Dollar Steamship collections featured

(by Heather Hernandez, Technical Services Librarian)

Our friends at the National Park Service Museum Collection blog have featured some of our Dollar Steamship collections items, including some of the colorful brochures and a fabulous pith helmet.

Their post links to our online Museum objects catalog and our finding aids in the Online Archive of California, but if you're interested in learning even more, don't miss the Library items on the Dollar Steamship Lines listed in our Keys Catalog of Library materials, many of which are available for lending via interlibrary loan.  (Ask at your local library about borrowing items from us and other libraries around the world via "ILL," or contact us to learn more!)

Holiday hours, Nov. 2012

(by Heather Hernandez, Technical Services Librarian)

Please note that the Library will be closed Wednesday, November 21 through Friday, November 23; regular service resumes Monday, November 26.

See our Plan Your Research Visit site for more information, or contact us to learn more!

Pulp treasure: The Grain Ships

(by Heather Hernandez, Technical Services Librarian)

The Library is fortunate to have a significant holdings of maritime pulp fiction.  These materials, vastly popular when published, are now often scarce due to the materials used in their manufacture: inexpensive papers that are highly acidic, known as "pulp."

Our holdings have currently been enriched through a large number of pulp magazines dating from the late 19th through the 20th centuries, donated as part of the Krummes Collection of Steamship Fiction.  Although we are mourning the recent passing of Dan Krummes, we are proud to preserve and make available these materials that created a love of the sea in so many.

We are cataloging the stories in the pulp magazines individually to make them more accessible;  if you're not able to come in to read them in person, simply contact us to obtain copies.

While cataloging the contents of vol. 3, no. 2 (Nov. 20, 1922) of Sea Stories Magazine, I came across the poem, "The Grain Ships" by Captain Dingle.  It was too good not to digitize as part of our pilot program to digitize library materials--it is now available in multiple formats via the Internet Archive and NPS Focus, and I am delighted to present here this charming poem about San Francisco's grain ships:

Park's Collections Highlights by Subject

(by Heather Hernandez, Technical Services Librarian)

We have a new way to browse highlights of our collections--by subject!  These categories now appear at the bottom of our Museum Collections website:

• African heritage and history
  
• America's Cup and yacht racing
• Animals
• Arts, crafts, skills, and artists, artisans, and craft workers
• Asian heritage and history
• Boats and small craft
  
• Companies and organizations (naval architectural and engineering firms, engine manufacturers, shipping lines, shipyards, boatyards, etc.)
  
• Geneaology resources at SF Maritime NHP
  
• Kenichi Horie's sailing alone across the Pacific
• Language and literature
  
• Life aboard ship (crew or passenger, at work or at play)
  
• Steam
• Sailing ships
• Time
• Women

The Museum Collections website has long encouraged exploration by format (object, archival, library, or small craft collections) but until now a way to browse articles and writings on our collections by subject or theme has been lacking.  Under these subjects you'll find everything from articles on specific collection items to writings using images of our collections as illustrations.

If you're interested in browsing our actual collections records, or accessing our online collections, then see our Collections Catalogs & Finding Aids.  Records for our collections are represented in many catalogs as are our finding aids to archival collections.  Have a question about which catalog is best for your research?  Don't hesitate to contact us--our Reference Staff is available to assist with your maritime research strategy.

Halloween reading

(by Heather Hernandez, Technical Services Librarian)

Are you looking for an eerie novelet where a ghost ship sails endlessly, with its cargo of fated souls?  Then "Till Doomsday" may be just what you're seeking:

Or maybe an anthology of Ghost Ships: Tales of Abandoned, Doomed and Haunted Vessels is more your taste this Halloween?   Or just a frisson from Mysterious Sea Stories?  Maybe you'd rather take a long sail on Frederick Marryat's The Phantom Ship?

However you spend Halloween, be sure to sail On Stranger Tides...

The Yacht Idler and the Library collections

(by Heather Hernandez, Technical Services Librarian)

What does the logbook of the yacht Idler in our Archives have to do with the Library collections?  Hint:  the answer lies in the pages below!

The full explanation is now available on the new page on our website written by Archives Specialist Ed LeBlanc, "Logbook of the yacht Idler linked to Library."

Digging for Gold at the Library: U.S. Coast Survey Report

(by Gina Bardi, Reference Librarian)

I often talk about how walking through the stacks of the library I find gems based on unusual titles or interesting bindings.  Today’s gem has neither of these.  The binding is standard blue library binding and the title, U.S. Coast Survey Report is about as thrilling as a cotton ball. However, I walk past these volumes (it’s a continuing resource which is fancy library talk for “they publish it in volumes” [or maybe that’s fancy librarian talk for continuing resource…which is more fancy?!]) and a few months ago I stopped to take some off the shelf and see exactly what they were and what information they contained.   U.S. Coast Survey Reports are yearly reports from the Superintendent of the Coast Survey to Congress. For the most part, they have coastal maps, charts, tide tables, lists of maps completed or in progress and reports from various field offices which include shore line measurements, soundings, tidal observations, etc. There are also many appendices which give information such as who are the people doing the surveys in each area and a heaping dose of  math Math MATH! So much math!

 These reports are incredible resources for people who want to do in depth coastal research.  As I was flipping through the pages of the 1858 volume, however, I came across an appendix which popped out at me – it wasn’t the more dry scientific measurements, rather it’s statistics about shipping in and out of San Francisco.

The appendix (no.44) entitled “Directory for the Pacific Coast of the United States” is chock full of information which crosses all sorts of information needs.  The appendix is actually an extended report 8 years in the making on San Francisco Bay and port activity.  It has such bits of information such as in the year 1857, 1,328 vessels entered San Francisco from other American ports, 130 that entered were American vessels from foreign ports and 125 were foreign vessels from foreign ports making a total of 1,583 vessels that came to San Francisco that year (349).   Also according to the appendix, “At the end of the fiscal year , June 30, 1855, there were registered, enrolled, and licensed, at the custom-house of San Francisco, owned wholly or in part by citizens of California, 702 steam and sailing vessels engaged in trade upon the Pacific” (348).  The breakdown of that number is as follows: 

There’s more information in this wonderful resource including the average amount of gold shipped out of the state (351), value of exports of California for a three year period (350) and clipper passages times from 1850-1857 (346).

If any of these tidbits excite you, then stop on by the library and check out our U.S. Coast Survey Reports.

Source:

U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, Showing the Progress of the Survey During the year 1858. Washington: William A. Harris, Printer, 1859.