Beacon Street Diary

Vacation Blog Post: People of the Stacks #4 -- William H. Cobb

William H. Cobb

William Henry Cobb served as the Librarian at the Congregational Library from 1887-1923, during which time he also served as assistant treasurer of the American Congregational Association.

Born in April of 1846 in what is now Marion, Massachusetts, William attended Amherst College, graduating in 1867, studied theology at Princeton Theological seminary, and graduated from Andover Theological Seminary in 1872. He was both married (to Emily Wiggins of Philadelphia, PA) and ordained that same year and went on to serve parishes in Chiltonville, Medfield, and Uxbridge until being hired as Librarian in 1887.

While holding that office, Dr. Cobb advocated for the building of a new Congregational House and saw the building at 14 Beacon Street built and dedicated. He sought to strengthen the Puritan and Pilgrim literature collections (which, under his tenure grew to include some 3,000 volumes). Dr. Cobb was responsible for the procurement of the S. Brainerd Pratt Collection, much of which is on display in the Pratt Room today. He also wrote and published several books, sermons, and articles, including Seven centuries illustrated in the Congregational library. He died "in office" while working on yet another book. The library holds two of his sermons, in addition to Seven centuries.

-Sari

Vacation Blog Post: People of the Stacks #3 -- Corrine Nordquest

Corrine Nordquest

This is not the first time we have blogged about Corrine Nordquest Harrer -- you may remember the obituary we posted in 2009 -- but she, too, is a Person of the Stacks here at the Congregational Library, and deserves a place in our recognitions.

In December 1948, she was commissioned as a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and sent to South Africa where she served for five years. She returned to the United States where she served at the City Mission Society in Boston for three years. In 1958 she joined the library staff as an Assistant Librarian. It was at this time that she enrolled in the library science program at Simmons College. She graduated with her Master's in 1961 and a year later was promoted Associate Librarian. In acknowledgement of her impending graduation, the Library Committee wrote: "This double assignment of work and study has not been easy. It is to her credit that she has been able to carry the extra burden."

In 1963 Corrine became the first female Librarian of the American Congregational Association, as well as the first Librarian to hold a Master's in the field of Library Science. During her tenure, the Rare Book and Study Rooms were built, an electric book-lift was installed in the stacks to facilitate the moving of books between floors, and the card catalog which currently resides in the library entryway was installed.

The then-Miss Nordquest left the library in 1968 and went on to work at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Library and Yale Divinity School Library. In 1984 she and John A. Harrer, then-custodian of the Archives at the Congregational Library, were married. They are pictured here together in 1984.

The library holds a copy of the pamphlet published for Corrine's ABCFM Commissioning service.

-Sari

Vacation Blog Post: People of the Stacks #2 -- Emma Elizabeth White

Emma Elizabeth White

In 1888 Emma Elizabeth White left her job as a teacher in Uxbridge and was hired by the Congregational Library to be the second assistant librarian. While very little about the Assistant Librarians is recorded, some details can be gleaned from the annual reports. After Miss White's first year of service, the Library Committee noted that she had "developed very desirable qualities and given good satisfaction." In her time at the library, she helped to compile an alphabetical listing of all past Association members (totaling 10,000), and made the transition from the first Congregational House on Somerset Street to the second (and current) Congregational House on Beacon Street. She also prepared, at separate times, catalogs of the Pratt collection and the library's collection of Bibles. She served as Assistant Librarian for 46 years before retiring in September of 1934.

The 1935 the Library Committee of the American Congregational Association acknowledged her retirement, saying:

"The most important event your Committee has to report at this time is the termination of Miss White's active connection with the Library, after forty-six years of service. She has given to it a lifetime of loyal devotion and has contributed very largely to the expanding usefulness of the work. As a committee we hereby record our deep appreciation of her genial friendliness, her kindly helpfulness and her quiet fidelity and extend to her our sincere thanks for all she has done for the institution that is dear to us all. We wish for her many years of well-earned rest and enjoyment and it is a great satisfaction to us that arrangements have been made by which she is to receive a generous retiring allowance."

 

-Sari

Vacation Blog Post: People of the Stacks #1 -- Joseph S. Clark

It's that time again –- that time when those of us at the Congregational Library take a small break from the rush of cataloging, digitizing, processing, acquiring, researching, studying, administrating, and just general library-ing, to celebrate the holidays with our families and friends. It has been our habit, in years past, to post a series of pictures that we find interesting or relevant. This year we have decided to take a slightly different track and pay homage to those librarians (and assistant librarians) who have come before us. So, without further ado, we present the first post in an ongoing series: The People of the Stacks.

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Joseph S. Clark

Joseph Sylvester Clark (1800-1861) holds the distinction of being the library's second librarian, serving from 1859-1861. Under his leadership, the library's collection grew to contain 6,138 bound volumes, 23,696 pamphlets and 1,232 manuscripts.

He was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in December of 1800. He attended Amherst College, graduating in 1827, and Andover Theological Seminary. In 1842 he was called to a pastorate in Strubridge, Mass., where he served for over seven years. For eighteen years he served as the Secretary for the Massachusetts Home Missionary Society, and then as Corresponding Secretary of the Congregational Library Association. Upon his death in 1861, Congregational Quarterly wrote, "He was literally diligent in business, while he was fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."

Dr. Clark was a prolific writer (most notably in the Congregational Library Association's publication Congregational Quarterly), and the library holds several archival collections and publications which he created. Don't want to wait until we re-open to read some of his works? Dr. Clark's A historical sketch of Congregational Churches in Massachusetts, from 1620 to 1858 is available online!

-Sari

New collection -- Congregational Association of Detroit

The library has gotten several new collections in over the past few months, including a group of records from the Michigan Conference, UCC. They had been holding onto pre-UCC material that they realized would be better served in our space. Of that set, the largest collection (one banker's box worth) is from the Congregational Association of Detroit. The bulk of the material covers the Trustees meetings and minutes from the 1930s-1960s. There is also representation from some women's groups: a Union, a Missionary Union and a Fellowship, to be precise.

We have very little material from the Michigan Conference, so this collection presents a new opportunity to see what the mid-western Congregationalists were doing, particularly during World War II era.

-Jessica

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Update: We found some additional Michigan Conference records among the donated material, so the collection has been expanded and renamed. It is now the Michigan Conference of Congregational Christian Churches.

Closed for Christmas and New Year's

The library will be closed for the holidays from December 24th through January 2nd.

All of our online resources will be available as usual. If you have questions for the staff, please send an email or leave a voicemail, and we will respond to them when we return.

We hope you have a safe and happy week. And as Tiny Tim said, "God bless us, every one!"

CL Refresher Course -- finding and borrowing books

Some of our most common reference questions are simple inquiries into our holdings.

The easiest way to find out whether we have an item you're looking for is to search in our catalog. It already includes the most frequently used materials in our collections, and more records are added every day. Over the past year, Rachel has been hard at work adding our local (individual) church history materials, as well as new acquisitions, and materials we received from Chicago Theological Seminary. More and more of our pamphlets and images are being made available online through our digitization projects. The archival staff also adds and revises guides to our record collections on a regular basis.

If your searching doesn't turn up the results you'd hoped for, but it seems like something we're likely to own, you can always contact the librarian or reference librarian by phone or email for assistance. As mentioned above, there are a few sections that haven't made it into the online catalog yet, and we're happy to double check in the old-fashioned card catalog in those instances.

When you do find something you'd like to read, come on in and request it at the front desk. If you're too far to visit, check if the catalog record either has a link to a digital copy or is categorized as "circulating". We lend books published in the past 35 years, in person or by media mail. Our policies for borrowing, renewal, and late fees are detailed on our website.

Non-circulating materials -- including older books, all microfilm, and un-digitized archival collections -- need to be used within the library or requested as reproductions within U.S. copyright standards.

 

What if you don't have it, or I can't come in to the library to use it?

If the material you need isn't in our collections in a convenient format, you still have a lot of options:

• For materials we own, ask if it can be copied or scanned. We do offer scan-on-demand services within reason.

• Our Useful Links page includes a number of religious, state, collegiate, cooperative, and independent repositories.

• The Internet Archive contains a large (and growing) number of out-of-copyright digitized materials, including some of our own.

• You may be able to find a copy of a published work closer to your location in WorldCat.org, the worldwide catalog created by OCLC. It's not comprehensive, but it certainly comes close.

• Digitized books and journal articles can often be found in Google Books and Google Scholar, respectively.

In the end, our goal is to help you find the information you need, whether it's in our collections or somewhere else. While we hope these tips will be useful in your research, you are always welcome to contact us for further assistance.

--Robin

Information Literacy: getting to the good stuff faster

More and more research is being done online these days. In some ways, that's great. Researchers don't always have to take expensive trips, arrange their schedules around library hours, make long phone calls, or send hand-written requests for information that may or may not exist.

But it can also be overwhelming. There is so much information on the internet that it can be difficult to find what you're looking for and discern whether it is reliable. Most colleges these days are including seminars or even entire courses on information literacy as part of their basic curricula to help their students make the most of their research time.

Here are a few hints and tools that may be useful for you:

 

• Take A Class -- Since you're reading our blog, you've probably got the basics of computer use worked out. If you'd like a little more practice, want help with a particular program, or know someone else who could use a hand, check your local public library. Many offer classes to help their users get up-to-speed with new technologies. Here in Boston, the BPL has a range of continuing education workshops covering everything from the basics of using a mouse to file management, genealogy software, and borrowing e-books.
  
  See if your area has other continuing ed. options, as well. Both the Boston Center for Adult Education and the Cambridge Center for Adult Education have a range of technology courses on topics as diverse as introductory skills, social media, photo editing, web design, financial management software, and Java programming.

 

• Search Better -- Google is a lot of people's first stop when looking for information, but not everyone knows how to get the most specific search results. This handy infographic shows examples of techniques that go beyond simply typing in keywords and hitting Enter.
  
  It also includes a section on keyboard shortcuts that make reading online easier and more efficient.

 

• Do Some Reading -- If you're a bit more "old school" and still prefer to get your information from the printed page, the Old Dominion Univeristy Libraries have a list of books on their page of Information Literacy Resources. They also offer a number of video tutorials, how-to guides, and further links to resources at other institutions. The wording is geared toward college students, but research is research, and the same tools can be helpful to everyone.

 

• Get More Savvy -- The guides on the November Learning website are primarily geared toward teachers, but they contain some great information to help you evaluate the trustworthiness of websites you may come across. Learn how to read the parts of a web address, find out who created a given site, and see previous versions that might give you a clearer picture of the author(s). And if you already know these things, at least take a look at their list of evaluation sites, because some of them are hilarious.

 

The more you know about how the web works, the better you'll get at making it work for you. Play around with some of these resources. You might be surprised at what you find.

--Robin

Farewell, April

We've really enjoyed having April Johnson as our Assistant Archivist for the last six months. She's been extremely helpful, diligent, and downright pleasant to have around.

April leaves us this week to prepare for the birth of her second child. We wish her and her growing family all the best. We hope that she will come back to visit (and show off her new baby) in the new year.

CL Refresher Course -- caring for your records

One of the questions I most often get is from churches wondering how to care for their records. It might be that they're a healthy church, but have the usual limited space. They may be merging or closing, though, too. The questions range from "How do I care for them?" to "Will you take our records?".

We have spent a great deal of time here in the archive creating resources to help churches with these issues. I have been offering a records management class both in house and out at churches. It's structured around the booklet I wrote about how churches can care for their own records. Please check out our page dedicated to records management. If your church/ association/ conference may have an interest in having the workshop visit, please call me. I'm also always available to discuss particulars if a church chooses to take on this sort of project.

For those facing the arduous task of closing their church, we have a specialized page of frequently asked questions. We also have a pamphlet that summarizes the questions and answers on that page in a handy tri-fold format if you need to share the information with less tech savvy people. It's also handy to have at the inevitable committee meeting. Above all, if your church is closing, contact me as soon as possible to discuss the safe transfer of the historical records (that includes material from the recent past, not just 50+ years ago). The process will take longer than you might expect. We're always happy to advise.

-Jessica