Today’s post is by historian and guest writer David Grabitske, who is the Site Manager for the Landmark Inn, a site owned by the Texas Historical Commission. Cliffhangers of History I remember the summer of 1980. I was 10 and it was the last summer my family lived in Maryland. The previous summer the family had gone to Ocean City, Maryland, on a premium of a time share company. The catch was the family had…
This post is likely to ruffle a few feathers. Let’s ruffle away, shall we? (If you are a donor to museum collections and you’d like to avoid the ruffling, see the caveat at the end of this post.) “If You Don’t Take It, It Will End Up in a Landfill” I can’t tell you how many times people who’ve donated items for museum collections have said, “If you don’t take it, it will end up…
A recent CityLab article caught my attention: Should Libraries Be the Keepers of Their Cities’ Public Data? A quote from the article: “As far as how private and public data should be handled, there isn’t really a strong model out there,” says Curtis Rogers, communications director for the Urban Library Council (ULC), an association of leading libraries across North America. “So to have the library as the local institution that is the most trusted, and…
While hubby and I were visiting Maryland, I made an observation about the importance of history to place. As my brother navigated through suburbs along highways to various destinations, I noticed that the commercial districts of those suburbs could have been in Minnesota. Because they were filled with chain stores found nationwide constructed using nondescript building styles, there was no distinction between Maryland suburbs and Minnesota suburbs. Well, except for the vines running up and…
Continuing from last week’s post about my January trip to Washington DC, I’d like to share my impressions and photos of the Library of Congress. For some reason, this building was open during the partial government shutdown and I’m so very glad it was. First off, the Library of Congress is located in the Thomas Jefferson Building. The building is called that because Thomas Jefferson sold his significant personal library to the United States after…