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| Dr. Benjamin E. Powelll |
Julian Shakespeare Carr (1845-1924) gave the land on which the first Durham Public Library was built and donated a collection of books on North Carolina that form the basis of the present North Carolina Collection.
In 1982, shortly after the Main Library opened, the North Carolina Room was named in honor of Benjamin Powell (1905-1981), who had served on the Board of Trustees for twenty years and "persisted throughout this period of difficulty and frustration to bring to fruition the dream of a new downtown public library facility."
The primary mission of the Durham County Library North Carolina Collection is to collect materials concerning the city and county of Durham. However, this collection also has a wealth of materials for people interested in researching North Carolina-related topics. The North Carolina Collection consists of books, journals, newspapers, microfilm, the Durham Historic Photographic Archives, North Carolina and Durham vertical files, small manuscripts collections, and the Durham County Library Archives. More than 16,000 volumes (circulating and noncirculating) form the core of the North Carolina Collection, including works on local history and genealogy, works by North Carolina authors, fiction with a North Carolina setting, nonfiction dealing with the history of or containing factual information about North Carolina, and books with a Durham imprint. The noncirculating portion of the collection is located in the Dr. Benjamin E. Powell Memorial Room, which is located on the third floor of the library. The Powell Room is open during regular library hours.
The vertical files contain newspaper clippings, pamphlets, and uncataloged government publications. They cover North Carolina and Durham history as well as information about North Carolina authors, North Carolina biography, and Durham biography.
The North Carolina Collection subscribes to local journals and newspapers. Of particular interest to local historians and genealogists is our microfilm collection which includes microfilm copies of the Durham Morning Herald (1901 to date) and the Durham Sun (1889 to date), indexes to the Herald-Sun from 1920 to 1990, early local newspapers dating from 1872, and census records for North Carolina counties. The microfilm CORE collection of early records for Durham, Wake and Orange counties is also available for use in the library. Deed records are not included in this microfilm collection.
The Powell Room contains materials for researching genealogy and local history for Durham and North Carolina. A cross-index of major families is available in the Powell Room, and of special interest to local historians is a collection of Durham city directories dating from 1887.
A collection of more than 1,400 photographs selected and reproduced by the Photo-Carolina project spanning the history of Durham is housed in the Powell Room. These are arranged in binders by decade and available for viewing on this web page.
The Powell Room houses several small manuscript collections primarily from local clubs and organizations. The Durham County Library Archives includes materials documenting the history of the Durham County Library from 1896 to present.