By Anna J. Cook

一位当地的独立研究人员最近前往MHS，对18世纪和19世纪波士顿地区的图书馆进行研究. She reports that while a substantial amount of research for her project can be completed online, 多亏了谷歌图书这样的大规模扫描项目, 该协会拥有许多早期的图书馆通告和目录，这些都是独一无二的，但她无法以数字化格式找到它们.

在她的研究中，她发现了两种有用的文件类型，一种是1818年为查尔斯顿社会图书馆印刷的小通知, and a catalogue of books belonging to the subscribers of the library of Milton and Dorchester (1790). 《og体育平台》包括大约95种书籍，其中包括一些读者今天仍然熟悉的作品:约翰·弥尔顿的《og体育平台》, 约翰·班扬的《og体育平台》, 奥利弗·戈德史密斯的《韦克菲尔德牧师.

Subscription libraries were “Netflix for an era of readers,” according to the historian Robert E. Sullivan [1]. 一种早期的借阅图书馆, they were privately funded and one paid a fee in order to join and have access to the collections. 在18世纪末和19世纪初, the Boston metropolitan area boasted a large number of these institutions. Our researcher is attempting to flesh out the history of individual libraries. 她报告说，她在维基百科上分享了她的劳动成果, thus making the information available in these rare documents accessible to a much wider audience. 这是MHS等实体机构之间工作关系的一个独特例子, 研究人员在其中工作, and the world of internet-based, crowd-sourced information.

[1] Robert E. Sullivan, Macaulay: The Tragedy of Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 409.

By Elaine Grublin

In the library this morning, 在手稿收集中寻找信息的时候, 我发现了完全不同的东西:希望.

安全地坐在温暖无雪花的图书馆里, 我看着窗外的波士顿又下起了一层厚厚的雪——这是上周那场暴风雪留下的几英寸积雪的基础上的又一层. And I began to despair. 温暖和阳光还有希望回到我们身边吗? Will the snow ever melt?

As a life long New Englander, deep down I know that the melting will happen. 但我也知道你无法预测冬天的天气什么时候会结束. And even with the Red Sox preparing to depart for spring training, actual spring seems so far away. So after drudging through the over 40 inches of snow we have received so far this year, and seeing the below zero temperatures predicted for the coming weekend, I was having a hard time feeling hopeful about a change in the weather.

直到我坐下来看微缩版的日记 Sarah Gooll Putnam (Sally), that is. I had gone to the diary looking for her observations about Civil War soldiers in the city of Boston, 但在浏览日记时，我发现了一些充满希望的话语, 因为她一月份的记录让我想起了那句老话:“如果你不喜欢新英格兰的天气。, wait a few minutes.”

On 13 January 1863, 12岁的莎莉在书中写道，为了走出家门，她把自己裹得严严的，还在牙买加池塘上参加了一个滑冰派对. Just days later, on 24 January, she writes “It is just like summer now. 天气这么暖和.”

这里希望有一个温暖的好天气在我们的路上.

By Anna J. Cook

虽然大多数使用我们图书馆的研究人员都是成年人——大学生及以上——但MHS经常向十几岁甚至更小的顾客提出研究问题并为他们服务. Last week, we were visited by a family from California who were visiting relatives in Boston. The youngest daughter, currently in second grade, was working on a class project for Black History Month focusing on the poet Phillis Wheatley (d. 1784). The family came to the library in hopes of viewing an artifact or document in Wheatley’s own hand.

在向家人简要介绍了研究图书馆和我们处理珍贵书籍和手稿的程序之后, 我们安排他们参观我们的藏品中的两件. 其中一件是第一版《og体育平台》 各种主题的诗歌，宗教和道德, printed in London in 1773 and now held at the MHS as part of the Waterston Library. The second was a l1773年10月18日惠特利写给大卫·伍斯特的信 about a recent visit to London, 她去了哪里，希望能从疾病中恢复过来，并参加她的诗集的出版. 我们讨论了易碎书籍和手稿的护理和处理问题, 我们8岁的研究人员大声朗读了《og体育平台》这首诗，让我们很高兴.

MHS中所有与韦奕礼生活和工作有关的物品都已数字化，并作为该项目的一部分在网上提供 非裔美国人和马萨诸塞州奴隶制的终结 web presentation.

By Elaine Grublin

Last week the American Historical Society (美国心脏协会)在波士顿召开了年度会议.  The meeting spanned January 6 through January 9 and brought an influx of historians, graduate students, 和其他历史专业人士到后湾区. 

Many of those in town for AHA, made it a point to stop at the MHS as part of their trip to Boston.  有些人甚至提前几天来到镇上，这样他们就可以在周末参加AHA活动之前在阅览室里花上一整天的时间.  我们很高兴看到许多熟悉的面孔回到图书馆, 以及大量的第一次研究人员.

Over the course of the week, the library was visited by 72 individual researchers for a total of 119 research visits.  在为这些研究人员提供服务的过程中，图书馆工作人员为首次研究人员提供了35次新的读者指导, 从封闭的书库中找到260多份资料, 复印了300多页, and engaged in countless one-on-one interactions with our researchers.  These numbers exceed what we typically see in a single week during our busy summer months. 我们读者服务部的工作人员做得很好.  They managed the atypical mid-winter rush with smiles and quick delivery of all library services.  我们希望每个人都喜欢AHA会议，并希望在不久的将来看到上周访问我们的所有人回到图书馆.