New Bedford Whaling Research Library

Elite '09

19

101

Ger T.

Arlington, MA

3/6/2008 1 photo

This is the library branch of the NB Whaling Museum, housing (I believe) all of their written collections - logbooks, historical documents, a lot of art, most of it sent over from the Kendall Whaling Museum when it was absorbed by the NB Museum. I can't imagine anyone comes here who isn't doing specific research on whaling, but appointments are pretty much required and there's also a $10 per hour fee if you're not a museum member. Both of the librarians here were extremely helpful and really passionate about the subject.

The patron-accessible library is limited to mostly the reading room, which is spacious and quiet with lots of tables. Most of the delicate, rare-books stuff is in the back, so you'll need to specially request a librarian to get it for you, but I was just impressed with the general-knowledge books they had outside in the cases for anyone to browse, comprising a very in-depth overview of whaling worldwide in themselves.

The library I believe also houses the Melville Archive, so 19th century literature nuts might also like to pay them a visit.

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