Using an online book club to enhance access to a local history collection

The Missouri Historical Society (MHS) has an extensive collection of published memoirs, letters and diaries. These have the potential to help researchers locate first-hand accounts of nationally-experienced events such as wars or the Great Depression. They can also enhance understanding of local events such as the building of the Arch. However, unless the primary focus of a person’s memoir is such an event, this information isn’t likely to be reflected in the catalog record. The little slice-of-life moments and memories are buried within the longer life story. MHS launched a project to provide topical access to these books and engage volunteers at the same time. Unlike traditional book clubs that all read the same book, members of the “Biography Book Club” pick and read a memoir of their choice and answer some standardized questions about the experiences it covered. The first two goals of the project (improving future research access to our collection via an online search index; collecting this data via a web form) were always envisioned to be in online form. With the pandemic, the second two goals (providing reading copies of the books; holding book club meetings) moved online as well. Presenters Emily Jaycox, Miriam Whatley and Kelly Brown will describe Year 1 of the project, their experience with specific tools thus far, and how they plan to tweak the project moving forward.