The Second Life of Logbooks

By Baylee Browning
​Collections and Exhibits Associate

Log from the Ship "Alice", 1854-1858.

In 2023 Long Island University's Palmer School of Library and Information Science digitized a collection of logbooks and ledgers. The aim of this ongoing work is to preserve the history of Long Island communities by making materials accessible digitally, and to help train the next generation of librarians and archivists in digitization technology. While I was looking through some of these logbooks I made a discovery. Between and sometimes over pages of valuable historical and environmental data I discovered that someone had drawn all over the pages! Rather than pointing the finger at a college student of the 21st century, we should be looking for a student from the 19th to 20th century.

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