The 1982 Annual Report of the Cincinnati Historical Society

The 1982 Annual Report of The Cincinnati Historical Society Despite difficult economic times, the Cincinnati Historical Society reached new levels of growth and service in 1982. The annual reports of the librarian, the education coordinator, and the director of community development and public relations each chronicle aspects of the institution's service to the people of Cincinnati during the past year. One result of the Society's recent commitment to offering new programs for the general community has been increased use of the library collections. Through its long history, the Cincinnati Historical Society has built a rich collection of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, paintings, prints, photographs, and other materials that document the history of this city and region. Over the years, and particularly since the Society's move to its Eden Park facilities in 1964, the number of library users has increased. But neither the boom in graduate school programs in the 1960's nor the "roots" phenomenon in the 1970's generated as many researchers for the library staff to serve as has the recent series of television programs, the Metro History Fair, the Cincinnati Neighborhood Studies Project, and similar efforts to share the history of the city with more people. To the degree that our historical society measures its success by the number of people who seek to learn about their city's history through research in the library, our public programming has proven to be a highly effective method by which people become motivated enough to come to the library to carry out personal research projects. This success has revealed how years of inadequate resources, which forced the Society to neglect the proper care and organization of its collections, make it increasingly difficult for the staff to serve effectively the public that comes to use the library. One essential element of a library is its catalog. Only through properly maintained finding aids can materials be predictably found and efficiently retrieved. The Society has rarely devoted adequate resources to the work of creating and maintaining catalogs for the collections, forcing the staff itself to become finding aids through personal assistance of the researchers. With more researchers using the library, however, the staff has less time to spend with each even though the new library patrons are frequently less experienced and in greater need of assistance. The resulting frustration for both staff and researchers is destined to grow. Crowded con- 249 ditions in our building already mean that the collections are squeezed to- gether to maximize the use of limited space. In the years ahead, shifting and re-shifting collections will be necessary to live within the confines of the building. Furthermore, long years of not investing adequately in the care of books through re-binding, construction of book boxes, and the substitution of xeroxes and microforms for original materials mean that our collections cannot stand up to the increased use being placed on them. Thus, at a time when the public in greater numbers seeks access to their own history, the Society finds itself frequently unable to accommodate and satisfy that in- terest. Solutions exist. Our recent Sesquicentennial Challenge Grant Fund Drive enabled us to initiate larger conservation and preservation programs in 1982. But affording the cataloging staff and the expenses of participating in computer-assisted cataloging systems are presently beyond the reach of the Society. Ours is now the only professionally staffed library in Cincinnati that has failed to enter the computer age. Yet, the trustees and staff of the Society have a rare opportunity in the years immediately ahead to create an institution that can more effectively serve the people of Cincinnati. In few cities in the country are its residents as proud of their city and its heritage. In few cities is there a collection as rich and as valuable as the Society's. In few cities has there been such limited opportunities for people generally to experience, to share, to explore the history of their community. As Greater Cincinnati contemplates how it will commemorate the 200th anniversary of its founding on December 28, 1788, the Society has an unparalleled opportunity to serve and, possibly, an unequalled capacity to be of service to the community. To realize this potential, the Cincinnati Historical Society must define itself for a new Cincinnati century. Over the past few years, the staff of the historical society has extended itself in the service of the community to the point where current trends cannot be sustained. If the television programs, the publication of Cincin- nati: The Queen City, the sponsorship of the Metro History Fair, the Fourth Street History Gallery, and the Neighborhood Studies Project collectively fail to generate greater support from the community, then the institution's trusteeship of the collections will force it to retreat until a future time when other people will have an opportunity to attempt the work we seek now to perform. That prospect promises to make the years immediately ahead fully as busy and as critical for the Cincinnati Historical Society as those just past. Gale E. Peterson Director 250 Report of the Treasurer for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30,1982 General Special Fund Projects Total Receipts: Investment Income $210,809 $210,809 Membership Dues-Individual 72,787 72,787 Membership Dues-Corporate 19,775 19,775 Gifts and Grants 48,279 $258,623 306,902 Reproduction Fees and Services 6,715 11,674 18,389 Profits from Sales 5,124 435 5,559 Special Events 12,049 2,656 I4,7O5 Operating Transfers 13,848 (13,848) — Miscellaneous 565 - 565 $389,951 $259,540 $649,491 Disbursements: Administrative Personnel $ 87,271 $ 9,276 $ 96,547 Building 29,990 105 30,095 Office 19,594 8,881 28,475 Capital Acquisitions 207 1,309 1,516 Development/Communications 9,021 6,180 15,201 Professional Services 7,74i 2,032 9,773 Preservation 1,440 1,440 Publications 3,566 3,566 Other 3,075 7,235 10,310 $156,899 $ 40,024 $196,923 Library/Collections Personnel $147,030 $ 29,020 $176,050 Office 5,213 1,448 6,661 Capital Acquisitions 6,464 19,516 25,980 Preservation 334 31,431 31,765 Professional Services 593 — 593 Other 2,161 1,928 4,089 $161,795 $ 83,343 $245,138 Programs Personnel $ 22,675 $ 62,476 $ 85,151 Office 1,367 16,003 17,370 Capital Acquisitions 989 4,690 5,679 Research and Publications 37,607 2,012 39,619 Professional Services 7,843 12,302 20,145 Other 506 5,104 5,6io $ 70,987 $102,587 $173,574 Total Disbursements $389,681 $225,954 $615,635 Excess Income/(Deficit) $ 270 $ 33,586 $ 33,856 Cash Balance, July 1, 1981 14,036 Cash Balance, June 30, 1982 $ 14,306 (Gifts and bequests to the Endowment Fund are not included in this report. In addition, the Women's Association reported income of $9,624 and expenses of $4,700.) J. Rawson Collins, Treasurer 251 Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May Jun. Jul. Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec. RESEARCHERS PER MONTH 1981 —— 1982 Students participating in Metro History Fair greatly increased library usage in January, February, and March as the graph clearly shows. LIBRARIAN'S ANNUAL REPORT - 1982 THE LIBRARY For more than a decade library activities and programs have been reported for the previous July-June fiscal year. In order to convert to a calendar year report, this resume of activities covers July 1981 through December 1982. During this eighteen month period the library staff provided reference service, processed and created finding aids to collections, implemented conservation programs funded by the Sesquicentennial Challenge Grant Drive, and sought solutions to critical space shortages for library users, collections, and personnel. Reference Service The library staff provided reference service for 8,056 researchers from forty-eight states, the District of Columbia, and seven foreign countries and assisted 3,186 people who came to the Society for meetings, to view exhibi- tions or to purchase for-sale items. The staff answered 21,074 desk and telephone questions and replied to 1,360 mail requests for information. In addition to researching family history, library users studied such topics as the female seminary movement in nineteenth-century America, the transi- tion from Jeffersonian to Jacksonian democracy and the 1869 controversy over use of the Bible in Cincinnati schools. Subjects of biographical studies included George Washington Williams, minister, lawyer, and author who became pastor of the Union Baptist Church in 1876; Civil War general William T. Sherman; and Silas Omohundro, a Virginia slave trader who lived in the city during the 1840's. Art historians, attempting to identify the works of artists M.W. Hopkins and John Smibert, examined the eighteenth- century portraits of Boston bookseller and publisher Daniel Henchman and his wife, Elizabeth, and the nineteenth-century portrait of Margaret Place Baker. The Society's Metro History Fair attracted students from area high schools, boosting 1982 library usage over the previous calendar year by 16% in January, 56.5% in February, and 34% in March. Sesquicentennial Challenge Grant Projects In 1981 the Society launched a drive to raise $1 million so that the library could implement more adequate programs to care for the institution's ex- tensive collections. Eighty per cent of the funds raised will be placed in the Society's permanent endowment fund to provide an on-going source of income for this work. The remaining amount will be spent on equipment 253 purchases and one-time conservation or preservation projects. In 1982 Sesquicentennial Challenge Grant appropriations were used to purchase equipment for on-going conservation projects and to obtain microfilm copies of Cincinnati's major daily newspapers.

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