|
Into the Vault! The Peabody Essex Museum, Phillips Library The staff of Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum, graciously opened their library to 23 Regional members for a presentation on their rich resources as well as tour of their facilities, including their serpentine stacks and the "vault" complete with oversize steel bank-vault door. The tour was part of NMRLS' Continuing Education programs for January - March 2003 and took place on March 17th. The Phillips library holds 400,000 titles and a mile of manuscript material. Over 28,000 records are on MassCat. This includes most of their existing LC holdings (books on China, Japan, maritime, decorative arts) and some of their Dewey holdings (published family histories). They are hoping to work on published Essex County town histories as the next phase. They will be converting to Endeavor's Voyager online system this summer. The reference staff handles all reference queries that are received by mail, email, and their reference telephone line. There is no fee for this service, beyond photocopy fees. Questions that require research (as distinct from reference) are currently handled with no fee. If they are lengthy requests or ones that will involve weeks of research, the patron is referred to a list of researchers they can hire. Starting in June the library will be instituting a research fee. Please be aware that the Phillips Library is a non-circulating research library with closed stacks. The Library is open to the public: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. The current daily fee is $10 for individuals; $8 for seniors and students; free to Salem residents. A Museum membership is $40 for an individual, which includes unlimited use of the library and visits to the museum for a year. The Museum itself is currently under renovation with re-opening scheduled to take place on June 21st. Please keep an eye on future NMRLS Continuing Education calendars for another tour of the Phillips Library, you won't want to miss it! For further information and access to their collections on MassCat, go to: http://www.pem.org/phillips.html.
|
