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I assumed that this library was the dusty, dry, old, sort of, tucked in the corner, sort
of place where you had to be very quiet and you had to follow a lot of very strict rules,
but what I found instead was this living, dynamic, wonderful collection of incredible
assortment of materials having to do with maritime history. And not just having to do
with ships and boats and explorers, but about all sorts of people and their endeavors and
how human beings really began using the sea in all of their enterprises for thousands
of years.
(1:24) Richard Ormond, former director-National Maritime
Museum, Greenwich England: It's one of the biggest and best specialist maritime history
libraries anywhere in the world.
(1:27) Joan Charles, author and researcher: Place
will feed your curiosity.
(1:30) Al Casby, Chris-Craft enthusiast: In fact
if anything, you'll looking at something and one of the staff will say, “Well when you're
done with that I've these 6 boxes, maybe you'd like to loo at those.” And you start into
that and it'll send you off in a whole 'nother direction, and usually you end up saying,
“Well I'm going to have to come back because there's just so much.”
(1:49) Timothy Morgan, history professor-Christopher
Newport University: I get that from students...”Dr. Morgan I found this incredible stuff in the
Mariners' Museum. I've found pictures that I never dreamed existed, maps that are beautiful
colors. You have to touch them. You have to feel them to sense what is the reality of
it. 400, 300 years ago people were actually making these things
(2:14) Richard Ormond: I think I'd like to make people
think of it not as a series of books on the shelf, but to think of it as a great sort
of treasury, you know, that you can dip into in sorts of different ways, and actually a
doorway, a gateway, into greater knowledge of the past and, particularly, the sea and
things to do with the sea, and also greater knowledge of yourself
(2:41) Narrator: The Mariners' Museum has an immensely
rich collection of figureheads and photographs, paintings and ship models, small craft, U.S.S.
Monitor artifacts, and much more. It's library, perhaps it's greatest treasure, is home to
the biggest maritime history collection in the Western Hemisphere. Books, photographs,
maps,charts – the library has a multitude of riches available to anyone who has an interest
in history and the sea.
(3:41) Narrator: The libraries world class staff
makes all these resources available and accessible to patrons.
(3:50) Joan Charles: They have a core of staff here
that is unparalleled. They can point you in the right direction. They won't do your homework
for you because that's not what they're here for, but they point you in the right direction.
They will give you the help you need, and you will find what you're looking for if it
is here.
(4:05) Richard Ormond: The Mariners' Museum Library
is the start of the voyage where you pick up your sort of sailing instructions here
and all the routes – all kinds of routes – are open, and routes that we don't know
about, you know, that have yet been explored or mapped out.