1. ONLINE CARD CATALOG: It's been about five months since the last update, and while the number of website improvements has slowed, we're announcing the completion of a major feature. You read a bit about it in last month's Tudor Hall Times. It's the rollout of our online library card catalog. Volunteers have been hard at work entering the data contained on thousands of physical library catalog cards. You remember those drawers full of 3"x5" cards in the libraries years ago? That's what we had in our research library until last week. Now almost the entire contents of our research library is online and searchable, not only in Tudor Hall, but from anywhere in the world. This will give out-of-town researchers the ability to search our collection and see if there are items of interest to them in our library.
There is a link to our online catalog on our website on the library and archives pages. But If you'd like to try it out yourself, here's the link:
As of today, there are 4,636 items in our library catalog! It includes not only our 2,422 books, but also pamphlets, directories, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, censuses, blueprints, family trees, and posters. And a terrific additional feature is that all 250 maps, blueprints, and posters that we scanned down in the basement of Tudor Hall over Christmas break are fully viewable online in the catalog. When you pull up a result for one of these items, there will be a link that says "Click here to view online". No more trips to the basement!
Additionally, in the catalog there are entries representing our over 1,100 family files. These are folders in our vertical files that contain miscellaneous information on over 1,000 family names in the county - newspaper articles, birth/baptism/death certificates, obituaries, family trees, family research and correspondence. The catalog will not display the contents of the files, but will let researchers know that we have a file on their family. Similarly, it will display results for over 525 folders representing various aspects of state and county history, schools, churches, towns, and historic properties.
This online catalog will present many benefits to our staff and patrons. Online searches look through every word in the catalog entry, so it is so much easier and thorough than using physical cards. In the future we may be able to include a photo of the book cover in the search results. And a nice feature is the ability to see what books are on the shelf to the immediate left and right of the book you are interested in - chances are there is a similar or related title sitting right next to it. It will also make the staff's annual inventories easier to accomplish (with the potential to make them even faster if we barcode our books - they can then be inventoried with a hand-held scanner).
The library catalog software and database is hosted on a new computer that is now sitting in Tudor Hall. This server now gives us the ability to also host other web pages such as Pete Himmelheber's "A Trip to Radnor Forge", and some older, but still useful webpages previously run by family members such as Linda Reno's "St. Mary's Families". These are websites that we were unable to directly host on our main website.
I would be extremely remiss if I didn't give a shout out to our fantastic card catalog data entry volunteers who spent hundreds of hours typing the data into the computer. Thank you - Joan Wise, Susan Thompson, Lillie Himmelheber, and Jeannette Loving. Jeannette alone was responsible for over 75% of the entry!
And finally, you'll see in the photo below, we didn't completely get rid of the old card catalog. We removed the top half, and now use the bottom portion as the base for our research room online catalog search computer. A little blending of the old and new!
2. FAMILY FILE SCANNING PROGRESS: Volunteer Joan Devlin continues to scan the contents of those 1,100 family files I mentioned above. She is now working on the "P"s. The contents of the folders are viewable by members on our website. When she completes the family files, she will move on to scanning the over 500 historical files. Great job Joan!
3. NEW HISTORY MAP WEBSITE: There is a new St. Mary's County Interactive History Map on the St. Mary's County Government website. The website isn't ours, but the idea was! After scanning all the maps in Tudor Hall, I talked with Eric Benson, the GIS Manager for St. Mary's County (who also happens to be my son). Alongside the incredibly useful county GIS map, Eric created a new Interactive History Map. It starts with the current county basemap, and then lets you select from dozens of historical maps or aerial photographs, and then pan back-and-forth between them to see changes to roads, towns, buildings, etc over time. There are (or will be) state and county maps from the 19th and 20th century, topographic maps, historical survey maps, census/election district maps. This will become an invaluable resource for people doing research of our county's history. You can find the Interactive History Map here:
On Saturday, October 5th, Eric and I will be giving a live tutorial on how to use the Interactive History Map. We'll be at the Leonardtown Library from 11:00 to Noon. The demonstration will also be live-streamed. Check our events list on the front page of our website for further info.
(c) 2024 St. Mary's County Historical Society
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