The Mariners' Museum Library Archives - Page 3 of 12 - Mariners' Blog

John Taylor Wood search — Searching for John Taylor Wood in the Archives catalog

Well, now that the Library has catalogued all these items pertaining toMonitorandVirginia, how do you the reader search for them? Let’s start out by talking about the Archives catalog atwww.m.boxorats.com/catalogs. You can search here for anything that we as a museum care for. But if you want to search for these newly-cataloguedMonitorandVirginia-related items, click on the “Archives” link. Once you’re there, I really recommend you read the Help. It can truly improve your searching.

Let’s say you’re interested in anything we catalogued about John Taylor Wood, who served aboard CSSVirginia. Now, I like the keyword search, but I like to limit the number of bad hits I get, so I will find a short and uncommon couple of words that go together and enclose them in quotes, like “Taylor Wood”. Select the Item Level, and hit the Search button.Read more

Memo from Irwin Berent to John Newton, ca. 1980, MS0164, Irwin M. Berent Collection

Here is our final guest blog post, from Alex, who worked with us this past summer during the big drive to the finish line. Alex, yours is the last word:

Library & Archives

10,000 Items Catalogued (Cont.)

August 20, 2014November 27, 2015

Sailing Orders — “CSS Virginia Orders for Observers of Battle of Hampton Roads Reenactment” from MS0164, Irwin M. Berent Collection.

So how, you might ask, does a small Library and even smaller Photographic Services staff undertake and complete the digitization and cataloguing of 10,000 items in the space of 12 months? We may have declared victory, but victory belongs as well to a veritable army of interns and volunteers we found when the crisis was upon us. Twenty-two young men and women from around the Commonwealth came to our aid when we most needed them. They gave us anywhere between 12 and 162 hours apiece of their service. Considering how detail-oriented and repetitive the work can be, even 12 hours is grueling.They added not only much-needed labor but also a great spirit of camaraderie and good humor to the place. We are so grateful to them! And we hope they learned something about archival and library science in the mix.

我已经要求这些志愿者来写的and tell us which piece they remembered most and why. What you will see are their own words. Here, then, is what Ashley wrote:Read more

Library & Archives

10,000 Items Catalogued (Cont.)

August 8, 2014November 27, 2015

In my last post, I said that the Library had just completed a massive cataloguing project of items related to the U.S. Steam BatteryMonitorand the C.S. IroncladVirginia. These items came from 59 different archival and research collections. Among them are extremely rare photographs collected by an earlyMonitor“groupie” in the 1880s by the name of Frank Pierce, letters from sailors aboardMonitorand from witnesses to the Battle of Hampton Roads, both Union and Confederate, unique plans and drawings ofMonitor, and receipts from vendors for materials used in her construction. There are also research notes of people who did important historical work on the two ironclads and genealogical work on their officers and crew. Here, then, is an annotated summary of some of the collections we have catalogued. Enjoy!

10,000 Items Catalogued (Cont.)

Got a Maritime Research Question? Ask Us!

10,000 Items Catalogued (cont.)

10,000 Items Catalogued (Cont.)

10,000 Items Catalogued (Cont.)