New York State Library and You

~2009 NYSLAA Conference Report~

Written by - Heidi Jensen, PLSHQ

New York State Library & You
Presented by - Sheldon Wein

Mr. Wein is the Senior Reference Librarian at the New York State Library and is in charge of Public Programming.

This workshop was very interesting. I didn’t realize that the New York State Library housed different artifacts.
Did you know that in 1911 there was a huge fire in the New York State Library? The Librarian, at the time, ran into the fire and grabbed as many historical items as he could.
Some of the items he took out and are STILL part of the New York Library Collection are - a hand gun used by George Washington and the original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation written in Abraham Lincoln’s handwriting. A copy of this draft can be viewed on-line from the NYS library website, http://www.nysl.nysed.gov. In the search field, type in Emancipation Proclamation and a copy of the draft comes up. It’s very interesting to look at.

We also learned about different reference items available on-line at the state library.
Some of which include, Old Regents exams - this gives students an opportunity to see the types of things that will be on a regent’s exam.

The State library has more to offer than I realized. I’m glad I decided to take this class and I’m excited to be able to use the State library more often.