Holyoke History Room

Dear Valued Patrons and Generous Supporters:

As the History Room is an essential part of the Holyoke Public Library’s collection, it is important to inform you that the Historical Collection has changed venues - temporarily. As you know, the History room and Archives possess many invaluable and irreplaceable resources regarding the history of Holyoke and surrounding communities. unfortunately, due to environmental problems within our 104 year old building, the preservation of these historical records and original documents has become increasingly difficult. It has therefore become necessary to find suitable as well as accessible space for them beyond the Library until such time as an acceptable space can be created within the Library.

To avoid depositing this valuable collection in inaccessible off site storage, the Library Trustees have accepted the gracious offer of suitable space in the Holyoke Community College Library where the Public Library’s Historical Collection will continue to be available for research. The collection will remain at the College Library as a temporary measure, until the adverse conditions in our Maple Street building can be addressed. At that time the collection will return to its home in the Holyoke Public Library.

The History Room is now open at the College on a schedule of 20 hours each week. Hours have been planned to permit access for research at various times of the day to accommodate schedules of patrons who have different work commitments. Please call for Summer hours. A special phone line has been installed for the History Room at the College -413-552-2842. Saturday hours may be arranged by appointment. The e-mail address is scampbell@hcc.mass.edu.

General

The History Room contains the resources available to patrons visiting to utilize the collection. In addition to the materials listed below there is a PAC terminal for searching the general collection and one for Internet use related to History Room research. A copier and a scanner are also available to visitors. The room is open 20 hours a week and there is one Reference Librarian and two volunteers. The room also displays exhibits that are rotated quarterly.

Materials

No materials circulate from the collection. The photocopying of materials
and scanning of photographs are available to patrons visiting the facility.

Walk-in Use

Patrons visiting the History Room are asked to bring their own writing materials with them (notepads, pencils, etc…) and to please not bring pens with them to the room.

Research Requests

Since the room is only available 20 hours a week, as a rule of thumb estimate about two weeks per item requested. We define an item as a single piece of information that is requested. Requests for all information about John Smith, for example, could involve many items. Longer requests will take longer to process, generally from four to six weeks to complete from the time we receive the request. We ask of researchers to be patience, we will get back to them as soon as we can.

We recommend sending one or two items per request to ensure the most rapid completion of the research. Please also remember that we are not the city archives and do not have access to all of Holyoke’s historical records. We wish that we did but are limited to what we have in our collection. To see our holdings list click here.

Most requests are sent to us via regular fax (413-532-4230), mail (335 Maple Street, Holyoke, MA 01040)or e-mail (scampbell@hcc.mass.edu.). Please be very clear as to the answer you are looking for in regards to each item requested. Vague requests are difficult to process and can result in delays in the research process or in your receiving information other than what you had wanted.

We recommend that all requests be made in writing (either by fax, regular mail or e-mail) so that we have all of the information regarding your question in as accurate a format as possible. If you are requesting information by phone please leave us an e-mail or regular mailing address if you are calling from out of state.

Obituary Requests

This is a special type of request and we require the exact date the person died, or at the very most the time span of a week.

As part of a public library there is of course no charge for information requests only for copies. All donations are greatly appreciated, however, and help to keep the History Room running.

Internet Links to Holyoke History & Genealogy

Holyoke History

Holyoke, MA