Since last year, a team of individuals from throughout the library has been working on a forthcoming Gale digital collection, The Making of Modern Law: Primary Sources II, 1763-1970. Over 1,500 volumes, totaling more than half a million pages from Historical & Special Collections were digitized as part of this project; the majority of which came from the US Municipal Codes collection. It has been a wonderful opportunity to get to know this part of the collection and has resulted in some interesting and unexpected finds. Here are just a few of the things we stumbled upon.
1. Tucked into the Revised Ordinances of Park City (Utah) 1912…was this neat little Park City, Utah pamphlet relating to liquor laws.
2. In an 1871 book of Proceedings of the Ohio State board of equalization, one Charles Sultzbach left what appears to be homework notes. Charles Wesley Sultzbach (1876-1942) was an Ohio pastor who had six children. He named his second child Charles W. Sultzbach, Jr. (1907-1988). One can’t help but wonder how these notes found their way into this particular book?
3. Between pages 48 and 49 of a volume of revised ordinances for the city of Gardiner, Maine, we found a partially completed check from Oakland National Bank in Gardiner, dated October 3, 1881. According to the stamp on the cover, this volume once belonged to Asbury Coke Stilphen (c. 1842-1913). Stilphen was a Maine lawyer and history enthusiast who was a member of the Maine Historical Society. Accession records indicate the book was acquired by the Library, along with several other Maine municipal titles, in December 1914 from Portland, Maine book dealer A.J. Huston.
4. Among the pages of this 1875 book of Virginia ordinances, someone has stored/left/hidden what appear to be pieces of makeshift paper dolls.
Very cool! I’ve sometimes been surprised to find things I forgot I left in my own books. It makes me wonder what interesting things are hiding unsuspected elsewhere in our library’s books.