Preservation of and Access to Historical Collections

FAIN: PG-51425-11

North Adams Public Library (North Adams, MA 01247-4168)
Katharine C. Westwood (Project Director: May 2010 to August 2011)
Richard G. Moon (Project Director: August 2011 to March 2014)

The purchase of environmental monitoring equipment and preservation supplies for oversized materials in the library's special collections department, as recommended in a recent preservation assessment, along with on-site workshops on flattening and framing large historical documents, photographs, and posters. Among the library's collections are more than 80 World War I-era posters; approximately 100 rolled maps and oversized architectural drawings depicting the historical landscape and built environment of North Adams, Massachusetts, in the 19th and 20th centuries; and three dozen large photographs, paintings, and prints illustrating prominent local residents and sites from the early 1900s.

In the year 2000, the North Adams Public Library hired a professional to establish a Special Collections Department, with the basis being several collections of papers, manuscripts, photographs, ephemera and three-dimensional objects stored on the third floor of the library and neglected for decades. In 2009 a Preservation Survey was complete and offered many recommendations. We seek an NEH grant of $5,293.30 to help us fulfill these recommendations, and to make our collections more stable and available to the public. These collections have been ignored for far too long, sustaining dirt and damage, excessive heat, humidity, dryness, and mishandling. In the past decade the North Adams Public Library has shown its dedication to doing right by these collections, and we hope that effort can be continued with your assistance.