Ever wonder what it takes to run the Ohio History Connection Archives & Library? Our amazing staff members work hard to maintain our collections, create programming, provide customer service and more! Take a peek behind the scenes at the Archives & Library to see what a typical day is like for the staff.

Public Service at the Ohio History Connection Archives & Library is the heart of what we do! Whether you’re just getting started on your family tree or are a seasoned researcher, our staff is here to provide you with the resources you need to engage with our collections and ensure a positive research experience.

While the Archives & Library Reading Room is surrounded by wall-to-wall books, can you believe it is a small representation of the collections the Ohio History Connection Archives & Library holds? It’s up to staff like our Library Reference Assistant to retrieve material from the closed stacks for research appointments and walk-in patrons.

Are you excited about something you found in the Ohio History Connection Archives & Library online catalog and want to know more about it? The Ohio History Connection Archives & Library offers research-quality scanning services. While it doesn’t replace the research experience at the Ohio History Connection Archives & Library Reading Room, staff members are happy to help you engage with our collections, wherever your location is.

Many genealogy journeys start with the discovery of an ancestor’s death certificate. Staff members like our Library Reference Assistant fulfill death certificate order requests we receive online–check out the Ohio History Connection Archives & Library’s online death certificate index to place an order or visit the Archives & Library to begin your genealogy journey!

You probably know we love old books, but did you know we love new books too? Every month, our Reference Archivist creates a themed book display to highlight new acquisitions in the Ohio History Connection’s printed materials collection – stop into the Archives & Library Reading Room to see what staff has featured this month!

Our Stacks Coordinator keeps track of LOTS of volumes, boxes and reels. She's pictured here on the 5th floor of the Ohio History Center in our closed stacks area.
Photo by Jackie Barton

Our Manuscripts Curator and Audiovisual Archivist are working on a new exhibit highlighting children's materials we've found in our archives. They debated whether wiggling or wriggling was the right word to use in one of the labels. Come by this summer to see which one made it into the exhibit!

The Local Government Records Archivist researches a question.  The State Archives provides records management and preservation assistance to local governments across the state.

It might look like he’s getting ready to listen to some hit songs from the 1990s, but actually the Electronic Records Archivist is reviewing a collection of photographs transferred to the State Archives.

Government Records Archivists inventory State Archives microfilm so researchers can find it in the online collections catalog.

Digital Services manages newspaper projects and Ohio Memory. We work with statewide partners to prep their newspaper for microfilm, which is how we preserve newspapers. Much of this work includes ironing the papers so they are as flat as possible for imaging to ensure as much content as possible is legible on the film. Sometimes the projects we work with decide to digitize the film as well, which is where the vast majority of newspaper content on Ohio Memory comes from.

Digital Services manages rights and reproductions requests, as well as scanning requests for Ohio History Connection and our collections. When we have a large object for scanning, such as this poster for the “Grand National Convention of Babies” held in Springfield, Ohio, we have to use our large format scanner to fit all of the poster’s content into one scan. In this image, we are adjusting the focus to ensure that the scan is as clean as possible.

One of the many things we do in Digital Services is take on newspaper projects, whether that be for Ohio History Connection, or a partner with Ohio Memory. During our preparation for newspaper projects, we collate the paper to ensure we know how much content is going online. During this process we find all sorts of news articles and ads, such as this ad from the 1800s for carriages in Carroll County, Ohio.

Digital Services works with Rights and Reproductions and Newspaper projects here at Ohio History Connection. Much of that work involves our microfilm collections. Here we are looking through some microfilm in our public microfilm room.

Many of our partnerships with other institutions is for digitization projects. During our scanning and preparation phases for these projects we encounter some fun objects. Such as this ad for the Carroll County Fair in 1917!

Learn more about the Ohio History Connection Archives & Library by visiting yourself!  Click here for up-to-date days and hours of operation, as well as the phone number and address.