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BOSTON & MAINE RAILROAD HISTORICAL SOCIETY
REPORT OF ARCHIVES COMMITTEE
FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2007
The Archives Committee scheduled 10 meetings in 2007, one of which was cancelled because of snow. By way of comparison, we met 10 times in 2006, and 8 times in 2005. The average attendance at our meetings, inclusive of guests, was 6, somewhat less than last year’s 8. Regular attendees at our meetings were David Ashenden, Len Batchelder, Rick Conard, Ron dePierre, Dick Lynch, Henry Taves, Gareth Thomas, and Ellis Walker. Several meetings also included one or more guests.
The work at our Archives sessions consists of researching requests for information, organizing our collection, and processing and filing new acquisitions. We added about 200 items to our electronic catalog and plan to introduce a version of the catalog to the society’s website in 2008. The electronic catalog includes items in our collection that we have processed since 1998. David Ashenden continued his work to organize our collection of architectural drawings and introduced a list of station drawings. This list was posted on the web site and we have received several requests for copies of station drawings as a direct result.
We logged in a total of 43 donations in 2007, as compared to 60 in 2006 and 53 in 2005, including material donated by The 470 Railroad Club, J. Leonard Bachelder, Carl Byron, William Crawford, Kathy Cunningham, Danbury Railway Museum, Jonelle DeFelice, Nelson Dionne, Jim Dufour, Mike Dunton, Kevin Farrell, Edward A. Felten, F.X. Giacoma, Robert P. Fuller, Robert F. Gould, Edmund Lawson, Michael Lennon, Lewis A. Marre, Theodore Martin, Madelyn Mitton, John Philip, John R. O’Donnell, Jr., John Alan Roderick, Samuel Vaughan, Jr., Peter F. Victory, Craig Wilkie, Robert F. Wilner, We also received a cash donation from Jack Graney, also a cash donation from Mark A. Nickerson in memory of Eugene F. Mattthews, a 40-year B&M employee. The Committee thanks all our donors for their generosity and encourages our members and friends to donate additional material to our growing collection. We will also appreciate receiving information about potential donors.
We responded to 119 requests for information this year, compared to 156 in 2006, 153 in 2005, 114 in 2004, and 140 in 2003. Dick Lynch, our indefatigable indexer, updated his B&M Bulletin index and completed his comprehensive index of the B&M Railroad Employees Magazine, both of which have become “go-to” sources for answering research questions.
Several committee members have volunteered “off-hours” time to answer research questions. In addition to “homework” provided by the members who attended our meetings, Vin Bernard, Carl Byron, Adrian Gintovt, Paul Kosciolek, Jon Miner, Jim Nigzus, and Buddy Winiarz fielded research questions and picked up donations.
As with all libraries storage space is at a premium. Our emerging “master plan” is to make the most popular materials in our collection available for use in the Archives at 40 French Street, Lowell. Our location at North Chelmsford will continue to be used for unprocessed materials, but also in future for cataloged overflow materials, less likely to be called for by our patrons. We continue to prioritize the processing of materials so as to make the most interesting and significant materials ready to use as soon as possible. We appreciate the continuing efforts made by Jim Nigzus and members of the hardware committee to make the storage facility at North Chelmsford a pleasant place to work.
New committee members are welcome. We will supply on-the-job training. Our volunteers have the opportunity to work with some extremely valuable and interesting materials, and our monthly meetings are always accompanied with a lively interchange on Boston and Maine and New England railroad subjects. We offer generalists the opportunity to organize our collection and reply to requests for information, while specialists are needed for cataloging, data entry, and photo conservation. Those who might find any or all of this work enjoyable are urged to contact the chairman and to plan a visit to one of our monthly meetings.
Your chairman is again impressed and inspired by how much can be done by volunteers.
Respectfully submitted,
Frederick N. Nowell, III
Chairman, Archives Committee
Boston & Maine Railroad Historical Society
fnowell3@yahoo.com
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