Speaking from their own experiences, while also sharing examples and ideas from other libraries around the country, the authors present a start-to-finish guidebook for creating a local history reference collection that your community will embrace and use regularly.

Below the surface of bustling National City lies the story of olive and citrus orchards, grand Victorian homes, great wealth, and the coming of the first railroad. Founded in 1868 by Frank Kimball, National City is credited with multiple distinguished firsts. On the county level, the San Diego County Fair originated here, the first novel published was by a National City pioneer, the first free kindergarten opened here, the first automobile was built here, and the first railroad terminus was located here. On the state level, the first woman to serve as an elected member of a school board lived in National City. Today the city is home to 61,000 residents; and as an accessible and diverse community, all eyes now look upon National City as it begins to experience a renaissance of growth and commerce.

Archival collections at public libraries present their own challenges distinct from other library materials, but they also offer the promise of unique connections between the library and its users, particularly when the archives relate to local history.

Travel through more than a century's worth of images and memories of Clifton Park, New York. Vivid and entrancing, the images of Clifton Park contained within this volume span more than a century of memories. Residents of the area, both natives and newcomers, will find a strong connection with the faces and places presented. Rare photographs of Clifton Park, many never before published, provide a glimpse of life from 1875 to 1950. We experience the area's gradual transition, from its agricultural roots through the era of the Erie Canal and the railroads to the early years of the automobile. Through pictures of local industries, shaded dirt roads, homes, and amusement parks, we learn how early Clifton Park residents worked and played. The book also features views of local taverns, general stores, churches, and schools--all the foundations of a changing, strong, and growing community.

By the time it incorporated as an independent town in 1726, Kingston had, for a century, been the prestigious "North Precinct" of the Plymouth Colony, where Pilgrim leaders such as Gov. William Bradford and Dr. Samuel Fuller established their farms and second homes. Residents were granted authority by the Massachusetts General Court in 1717 to be set off from Plymouth and, in that year, Maj. John Bradford, grandson of the governor, gave the new precinct fourteen acres of what is now centralKingston. Kingston documents the rich and varied cultural, social, and commercial histories of the town and its inhabitants through the sharing of a remarkable legacy of historical and topographical photographic images. Within these pages, you will see how early Kingston prospered because of the productive lands of the Jones River and its tributaries, how iron ore was mined in the town's bogs, and how some three hundred vessels were built in the Jones River yards in the nineteenth century. In Kingston, you also will learn of the Old Colony Railroad, which came to town in 1845, and of the railroad's first two presidents, local residents Col. John Sever and Alexander Holmes.