goals for offering so many tours, at different times, on different days of the week, for different constituencies were: 1) to reach as wide an audience as possible; 2) to demonstrate the depth and scope of the materials held in trust by the BDC; 3) showcase some of the unique historical documents we hold; 4) introduce the basic principles of good cultural heritage stewardship; and,
5) (hopefully) generate some good word-of-mouth publicity about what the Beaufort County Library does for the community.

Because of the loyalty and steadfastness of my Beloved BDC Docents, they got the very first tour on September 15th. (In other words, I tested my spiel and format on the choir first.) Although we weren't quite move-in ready, I wanted to show them the new workroom set-up. (It's such a sea change from the customer/docent/staff shuffle we had to endure downstairs.) Because we have moved to national standards for special collections security which had impact on how customers access BDC materials, we've had to adjust some of docent tasks. I wanted to explain the adjustments and answer any questions they had well in advance of the re-opening. Also, I needed to see if any of them could help out on the 29th. It's harder for someone to say "No" in person than by phone or e-mail. I needed to hear "Yes."

My colleagues in the Beaufort County Library system had two opportunities to tour the new Research Room in advance of the Grand Re-Opening and a third chance to see the extra and ultimate version of the Behind-the-Scenes tour on Oct. 13th.

At the Grand Re-Opening on the evening of September 29th, BDC Preservation Associate, Charmaine Seabrook Concepcion, and Beloved BDC Docents, Hugh Folk, Harriet Rahm, and Laura Lewis, and I delivered a quick behind-the-scenes orientation for Library Board of Trustees, County dignitaries, donors, and the Board of the Friends of Beaufort County Library who helped us "cut the ribbon."

Leadership Beaufort has been coming for at least 6 years on their "History Day" for a tour of the BDC and overview of the Library system. A group of 26 got the behind-the-scenes tour on October 1st.

For my colleagues in the Historical Resources Consortium of Beaufort County, there was a nuts-and-bolts for cultural heritage professionals Behind-the-Scenes on Oct. 13th.

Any member of the general public over age 12 who signed up for the Behind-the-Scenes tour was welcomed on one of three separate occasions, Oct. 6th in the morning; Oct. 12th in the evening; and again on a weekend during the afternoon.

All in all, almost 100 people came to the new BDC to learn more about how we bring the past to the present! Therefore, on the basis of docent, dignitary, donor, community, and media feedback, I think that Archives Month 2010 was a resounding success. And Charmaine and I are two tired puppies from all the smiling and explaining we've been doing for the past 30 days.

Please note: Today, Oct. 29th, the Research Room is closed from Noon until 1 pm in order to comply with Federal Labor laws.

BDC Behind the Scenes Tour for Tuesday is Full

I am proud to announce that the Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the BDC set for Tuesday, Oct. 12th at 5:30pm is full. We cannot take any more folks for it. However, slots remain for the Saturday, Oct. 23rd tour at 2:00 pm if you can do that session.

Please call Charmaine at 255-6468 or e-mail her at cseabrook@bcgov.net to reserve a slot for the Saturday offering.

"Map of Rebel Lines" at National Archives and in the BDC

We have some wonderful treasures in the BDC to share with the community.

Our goal has always been to get up records describing all our holdings into the catalog and/or online for potential customers to discover.

Our quandary is to try to make access (physical, archival photocopy, or digital) as customer friendly as possible yet stay within budget and time constraints while simultaneously protecting the materials for the future.

No small order, is it?

The standard way of letting library customers know what is available is to add the item or group of records into the library's catalog. Our problem is getting what we own in the BDC into the SC LENDS catalog according to national and international standards for special collections material. One of the tasks we worked diligently on during the Research Room shutdown (and continue to work on)is getting better control of our map collection. Because of the Technical Services department's hard work, we are in a much better position this afternoon than we've ever been.

We had several very basic inventories available inside the Research Room for our map, plat, blueprint, 19th century periodical illustration images, and other graphic materials. (And, we'll still have some because we couldn't manage to get every uncataloged item done in the time allotted). You couldn't get to those inventories online from your home or office. You'd have to come and ask to see those inventory lists -- and I'd have to remember where I last put the inventory list for that format in what was at best the barely managed chaos of the downstairs overcrowded, every surface covered, BDC room. It was ocassionally a rather dicey proposition, and most definitely not an optimal situation.

The crucial question became: What can we do to improve access to our holdings within our constraints? The answer came from balancing customer requests for specific types of materials against what staff could reasonably get done.

I like to think that the BDC makes the biggest splashes from the smallest impacts.

In the BDC we get requests most often about our map and photographic holdings. The number of maps we hold in trust are far more manageable (less than 1000 -- even counting the heretofore unknown by me box of mid-1980s flood maps that Kathy Mitchell discovered in the 2nd floor library storage area in the back of the building on 21 September) than the still yet to be totally counted number of photographs we hold.

(The Lucille Hasell Culp collection is massive -- even after all the partial processing we've done through the SC SHRAB grant. As soon as we get settled upstairs, we'll get to the behind-the-scenes prepartion work for the "300 for the 300th" digital Lucille Hasell Culp collection project. More about that in the future).

Therefore, Jan O'Rourke, my supervisor and the Library's Assistant Director, Wlodek Zaryczny, Library Director, and Rosa Cummings, Technical Services Coordinator and I decided to make cataloging the maps first priority during the shutdown.

Warning: From this point, I get pretty deep into library behind-the-scenes "stuff" but in case you would like to know more about what goes into preparing a cataloging record, read on. If not, then just drop down to the final paragrah.

Here's an example of what we did to catalog the map we own in photocopy form of an original map held by National Archives. (The image of the National Archives map illustrates this entry).

A couple of years ago, Robert Cuthbert, co-editor of Northern Money, Southern Land, gave us an archival photocopy of the "Map of Rebel Lines of the Pocotaligo, Combahee, and Ashepoo....," a map from Record Group 77: Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, 1789 - 1999 at the United States National Archives.

Cuthbert's donation has been on our inside-the-BDC Map inventory list since it arrived. This map appears in the inventory list as:

OV 642 Map of Rebel Lines of the Pocotaligo, Combahee, Ashepoo 1863 N'tl Archives I-53-1 map case.

Because I made the inventory, I can interpret what the various segments of information means and where to find the item. A basic map inventory works at a rudimentary level, but it's certainly not customer friendly or very descriptive.

If you had done a search for "Civil War maps" or even if you did a keyword search for "Pocotaligo" in the SC LENDS catalog in July, you couldn't find it.

If you had contacted me, I could have told you this map was here. But odds are you would not know to ask me about this particular map and

I would not know to offer you the information unless you asked me about the Civil War maps of this area, or even more specifically, unless you asked about maps relating to the Battle of Pocotaligo.

For the most part, I do tend to have encyclopedic recall of what's in the BDC but let's face it: I could drop dead any minute or have a stroke, or get a job offer elsewhere that is simply too good to refuse. Filing and organizing systems only in my head are not optimal. Plus, the BDC has grown tremendously over the past decade. My memory of what we hold in trust and/or just an inventory of some of the materials we hold in trust just isn't good enough. We outgrew that closet years ago.

Bottom line: All materials must get cataloged because 1) BDC materials are county assets; 2) customers need to know what we have for them to come see; 3) and we must maintain an accurate record of what we hold in trust in case of catastrophe and subsequent insurance claims.

During the shutdown with Brenda Beasley-Forrest and Valerie Lesesne of the Technical Services department have worked very hard adding records of the BDC map holdings for the SC LENDS database. Unfortunately, we don't have them all in yet, but we have gone from less than 10 maps with catalog records to almost 300!

To facilitate the creation of records for the maps we have in the BDC, I updated the bare bones map inventory to include "Reference Hints" for the catalogers. The supplemented version of the Map Inventory for the catalogers looked like this:

OV 642 Map of Rebel Lines of the Pocotaligo, Combahee, Ashepoo; South Carolina : to illustrate the operations of the Army, under command of Maj Gen W.T. Sherman, com[manding] Mill. Div. Of the Miss. From captured Rebel maps, and from surveys made under direction of Col. O.M. Poe, Capt. Engrs. Mill. Div. of the Miss. during the Savannah-Goldsboro Campaign. : 1865 R (for reproduction) 1865 (date of publication) N'tl Archives I-53-1; Civil War - Reconstruction; ARC Indentifier 305622; signed by E.M Poe Sept. 25th, 1866; you can find the ARC catalog at http://www.archives.gov/research/arc/. (Reference Hints).

Brenda and Valerie took over at this point. They scoured the usual library cataloging utilities such as OCLC and the catalogs of some of the original sources of the maps we hold in reproduction for matching records. (It's always quicker to "fix" a standing record rather than to make one from scratch. I don't want to bore you with the ins-and-outs of technical services and cataloging nor the differences between archival descriptions and library cataloging, but as the post of 13 August pointed out these are different processes. Just suffice it to say that these tasks require quiet, attention to detail, and considerable time to put together.)

They found a record for this item in the National Archives ARC (short for "Archival Description Catalog") and used it to create a record for the SC LENDS catalog. The new SC LENDS catalog record contains accurate information about this particular map. Hurray! You search on the keywords "Pocotaligo," "Combahee," or the title, and you can see that the BDC has the map in its holdings.

If you want to see a digital version of the original "Map of the Rebel Lines of the Pocotaligo, Combahee & Ashepoo [Rivers], South Carolina, To illustrate the operations of the Army under command of Maj. Gen. W. T. Sherman, comdng. Mill. Div. of the Miss. From captured Rebel maps and from surveys made under direction of Brvt. Col. O. M. Poe, Capt. Engrs., Mill. Div. of the Miss., during the Savannah-Goldsboro Campaign. 1865, ca. 09/25/1866" go to the ARC. Plug in the ARC Identifier 305622 or Local Identifier 77-CWMF-I53(1) to get to the record and link to the digital images. Please note: the digital version is in two pieces; the photocopy that we were gifted corresponds to digital copy 1 as is the National Archives image that leads off this entry. I wish we could provide a direct link from the SC LENDS catalog to the digital image online, but alas, we cannot -- yet.

If you click on the MARC Record tab on the new record for this map in the SC LENDS catalog, here's what you'll see:

LDR 01146nem 2200241Ia 4500
001 ocn656605754
003 OCoLC
005 20100901191252.0
008 100818r19601866dcu a 0 eng d
040 . ‡aZJI ‡cZJI
035 . ‡a(OCoLC)656605754
049 . ‡aZJIA
092 . ‡aSC MAP #642
245 0 0. ‡aMap of Rebel Lines of the Pocotaligo, Combahee, Ashepoo; South Carolina : ‡bto illustrate the operations of the Army, under command of Maj Gen W. T. Sherman, com[manding] Mill. Div. Of the Miss. From captured Rebel maps, and from surveys made under direction of Col. O. M. Poe, Capt. Engrs. Mill. Div. of the Miss. during the Savannah-Goldsboro Campaign. : 1865.
250 . ‡aMap
255 . ‡aScale: 1 in. = 1 mi.
260 . ‡aWashington, D.C. : ‡bNational Archives, ‡c[196-?], 1866r.
300 . ‡a1 map : ‡bb&w photoreproduction, ‡c52 x 123 cm., on sheet 62 x 123 cm.
440 0. ‡aCopy from the National Archives ; ‡vI-53-I
500 . ‡aSigned by Poe, 1866.
520 . ‡aCompare with SC MAP #643.
600 1 0. ‡aPoe, O. M. ‡q(Orlando Metcalfe), ‡d1832-1895.
650 0. ‡aSherman's March to the Sea ‡zSouth Carolina ‡vMaps.
651 0. ‡aSouth Carolina ‡xHistory ‡yCivil War, 1861-1865 ‡vMaps.
651 0. ‡aBeaufort County (S.C.) ‡xHistory ‡yCivil War, 1861-1865 ‡vMaps.

(I know that this may look like goobledy gook to the non-librarians out there, but to us it's a piece of solid gold work!)

You, our customer, can find out that the Beaufort County Library has this map (and about 274 more)for you to come see in the Beaufort District Collection. Hurray for Customers! Hurray for Technical Services! Hurray for me! Finally my brain can rest a little bit at night -- not always fretting about what maps I may be forgetting about. Being a steward of historical and cultural materials can be quite a burden.

Archives Stewardship Doesn't Come Cheap

Archives require that certain environmental and storage conditions are met and maintained 24/7/365. The renovation of the Paul Siegmund Room to receive and house the Beaufort District Collection happened because of a collaboration of Beaufort County Council, the Friends of the Beaufort County Library, and private donations to the Public Library Foundation of Beaufort County earmarked specifically for the BDC relocation to ensure that we could meet and maintain the accepted standards for archival collections.

David Coleman, Beaufort County Engineering Department, who oversaw our renovation project gave me these figures regarding the cost of this act of stewardship for archives and historical records to share with you:

• Replaced the leaking roof system, work was done by CEI Group, LLC from Hilton Head for $125,500.00
• Installed temperature and humidity control HVAC system, installed lighting system with reduced ultra violet emissions, and installed some partition walls. This work was done by Construction Associates from Bluffton for $169,500.00
• Analyzed the building frame for loading capacity and installed the compact storage shelving system with motorized carriages. This work was done by Patterson Pope who is on State Contract for $83,341.31

Please come do a little research in our wonderful collection or sign up to attend one of our upcoming public tours. Although we're still working some of the kinks out of our processes and procedures now that we're in a new facility, the improvement in conditions is noticeable and very welcomed. Thanks again, to everyone who did anything to help make the relocation happen.

New and improved BDC opens tomorrow

The new and improved Beaufort District Collection opens to the public tomorrow morning at 10 am. The Research Room will be open Mondays through Fridays, 10 am until 5 pm -- except when we can't be -- as on declared County holidays, unscheduled mandatory hurricane evacuations, staff in-service days, or reduction in schedules on account of insufficient staff to offer customer service.

A Personal Reflection: 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 later 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 "Wonders of 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. We done good. -- Grace

BDC Re-Opens Thursday

At long last, the Beaufort District Collection Research Room opens for business, Thursday, September 30th at 10 am.

Doing the "Microfilm Shuffle" in the BCL

We're in the final countdown to the new BDC Grand Opening on Sept. 30th, and the "Microfilm Shuffle" has begun.

As I promised, the microfilm holdings are the last major collection to move. In effect, we are creating 3 microfilm collections out of 2 sites in order to better reflect actual customer use of our Library microfilm holdings -- and to save money for other library materials purchases drawn from our County allotment to the Library system.

These are very tight times, financially speaking. Library staff tries its best to get the biggest bang from our allotted bucks for collections and materials. This "Microfilm Shuffle" is a BCL team effort of the BDC, Beaufort Branch, Hilton Head Branch, and Technical Services departments.

Heavy lifting started on Monday with unloading the microfilm cabinets, lifting and toting the cabinets upstairs, and re-positioning them upstairs in the new compact shelving array area. ("Watch the new BDC Take Shape" slide show has the latest images!)

BDC staff gets to reload and arrange the microfilm cabinets upstairs to be ready for the Grand Re-Opening. Yeehaw!

Beaufort Gazette newspaper microfilm in Beaufort Branch was only out of customer access for about 2 hours. Go, Charmaine!

Technical Services staff is working at Hilton Head Branch today inventorying microfilm for the separation. When that gets done, Technical Services can correct records to reflect the new location of the individual reels of microfilm, all 2000+ of them.

As with all public library operations, there is an awful lot of necessary organizing and preparation work behind the scenes that the public and stakeholders never consider. A large portion of that work might even be considered tedious, but without that good, necessary work performed to accepted international library standards, no one could keep up with our library assets of books, videos, microfilm, vertical files, etc. In other words, staff wouldn't know what we had to share with you nor would you know what we had to share with you.

From a customer's standpoint, here's what you need to know about the local newspaper microfilm:

At Beaufort Branch, customers have access only to the back files of the Beaufort Gazette newspaper.

At Hilton Head Branch Library, customers have access only to the back files of the Island Packet and a short run of the Bluffton Today newspapers.

In the new BDC Research Room on the 2nd floor of 311 Scott Street, customers will have access to back files of the Beaufort Gazette, Island Packet, and other local newspapers beginning on Thurs., Sept. 30th at 10 am.

Beginning September 30th, the primary series of documents of SC Department of Archives and History microfilm will be available once again -- exclusively in the BDC during our regular hours of operation.

See you the 30th!

We're Making Good Progress.

Things are moving along quite well with the relocation. Watch the New BDC Take Shape has 10 new images taken this week.
We re-open to serve you upstairs in the Paul Siegmund Room on Thursday, Sept. 30th at 10:00am.

Thompson on Historic Preservation

In case you haven't seen it yet:

Beaufort Lifestyle magazine interviewed Evan Thompson on his perceptions regarding the state of historic preservation in Beaufort over the last decade for its August/September 2010 issue. Thompson was executive director of Historic Beaufort Foundation from 2005 until his resignation in May 2010. He shares his discomfort with where the historic preservation movement in Beaufort County may be heading.

Thompson is now Executive Director of the Preservation Society of Charleston.

Historic Beaufort Foundation is a member of the Historical Resources Consortium of Beaufort County, a loose affiliation of sister cultural heritage agencies (archives, museums, libraries, historical societies, cultural groups, historical preservation societies) which share their research resources with the public under reasonable terms of access.

Pick up a free copy of the Beaufort Lifestyle in newstands across the islands (or from our Beaufort Branch Library lobby - while supplies last) or view it online at http://www.beaufortlifestyle.com/Beaufort_Lifestyle/INDEX.html. Click on the bubble. The interview with Thompson is on pages 24 - 26.

Once the BDC Research Room re-opens come visit us to review the contents of the file on the Rhett Office building. Relocating an historic collection is hard work but it continues apace.

Watch the new BDC Take Shape ...

I added new images late Friday afternoon to our FLICKR account. We've got approximately 1/3 of the cataloged materials now in place on the 2nd floor. Click here for the slideshow.

Special Libraries and Special Librarians

Latest update: I fixed broken links and added links to the online Finding Aids on 15 March 2023. -- gmc

As noted a few days ago, the Beaufort District Collection is a hybrid entity in the cultural heritage field. The term "special library" is usually applied to a collection of library and archival materials housed within a cultural heritage institution. In the course of this entry, I'll use the term in the sense that the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), defines it. Special libraries are managed by special librarians according to specific national standards. 

Special librarians (and some of you may think of me as "special" in more than one sense of the word) perform special tasks and must meet standards unique to the field. While I perform the duties and have the responsibilities of an archivist at least several times during the course of any given week, each and every day I am a librarian. (I proclaim myself as a Librarian with as much pride as Evy Carnahan does in The Mummy movie of 1999). On most days, I am a practicing special librarian. (I'm not sure that I would characterize my participation in Library meetings or coordinating local history programs for adults as specific "special librarian duties" so that's why I wrote "most days.")

During the shutdown for relocation, Charmaine (the steadfast BDC Preservation Associate) has learned far more than I expect she ever wanted to know about cross-checking shelflists against items against spine labels against barcodes against catalog records -- all library tasks. During the shutdown for relocation I have done far more archivist work than librarian work -- mostly because our records for the archives portion of our holdings are not up to national standards yet.

Materials in archival collections are organized and described as a collection of records, rather than as individual items. A researcher uses guides, finding aids, inventories, indexes, and online systems to discover what is in the record group. Being a good cultural heritage steward means that we must get our records into shape. This shutdown for relocation is the best opportunity we'll have of doing just that! Someone has to create those guides, finding aids, inventories, indexes, and online systems that organize and describe the record groups and then somehow make those guides, finding aids, inventories, indexes, and online systems available. By default, training, temperament, and knowledge of what is here, that task falls to me. But creating sufficient guides, finding aids, inventories, indexes and online systems takes a great deal of quiet thinking time. In our defense: That's been very hard to do because of the fact that in the 1st floor Research Room, our work and processing space (read that "my desk") was the same space used by customers and for collection storage. We arrange archives to share with our customers -- when we are not assisting the daily average of 4 to 10 researchers who contact us in person, telephone, or e-mail for help every workday. This is the major reason why we'll be closed until Sept. 30th.

Nevertheless, the BDC has posted finding aids to several archival collections using SC SHRAB grant funds over the past 5 years: Byrne Miller Papers; Nancy Ciehanski Papers; and the Lucille Hasell Culp Collection, part of which is digitized. We have more to get done at some point in the future - with or without grant funds. (Rest assured, we are always looking for appropriate grant funds to further our goals of meeting our mission. On a personal note: Having separate areas for specific tasks or services (an area for researchers to use our materials; an appropriate closed stack storage area; a separate processing area to prepare materials for customer use; and an office area for Charmaine and I to talk with researchers in private or on the telephone) is the best thing about getting to move to the 2nd floor. Not only will the collections we have be stored properly; we can better protect a customer's right to privacy and intellectual freedom since we can conduct reference interviews outside the hearing of other customers. The extra space on the 2nd floor will greatly improve our ability to catch up and keep up with incoming archival collections. (The separation of spaces by function is also in the national standards!) During the shutdown, our focus is on getting at least short records for the maps we hold into the Library's catalog, correcting inaccurate catalog records, and revising or creating inventory records for all the archival materials we have. The Technical Services department staff is assisting us. As the collection relocates, we'll post inventory records as we complete formats. It is a very tall order but rest assured, we will do our best to deserve the community's trust in our stewardship! We appreciate your patience while we perform the critical tasks necessary to bring the BDC to national standards for special collections management. See you on Sept. 30th!

What's the Dif?

Kate Cerve's recent article highlighting the Treasures [Truly, folks, the copy editor meant to write "Treasures" not "Treasurers" -- that's a far different current local matter -- and one far outside the scope of the BDC!] within the BDC gives me an opportunity to pose and answer the following questions:

Q: What's the Difference among Libraries, Archives, and Museums?

It's a good question. It is true that all of these types of organizations are in the stewardship of cultural resources field. But there are unique functions and responsibilities in each type of cultural heritage resources organization that require different training, skills, and lexicons to do well. Here's a synopsis of the comparison of libraries, archives, and museums as given in the "Basics of Archives" workshop from the American Association for State and Local History that every BDC staff person has completed.

Library Collections usually consist of published materials, usually available elsewhere, as separate and individual items. Items are selected one at a time and received one at a time. Materials are arranged by a pre-determined subject classification system already established such as the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress Subject Classification system, generally on open shelves. Customers can browse at will. Materials are organized and described as individual items. Usually there is a standardized descriptive information of the item available through a card or online public access catalog. Most items may leave the library's premises for a specified period of time after which they are returned. Libraries tend to have books, magazines, maps, audio and video tapes in their holdings. Library professionals are usually trained in ALA approved graduate level university based library schools and are called librarians.

Archive Collections consist of unpublished unique groups of related items, whose significance is directly related to other items within the group. Materials are selected as a group and treated as a group. Whenever possible the arrangement of items within the group are left as they were received from their creator. Materials are organized and described as a collection of records. A researcher uses guides, finding aids, inventories, indexes, and online systems to discover what is in the record group. These materials are customarily stored in restricted areas with strictly monitored access. Records do not leave the archives' premises. Oftentimes special procedures allow researchers access while ensuring safety of records. Items housed within an archives tend to be called archival records, archives, documents, manuscripts, or ephemera. Professionals who work with Archive Collections are usually university educated and trained archivists.

Museum Collections consist of unique artifacts or objects that support broad collection themes. Materials are considered and selected as both single items and as a group of items. Arrangement of museum materials is oftentimes decided upon by the curator. Materials are organized and described as individual items and as groups of items. Museums use inventories and catalog entries through a card catalog or online catalog to maintain intellectual and physical control over their holdings. There tends to be restricted access to the materials. Items usually can be seen through exhibits. Items do not leave the museum's premises except by special arrangement (for example, loans to other institutions). Items in a museum collection tend to be called artifacts or tangible objects. Professional workers in museums are called curators.

Q: Where does the Beaufort District Collection fit into these categories?

A: It is a hybrid organization consisting of both library and archival collections, most often as held within a special library.

I'll post an explanation about "Special Libraries and Special Librarians" in a few days.

Read All About It: "Beaufort District Collection Move Is No Small Feat"

Sandra Saad, Director for development and marketing for the Beaufort County Public Library System, wrote about the BDC relocation project in yesterday's newspaper. Please read the article. We wouldn't have gotten this project moving without considerable help from other organizations: namely, the Friends of the Beaufort County Library, the Public Library Foundation of Beaufort County, and the Historic Beaufort Foundation.