printing plates

printing plates
Originally uploaded by Daily Assumption.

At the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library I spent a good twenty minutes wandering around trying to take in the reality of colonial Interperators (spelling) looking up items on Microfiche. One dead time using a dead library is haunting. Asking advice from the librarian who made me remember I was in a library and to keep my voice down immediately, she showed me the querry files that are in a motorized filing roticery of sorts. Since 1965 any staff member who wishes to answer a written or oral question in detail will make a memo that is then stored in the querry files. Basically every question anyone has ever had about Williamsburg is stored in this system. From meat, to garage, to hats, to ancestors, to milk, corn, rice, tomatoes, shoes, desks, bathrooms, fingernails, and lice. However the answers are mostly just directions to a good book that contains the answer. Not the page number, or chapter, just a list of books. Some have the wonderful addition of a few other suggested subjects to research in addition to those "answered." It was a wonderful maze that I just didn't have time to learn about.

Those are printing plates above, wrapped in new-old prints of the Virginian Gazette. I think we are filming there so watch for them when the series comes out.