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11/06/2023
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If you enjoyed the special adventure issue of News from the NYS Library, please consider sharing your own stories through the NYS Personal History Initiative

We’ve made it easy to upload photos, drawings, diaries, travel stories, found treasures, and more so that New Yorkers can add directly to the historical record. Check out our monthly themed prompts for ideas! 

New for November 2023:

Library users exploring shelving space, each in their own way. Text overlay: tell us about your library!

We are inviting the library community in New York State to join this initiative by sharing the history of your library, untold stories from those you serve, or your own history in relation to libraries.  

We hope that you’ll take this opportunity to celebrate unsung library heroes, record origin stories, and share the transformative power libraries have had on you and your community. These histories will be added to the Personal History Initiative digital archives, preserved for future generations as part of the public record.  

For the library stories, there are three categories for sharing: Local Archives: The history of your library; Uncataloged: Histories from your library community; and Me, Myself & Library: Your own history in libraries

Please share this opportunity with your staff and wider library community and invite them to add their history!   

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11/06/2023

Readers can find just about anything in a library, and as library workers, we’re always happy to help patrons discover all kinds of things between the pages of a book. Sometimes we even discover some surprising finds ourselves! Check out these buried treasures recently found in books from the NYS Library’s collections: 

First up is this winsome 1879 doodle and signature found on a book's end paper. This feathered friend was resting in a copy of Contributions to the early history of the Northwest including the Moravian missions in Ohio, by Samuel. P. Hildreth, M.D. Call no. 977 H64c. 

Hand drawing of a bird grasping a branch in its beak. Found on the end pages of a book.

This next one will probably feel familiar to some readers out there! This grocery receipt from the early 20th century was used as a bookmark at some point. This dispatch from the past was found in a copy of Great conflagration. Chicago: its past, present and future. Embracing a detailed narrative of the great conflagration in the north, south, and west divisions...Also, a condensed history of Chicago, its population, growth and great public works. And a statement of all the great fires of the world, by James Washington Sheahan, 977.31 C531.  

Remnant of a grocery receipt from Empire Grocery Co. found in a book.

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11/06/2023

Before dawn on August 2, 1826, Alexander Stewart Scott stepped aboard the steamboat Chambly in Quebec City, Canada. He was on vacation from his studies at law school and was on his way to visit family in western New York. Fortunately for us, he kept a diary of his trip. 

Traveling by steamboat, stage, canal packet, and wagon, his journey took him, via land and water, along a route defined by Lake Champlain, Lake George, and the Erie Canal. 

Scott was 21 years old; the Erie Canal was not yet one year old. (In operation in parts since 1819, it was not officially “opened” until October 26, 1825.)  

He sampled the waters at Saratoga Springs, about which, on August 16, he wrote: “they may be of ‘The Waters of life’ but they have a most villainous taste, extremely saline, and strongly impregnated, as I am told with Carbonic acid – the Village itself is a very handsome place …” 

Walking around Albany on September 25, he visited the New York State Library, which was housed in the Capitol. Of the library he wrote that it had “a small, but as far as I am able to judge a very choice collection of Books.” 

In his second-to-last journal entry, on Saturday, November 18, as he traveled by steamboat on the last leg of his journey, he obviously was bored and so he wrote: 

“…a long passage this; and which is rendered the more dull by the want of Books or something else to help one to kill time; a small Library is a very desirable thing on board of these public Packets, in this respect we are far inferior to the Americans, who … even in their Canal Boats have generally got a pretty good collection of works of different natures for the use of the Passengers – for the reading of which they are commonly charged at the rate of a cent a volume, and often nothing at all …” 

The cherry on the top of this sundae of a book is the expense account of his trip, which lists the places he visited, how many miles it was between his starting point and his destination, his method of transportation, and how much it cost to travel two hundred years ago. 

Scott’s hand-written diary can be viewed as part of the New York State Library’s Digital Collections.  

For teachers: An annotated transcript – with drawings and maps from other New York State Library collections – was published in 2019: Schneider, Paul G., Jr. Everything Worthy of Observation: The 1826 New York State Travel Journal of Alexander Stewart Scott (Albany, N.Y. : SUNY Press/Excelsior Editions) 

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11/06/2023
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Illustration of teens riding skateboards, scooters, bikes, and rollerblades on a large book shaped like a half pipe. Text: Adventure begins at your library. CSLP.

Summer Reading 2023 is in the books, and the NYS Library is gathering stories and statistics from public libraries across the state. We're tracking participation by kids and teens, as well as the number and type of programs and activities that were offered.    

It may be hard to believe, but the next Summer Reading season is just around the corner, and the theme for 2024 is: adventure! With the slogan “adventure begins at your library” and engaging illustrations by Juana Martinez-Neal and Rob Donnelly, Summer Reading 2024 is sure to bring attention to the adventure that awaits library users across New York. 

Libraries are excited about the many possibilities that an adventure-based theme holds for programming and events for all ages. Many public libraries will actually begin the planning cycle soon for Summer Reading 2024! You can stay up-to-date on Summer Reading announcements and resources with the Summer Reading at New York Libraries blog! Subscribe to the Summer Reading blog.      

Bonus Content: 

Two NYS libraries were featured in the September 2023 issue of the national CSLP newsletter!  Read about how they utilized the 2023 theme and slogan of “All Together Now.” 

 

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