LINCOLN TOWN ARCHIVES
Unique Collaboration between Town Clerk's Office and Public Library
Preserves Records and Artifacts for Future Generations

The Lincoln Town Archives, in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is unusual because it is a collaboration between the town’s public library and the Office of the Town Clerk. Makes sense, right? But theirs is an arrangement that is rarer than you’d think.

In many, if not most towns in the United States, the public library and town clerk’s office operate independently and each hold separate records. In 2008, the Lincoln Public Library and the Office of the Town Clerk entered into a formal agreement, integrating their collections and undertaking joint responsibility for the management of the Lincoln Town Archives.

Incorporated in 1754, Lincoln is a small town northwest of Boston, Massachusetts with an interesting  history. Thanks to the forward thinking partnership of Town Clerk Susan Brooks and Lincoln Public Library Director Barbara (Bobbie) Myles, and the support of Lincoln’s citizens, the town’s important historical records and artifacts will be preserved for future generations.

“The library and the town clerk’s office by definition share a general mission of managing information,” Susan Brooks explains. “But we also share a particular piece of that information management function:  the preservation and accessibility of the town’s historic records. To me, that is one of the most exciting things that we have done – to make the Town Archives a joint enterprise of the clerk’s office and the library." The creation of the Town Archives also made it possible to hire part-time archivist, Marie Wasnock, who has been on board since 2008.

"I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into when I ran for election as town clerk, but I am not kidding when I say that this is the best job I've ever had."    - Susan Brooks

READ MORE . . . about the Lincoln Town Archives and the preservation accomplishments made possible by this unusual collaboration.

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