Manuscript Collections in the General Library

Abstract

BECAUSE of the recent growth of interest concerning local history materials, any librarian, of either a public or a college library, is likely to find himself in possession of a manuscript collection of the papers of various founding fathers, first families, and the like. A few codes' for the handling of modern manuscripts of this nature have been published by various establishments whose chief concern is the care of such materials, but applying any of these codes to the organization of the scattered papers that come the way of many libraries is comparable to attacking a mosquito with an antiaircraft gun. One ultimate solution of the problem of caring for local collections is the establishment of a central agency to gather and preserve manuscripts from all parts of a state or region.2 But until a central agency is established, or a code for the handling of these papers in the general library is published, the description of a workable plan for their organization and care may be of some small assistance, even if only to indicate a few of the things that should not be done. In the first place, collections of this sort grow sometimes amazingly. If the library acquires a set of papers from the family of one founding father and puts it on display, the time will probably not be long until the second-best family of the community murmurs that there are in the attic (or the furnaceroom) a lot of old papers and account-books of Uncle Horace's that, in the interests of history and public service, will be presented to the library if (it is tacitly understood) Uncle Horace's papers receive as much prominence as the papers of family number one.