In a message dated 05/16/2000 2:19:05 PM Pacific Daylight Time, psabin@bellsouth.net writes: > Mildred Mallek wrote: > > > > To John Stoddard: > > > > Well, beggin' yore pardon, but when you said that the genealogical section > > of the > > Wheaton library is quite good, especially for DuPage County, my sensitive > > sensibilities were struck! Do you realize that DuPage County has a > million > > people > > in it? That it is one of the richest counties in the U.S.? Well, now, > they > > had better > > have some good resources, is all I can say. > > I wish money and resources always translated into an interest in good > research libraries, especially in historical and genealogical material. > I live in a suburb of Atlanta that was the fastest growing county in the > US for several years in the 1980s and is still a popular "bedroom" > community of Atlanta. We have nice new libraries all over the county > and they are wonderful if you just want to check out the latest novel. > Unfortunately, they have virtually nothing on local history or > genealogy. The historical society does, but they like to hoard and not > share, and they're open very few hours a week. > > Ask our local librarians to get a book on an interlibrary loan and see > how fast their eyes glaze over. They hate to do that kind of stuff! > > I am involved in research in a small East Tennessee town, Jonesborough, > which happens to be the oldest town in TN. They have capitalized on > that history and attract a lot of tourists. The national Story Tellers > Society has its headquarters there and owns half the town now. Most of > the old homes are B&Bs. All that money coming in from outside the town, > but they care nothing about preserving or expanding their genealogy and > history section of the library. They have a vault full of original > documents and photographs and I don't know what will ever happen to > them. I donated a book on our families, including a lot of town > history, and it took the library fifteen months to get it cataloged and > on the shelf! > > Thanks for letting me vent! :-| > > Pat Sabin > I just had to respond to these two incidents. I can top both of you. I donated up to 200 books to the Los Angeles County Library system from my parent's library, thinking that they would be distributed among member libraries which lacked the titles. They were in excellent condition. Instead, they were sold to the public for $1 each. The value of them must have been well over $1000, at least, considering depreciation, etc. And, because of that, I resolved never to donate any book to any public library again for all the thanks I got and the appreciation with which these books were received. Jeff Wallick