@MCL: Morris County Library

Family fun

2012-05-29T12:04:00.000-04:00

For the family, in July, four films (Fridays, 2PM) and two performances:
July 6, Puss in Boots, 2PM
Jul6y 7, John Andrews, NJ Astronomy Assn, talks about Saturn, 2PM
July 13, Secret World of Arrietty, 2PM
July 17, magician Brian Richards, 7PM
July 20, Kung Fu Panda 2, 2PM
July 27, The Muppets, 2PM

Poetry festival 2012

2012-05-29T11:55:00.001-04:00

We gave out nearly 100 of the 2012 booklets to a packed house last week, at the annual party which concludes our (11th) April poetry festival. You can listen to some of this year's verses, as read by the authors.

New database

2012-05-09T11:00:00.003-04:00

Besides saving $500, another reason to recently switch the Standard Directory of Advertisers ("Redbook") from print to online is the speed of updates. Here, they tell us this morning, are updates in the last 30 days: AGENCY RELATED: - 1,000 New Personnel within Agency Listings - 853 New Accounts within Agency Listings - &&223 New Agencies - &&6 Agency Name Changes -- 3 Agcy Name Change ADVERTISER RELATED: - 1,351 New Personnel within Advertiser Listings - &&3 New Advertisers - &&1 Advertiser Name Change Use the database in the library; no remote access, sorry!

June arts

2012-04-29T13:35:00.000-04:00

The Artist is one of five recently released films we'll be showing in June, Fridays at 2PM. June 1, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close June 8, J. Edgar June 15, Captain America June 22, Woman in Black June 29, The Artist. Saturday, June 23rd, we celebrate our 90th birthday, with cake, coffee, lemonade and, at 3PM, a classical guitar concert by Loren Fortna of the John J Cali Music School at Montclair State University.

William Penn didn't sleep here

2012-04-10T15:56:00.001-04:00

While George Washington did sleep here, in much of Morris County, no, William Penn didn't own all the land in the county, prior to his death in 1718. (Actually, he wasn't here much, traveling between England and Ireland.) Penn was one of 36 proprietors in East and West Jersey, acquiring some of his interest in a debt sale after George Berkeley's death.

Land transfers and holdings in Morris in the colonial period are obscure and ill-defined, in part because property boundaries are described as "to a corner white oak tree, thence crossing it again" .."crossing ye said river again to another white oak corner tree, thence..." One good storm and there go the property boundaries? We've posted an overview and suggested resources for 17th c property titles research.

West Jersey 1676

2012-03-27T12:08:00.002-04:00

Reviewing the 1676 "The Concessions and agreements of the proprietors, freeholders and inhabitants of the province of West New-Jersey, in America" (wearing archival gloves to handle the wonderful 1747 volume), Chapter XVI:

That no Men, nor number of Men upon Earth, hath Power or Authority to rule over Men's Consciences in religious Matters, therefore it is consented, agreed and ordained, that no Person or Persons whatsoever within the said Province, at any Time or Times hereafter, shall be any ways upon any pretence whatsoever, called in Question, or in the least punished or hurt, either in Person, Estate, or Priviledge, for the sake of his Opinion, Judgment, Faith or Worship towards God in Matter of Religion. But that all and every such Person, and Persons, may from Time to Time, and at all Times, freely and fully have, and enjoy his and their Judgments, and the exercise of their Consciences in Matters of religious Worship throughout all the said Province.

Exactly 100 years later Jefferson and Franklin would write the Declaration of Independence.

Speakers @MCL

2012-03-09T12:50:00.000-05:00

Author/speaker schedule set through June. Upcoming: the humor of aging, poetry, your inner potential and travels to India. All events are free, seating is "first come, first serve."

Business focus group

2012-01-02T20:47:00.002-05:00

The library would like to put together, in the first quarter of the year, a focus group of businesspeople from local small to mid-sized companies. Do you know the business resources we have for you? Are they in your preferred formats, print or online? Does your operation need research assistance? Let's talk about it. The northwest New Jersey Small Business Development Center has offered to also do an info session for the group.

Call (973-285-6969) or email the reference desk to sign on to a roundtable about your business information needs

Your databases

2011-12-22T14:57:00.001-05:00

With adds, drops and tweaks, we begin 2012 with 35 databases, about half of which you can also use from home. (Sometimes the cost of remote access is prohibitive!) New this year are:
PowerSpeak: instruction in seven foreign languages and ESL for Spanish and Mandarin speakers
Dow Jones LP Galante, venture capital firms
S & P Industry Surveys (has been added to our existing S & P NetAdvantage)
Prices for Antiques, auction prices for collectibles and art
LoisLaw
PACER, the US Courts electronic case tracking system

Expanded is Foreign firms in../US firms overseas, from UniWorld. We had a subscription to NJ only, have expanded it to national. This resource is particularly valuable to those of you who are bilingual and might look for employment with overseas firms having offices here, or vice versa.
Questions about any of this? Contact our Reference desk, (973) 285-6969.

Thanks MCLF!

2011-12-18T17:57:00.003-05:00

Thanks Library Foundation! Just posted the report on your 2011 activities, eleven (in '11--very nice!) programs--theater, concerts, reading support, large type for seniors, etc.-- for children and families supported through the generosity of your donors.

Learn a language

2011-11-11T11:16:00.001-05:00

Foreign language instruction now available online, from home, through our new subscription to PowerSpeak: 8 foreign languages and ESL instruction for Spanish and Mandarin speakers.

You'll need the database password to use this or any of the other 12 online services that only Morris County Library subscribes to. E-mail our Reference desk or ring (973) 285-6969 with your library card # for the password. Thanks; merci; gracias!

Brotherhood of Unemployed

2011-10-15T13:30:00.002-04:00

Local history librarian Miriam Kornblatt has added September-December 1934 to our Great Depression project, Morris life as seen through the Daily Record. Fall of that year included the Brotherhood of Unemployed, Local #1, Denville, meeting and a CCC company moving into barracks on Whippany Rd to work on flood control and mosquito extermination.

$12.91/acre

2011-10-08T13:01:00.002-04:00

It took the sale of at least 394 acres of Jefferson and Roxbury to clear a debt of $5,092.94 in 1819. Moses Hopping and his wife Amy were on the hot seat because of the failure of their mine on Weldon Brook. The Chancery Court of NJ ordered the sale of these holdings and in 1820 County Sheriff David Mills reported it done.

Cooper Seward family

2011-09-15T12:06:00.003-04:00

Interesting family, the Cooper Sewards, of Chester. Beulah Cooper, Abraham's daughter and Nathan's (Cooper's Mill) niece, married Henry Seward (descendent of Obediah Seward who is on the 1752 freeholder list) and had a son William. William Seward, through the 19th century, became quite the land baron, buying, mortgaging, even foreclosing. We've learned all this in cataloguing the Cooper-Seward deed file here. Some of the documents are too fragile to scan (though not the 1778 deed--terrific rag paper!) so we'll try photographing them to digitize.

Yes, the Chester family was related to Secretary of State William Henry Seward, who thought the US should buy Alaska. Land acquisition seems to have run in the family?!

FamilySearch

2011-07-06T09:38:00.002-04:00

We've just been granted Family Search affiliate library status by the Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. This means we'll be able to rent ($5 per reel is your fee) microfilm from them, for you, through our interlibrary loan office.
The Utah library recommends these tools for determing what's in their collections:

FamilySearch Pilot
FamilySearch Indexing
FamilySearch Wiki

NetAdvantage is back!

2011-05-16T14:53:00.002-04:00

We once again are subscribing (in library) to NetAdvantage, the Standard & Poors service that includes their Outlook, corporate and executive profiles, industry surveys and Daily Stock Price Record. NetAdvantage and ValueLine have to be used in the library; Morningstar and Mergent can be used here or from home.

Morristown goes to war

2011-04-11T20:44:00.003-04:00

Battery F, First Field Artillery of the NJ Natl Guard, Morristown was called the "Gillespie Battery", because it was organized in part by Major Samuel Hazard Gillespie, Morristown. The unit was rolled into the US 8th Division, reporting in Anniston, AL July 25, 1917, with the guards from VA, MD, DE and DC. Their leave taking ceremony in Morristown was July 23, 1917. The Daily Record in a lengthy front page article said

..as all Morristown knows that group of youth who have joined the colors to fight until the safety and establishment of world democracry is a surety, was given a send-off last night in the Park Theatre. Never in the history of this municipality--or in the history of Morris County from its ealiest days--was there such a patriotic demonstration as was this one.

(Hmmm, soldiers freezing and starving at Jockey Hollow in 1778 was pretty patriotic?)

Major Gillespie, who died December 1, 1957, was quite the local figure: primary owner of the Jerseyman, a Morristown newspaper; president of Morris & Somerset Electric Co (which became JCP&L); importer/exporter and transportation advisor to the US Army during World War II and president of the boards of both the Morristown Presbyterian Church and the YMCA.

The bottom line

2011-03-29T15:30:00.004-04:00

Among our spending reviews is year-end unit cost analyses of the databases we buy for your use (Ancestry (library edition), Mergent, Morningstar, Dun & Bradstreet, etc. etc.) At the end of the calendar year we divide the annual cost of a database by the number of uses, to get the per session amount. $2 or less is acceptable, over $2 means its time to reconsider the subscription.

A few titles are on the 2012 chopping block at this point, will be dropped if use doesn't increase substantially and lower the per use cost this year. AllData Automotive, Mergent Online, Morningstar Investment Research Library and Valueline are all candidates for a drop..the last for an announced $3,000 price increase, the others for low use. Best ROI? Ancestry, the library edition (which is far superior to the home edition); folks love genealogy research.

Databases you can use from home are found on our remote resources web. Our library value calculator estimates the cost benefit of your library visits.

Morris County Magazine

2011-03-04T11:54:00.003-05:00

For 15 years, between 1982 and 1995, the county Chamber of Commerce published Morris County Magazine. Reference librarian Donna Burkey has indexed the entire run, identifying the local places and people the magazine highlighted.

We have the entire run of the magazine in our NJ collection. Drop us a note if you need one of the indexed articles.

Another gem!

2011-02-24T15:51:00.001-05:00

Found another gem in our local history files: proof copy of volume 1, number 1 of a literary magazine, "6 x 9". The name was taken from the nine writers of the 6th district (Morristown) of the Federal Writers Project, WPA, who put it together. The editor, Albert Truman Boyd, and associate Carl John Bostelmann were Denville residents. Associate Benjamin Goldenberg and illustrator/printer Lewis W. Biebigheiser lived in Morristown. Biebigheiser (1914-1992(, who cut 12 original linoleum blocks for the issue, would later own a printing business in Chester. We've let his family know what we've found.

Morris County Children's Home

2010-12-22T13:13:00.006-05:00

It is sad to see three and four children from one family in the Morris County Children's Home, ca 1910-1920. Or is it good that they at least were still together? In some cases (the Miller family, 1895) some family members are in the County Alms House and the little one is in the Children's Home. And no, it wasn't scarlet fever that created the need for the children's cemetery (Littleton Rd, near the fire house, now), it seems to have been croup and diptheria. The County Children's Home operated from 1882-1929, when foster home placement became the norm. The organization lasted until 1974 as a placement and aid society. It's final trustee chief was the Rev. Thomas Mutch, pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Morristown from 1936-1966.
Picture by Richard Hrazanek, 2002

Jobs & Career Accelerator

2010-10-20T12:27:00.004-04:00

New database, from the NJ State Library and a jobs grant: Jobs & Career Accelerator/Learning Express allows you to take practice tests and software lessons (Excel, Viseo, PowerPoint, etc.). Register (free) to set up your own work space to save those practice exams or come in and use the library's login if you just want to try out the product, first. For home use, contact the Reference desk (973-285-6969 or e-mail ) for the password.

MCL Photo Group

2010-08-10T22:55:00.002-04:00

Interested in sharing, teaching and learning from others interested in digital photography? Just sign in with your e-mail to join the MCL Photo Group. We'll "meet" largely online, but get together every 8-10 wks to hear from the pros.

Events@MCL

2010-07-21T16:12:00.005-04:00

2,150 households now subscribe to Events@MCL, our e-mail advance notice of library programs, classes, concerts and exhibits. You'll receive one or two e-mails a month from the library or, if you prefer, you can read the list archives. If you'd like to sign on to Events@MCL just drop us a note or sign up whenever you're in the library.

MCL on your cell

2010-05-19T19:02:00.004-04:00

What's your preferred method of keeping up with library events and programs while on the road?
Twitter?
Facebook?
Foursquare?

or, use our micro web for your cell.