There are some investigations and research propositions that immediately jump out to me that both called for deeper digging and using the library. Here are just a few examples of ways my 221B colleagues and I have used a library but there are plenty more! 

  • An old Harvard University yearbook helped us identify a student’s classmates who we would later contact for source interviews and background information
  • A high school yearbook helped us confirm the identity of a fraudster who had since legally changed his name
  • A review of a 3-inch thick hard cover Sullivan’s Law Directory from the mid-1980s gave us confirmation - and new leads - into an attorney’s early professional career not otherwise known
  • An academic database we didn’t subscribe to gave us access to an individual’s dissertation which provided us leads on several fronts
  • Archived corporate registration records allowed us to definitively report the exact date a company changed names almost a century ago
  • A Bloomberg terminal gave us access to detailed shareholding data we mined for leads
  • A Sanborn fire insurance map gave us the exact location of a business and its corporate neighbors during a 75-year time period in question at the turn of the 20th century allowing us to trace tenants in connection with an environmental matter 
  • A Haines (“criss-cross”) directory helped us identify apartment building tenants from decades ago - and potential witnesses - in a criminal case 

For all of you who aren’t corporate investigators, there are a plethora of reasons to use the library including ones many of us sometimes forget - that not everyone has access to a computer, printer, scanner, fax machine, the Internet or newspapers. Not only can you get all that at the library for free, a library facilitates events and activities such as these great offerings: blood drives, tutoring, lunch programs, computer classes, book and film clubs, audiobooks, LinkedIn learning classes, English language and citizenship classes, homebound book delivery services, meeting rooms, writing workshops, audio/video recording studios, conversion of old photographs and 8mm films to digital media, career services, ancestry and genealogy records, health and wellness classes, SAT prep sessions, guided Chakra meditation, bridge and knitting groups, and much, much more.

If you haven’t used your local library in a long time, consider getting acquainted with it again this week!