What You'll Find in the Library

Transcript

Narrator: Since its founding in 1849, the Minnesota Historical Society has been collecting rare and interesting materials related to Minnesota’s people, places, history and culture. Many of these items are accessible to the public at the Society’s Gale Family Library, located on the second floor of the Minnesota History Center in downtown St. Paul. The library is free and open to researchers of all types and ages. Here’s some of what you’ll find… The Gale Family library has more than 500,000 books, periodicals, pamphlets, and other printed materials including county histories, published family histories, city directories, works of Minnesota authors and biographies. A manuscript is a collection of papers created by a person, family, organization or business. Some examples are diaries, letters written by Civil War soldiers, legal, and financial documents, the papers of many prominent Minnesotans, hundreds of boxes of Northern Pacific Railroad records, as well as photos and architectural drawings. We’re proud to house the Minnesota State Archives, a vast collection of records from Minnesota’s state and local governments. This includes records from governors, state hospitals and prisons as well as state agencies like the Departments of Transportation and Health. This collection also contains naturalization, marriage, court, birth, and death records. The Gale Family Library maintains 19,000 maps and almost 2,000 atlases, most of which show Minnesota and its regions, counties, and cities.

Man 1 : Thank you, Mr. speaker, question to you sir, has a roll call been requested on this motion?

Narrator : In the sound collection, you’ll find Dakota and Ojibwe music, recordings from school and college bands, and music from many famous Minnesotans like Bob Dylan, Prince, and The Replacements. We also have a large collection of oral histories that cover a wide range of topics like the Somali community in Minnesota, Minnesota Women Vietnam Veterans and St. Paul’s Rondo neighborhood. You can view original photographs and films from our collection. You can also search for many images and some film clips using our Collections Online database and library catalog. The Minnesota Historical Society has the world’s largest collection of Minnesota newspapers. It spans every part of the state and dates back to 1849. Some newspapers are on microfilm and library staff are available to help with these materials. You’ll also find many newspapers on The Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, a searchable website. To find what you’re looking for, you can ask at the reference desk, search the online catalog, or use one of our finding aids. The Minnesota Historical Society’s collections are vast, but library staff are here to help: at the library, by phone, and over email. We hope you’ll visit us soon to explore some of these amazing collections!

Girl 1 : Hey!