Recently, a former Swedish hockey player reached out to the Traverse Area District Library (TADL) with a query: he had played a few hockey games here in his youth, in the 1970s, and was wondering if anyone could help him work out the results? ?
It’s only a day in the life for the reference librarians at TADL who handle the historical archives and field research on the distant and not-too-distant past of the Traverse City region. Take the cute husband who called to give his wife an old photo of the Traverse City Record Eagle as a young cherry festival princess. Or the people who have long since moved away and are looking for the fate of an old neighbor, a family home or a beloved school teacher.
In order to keep the archives usable and robust, volunteers and library staff are working flat out to obtain, preserve, digitize and label countless documents and photos on the history and life of the region (to identify people, places, buildings) – and time is not on their side.
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