Detroit PL’s Burton Collection
to Reopen Part Time
The Detroit Public Library’s prized Burton Historical Collection, which was closed by minor flooding July 29 and has remained closed for inventory, will reopen for half-days starting December 5, DPL Director Maurice Wheeler told the Detroit Library Commission October 17.
The original October 15 reopening of the collection was delayed—and the entire main branch closed for 10 days—following the discovery, at the end of August, of illness-causing bacteria on some of the 3,000 Burton books and documents being cleaned. The 5.7-million-piece collection contains books, photographs, and manuscripts that focus on the history of Detroit, the Great Lakes area, New England, and Quebec.
The closing of the collection has angered some of the scholars, students, and amateur genealogists who use it. “This is really a hardship for people trying to do research,” Patricia Ibbotson, editor of the Detroit Society for Genealogical Research Magazine, told the September 29 Detroit Free Press.
Wheeler said people with “specific, urgent needs” would be given access to the collection. “This is a very important collection and that’s why we’re taking these measures, regardless of how unpopular they may be,” he said.
Posted October 23, 2000.
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