This book provides information and insight to help public libraries develop, maintain, and market local history reference collections (LHRCs). Public libraries frequently are given unpublished materials, and librarians may be reluctant to offend anyone by not accepting their gift. The authors explain how to develop an LHRC collection policy focused on published rather than unpublished material; such a policy provides a way to kindly reject materials that do not maintain the standards that are needed for developing a high-quality LHRC.
Faye Phillips, a well-known consultant and author of the 1995 manual Local History Collections in Libraries (Libraries Unlimited), coalesces her expertise into this readable primer on starting an archive in a public library. This text represents a welcome addition to the growing number of books and articles focused on archives in public libraries published since 2010, when the Public Library Archives/Special Collections Section of the Society of American Archivists was formed.
Book Review: Is Your Museum Grant-Ready? American Association for State and Local History, by Sarah Sutton
