COGenBlog

The first installment of Manuscript Collection News (March 2007) is available at the Denver Public Library’s Web site. According to the inaugural issue, the “page will be updated monthly and will include new Manuscript Finding Aids, Hidden Treasures of the Manuscript Collection, Recent Donations and Archivists Notes.”

For instance, in the Hidden Treasures section, there is a description of the 1863 Civil War diary of J. A. Young:

The 1863 Civil War diary of J. A. Young was found in the Frances Melrose papers. The adjunct union soldier wrote descriptions of the events and people he came into contact with while serving under General Ambrose Burnside. He mentions places his unit went, deaths, drills, the weather and other activities. This fragile relic is housed in the vault with catalog number -M1890.

If you would like to be notified when Manuscript Collection News is updated each month, you might want to sign up with one of the free page monitoring services, such as ChangeNotes.com.

Thanks to Roger Dudley for letting us know about this new resource.

Time to update your bookmarks/favorites, folks. The Western History and Genealogy Department at Denver Public Library has a new address, a new look and new content for their Web pages.

Beginning with the home page, there is a changing gallery of historic photographs from the Department’s highly regarded Digital Image Collection. You’ll find links to the major categories of resources, plus news about the latest exhibits, classes, and seminars.

Links to databases have been consolidated, with a comprehensive list of all available databases on the Research Tools: A to Z page. This page lists not only Colorado and other Western resources, but many of the subscription databases available through Denver Public Library (many available from home, some available free in the library).

Spend some time exploring the updated site - you are bound to find at least one new resource for your genealogical research.

If you’d like to compare the new pages with the old, try these three links (as captured by the Internet Archive Wayback Machine in February and May 2006).

Dick Eastman’s Encyclopedia of Genealogy has a new list of libraries which offer access to HeritageQuest Online. Scroll down the page to see the list of libraries in Colorado … there are currently four library systems listed. Included among them is Denver Public Library (DPL) which offers at-home access to all Colorado residents. All you need is a DPL card which you can obtain at any branch (see the list of branches here). Other library systems are Loveland, Pikes Peak (most of El Paso County), and Boulder-Broomfield-Louisville.

If you know of libraries which aren’t listed, you may add them to the Encyclopedia; see the Contribute page for instructions.

Update 6 February 2006: Since this was originally posted on 6 January, two more library systems have been added to the above list: Jefferson County and Weld County.

The Denver Public Library will have new hours beginning Tuesday, 3 January 2006. The new hours are due to budget cuts. The Central Library will no longer be closed on Wednesdays, but will be open only eight hours each day, except for Sunday when it will be open four hours:

Monday - 12noon-8pm
Tuesday - 12noon-8pm
Wednesday - 10am-6pm
Thursday - 10am-6pm
Friday - 10am-6pm
Saturday - 9am-5pm
Sunday - 1pm-5pm

For more information, call (720)865-1111 or any Denver Public Library location.

Denver Public Library (DPL) has a number of databases which offer valuable genealogical information. For a handy way of searching all of them at once, try this Google search technique. Type the following into the Google search box:

   SURNAME site:denverlibrary.org inurl:gene|genealogy

Here’s an explanation of the various parts of the above search:

• SURNAME
  Here you’ll substitute your own surname, or you can use any other word.
• site:denverlibrary.org
  This restricts your search to files found on the DPL site.
• inurl:gene|genealogy
  This restricts your search to files found in the “gene” or “genealogy” folders on DPL’s Web site (which will cover just about all of the genealogical databases).