The Monthly Newsletter of the St. Mary's County Historical Society JULY 2024
| The View from the Loggia
Safely and happily back from our vacation, I am very tardy in getting this month's Tudor Hall Times out the door. No excuses.
That said, I invite all of you to join me, our Board of Directors, and Volunteers on the Loggia (that unique and handsome "porch" at Tudor Hall) for the 2024 Summer Social. This is always a wonderful opportunity to get together informally with friends, enjoy the grounds, and have some food and drink. And, if your of the mind, it is also a chance to say thanks to our Directors and especially our Volunteers for their dedication in keeping Tudor Hall and the Historical Society alive and well.
Like last year, we invite you bring along your favorite summertime fare - sweets, fruit, salad, you name it - to share. Surprise us! We're an easy group to please.
And, we encourage you especially to bring your friends and neighbors who may not be Historical Society members. There's a surprising number of people in this County (and not just come-downers) who have never visited Tudor Hall or have yet to appreciate the rich offerings of the Historical Society. This is your chance to entice them to join you as members of this wonderful organization. Introduce them to us and we will happily give them a tour of Tudor Hall and show them the treasures that lie within.
The 2024 Summer Social is Friday, August 9th from 5:00p to 8:00p. Registration is strongly recommended. You can do that very easily by click on this link. If you encounter a problem, give us a call Wednesday through Friday and we'll help you out. And remember, there's no charge for you or your guests.
So please, join your fellow members, the Historical Society Board and Volunteers, and back-from-vacation me to enjoy the View from the Loggia!
Research Center Catalog
Thanks to Webmaster Tim Benson, Archivist Elizabeth Mathews-Kern, and the tedious but fruitful work of Volunteers Lillie Himmelheber, Dottie McCubbin, Joan Wise, Karen Wood, Susan Thompson, Joan Devlin, and no doubt a few others whose names are hidden somewhere in my ageing noggin', the Research Library Catalog has been digitized.
Now, this might not seem like much, but read on.
The card catalog lists over 2,500 books that grace the shelves at Tudor Hall. Over the years, different folks entered information on the cards with numerous variations. The good old Dewey Decimal System prevailed; but details were inconsistent. All the cards had to be scanned, the entries standardized, them moved into a online computer system.
As this is written, Tim and colleagues are installing a PC in the Research Center to allow volunteers and visitors to search the catalog by item name, author, subject, and other criteria and come up with all matching records. Our volunteers have included over 1,000 family files and 250 maps in the system. More are being entered every day, including our large collection of microfilm.
But wait! There's more! You can access the catalog from the comfort of your own home! Before you get to Tudor Hall, you can look for the materials you need for your research. No, we're not a lending library so you can't take books home. But you can find what you need a whole lot easier and spend your time more productively when you arrive.
All this was made possible by your support of the 2021 Annual Appeal. Your generosity that year allowed us to embark on a multi-phased digitization project to protect and to make available our Archives, genealogical, and historical materials. The results can be found on our website (particularly if you're a Member). And now, our Research Center materials are available online. The digitization project is still going on.
Check out the Library Card Catalog yourself. Go to this link to take a look. Enter a simple search term (Fenwick, for example) and see what you come up with. Click on the search results for more information. And if that's not enough for you, we've included links to access the Southern Maryland Regional Library Catalog, St. Mary's College of Maryland OneSearch, and the Library of Congress.
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