期待什么

任命

研究ers are strongly encouraged to request an appointment in advance of arriving at the MHS. A Portal1791 账户 is required to book an appointment.

研究ers with confirmed appointments will be guaranteed a seat in the reading room on their appointment date(s). Walk-in researchers will be accommodated if space allows.

研究人员登记

All researchers must create a user 账户 in Portal1791 in order to book an appointment, 请求复制品, or place a request to view materials at the MHS.

首次研究人员

In order to request an appointment, first-time researchers should create a Portal1791 账户 prior to visiting the MHS. 到达MHS后, researchers complete the registration process by presenting a valid, government-issued photo ID and being photographed by MHS staff. After they have registered and secured their personal belongings in lockers, first-time researchers meet one-on-one with a reference librarian for an orientation. Please include 30 minutes for completing registration and receiving an orientation when booking your appointment.

For information about what items may be brought into the library and which must be secured in a locker, 请访问我们的“要带什么”页面.    

查阅资料

The MHS is a closed-stack, non-circulating library. 研究ers place requests for materials using their Portal1791 账户 and view these materials in the reading room. Requests can be made directly from 阿比盖尔, the MHS online catalog, or from online 收集指南. The Reader Services staff retrieves materials up until 45 minutes before the library closes.

All library and exhibition areas are monitored by a recording CCTV system.

异地收藏

A third of the MHS collections are located at an offsite storage facility. 预先通知(透过 门户网站1791) of at least two business days is required for use of these materials. Materials stored offsite cannot be delivered to the MHS on Saturdays. Requests for materials to be used on Saturdays must be placed by the previous Wednesday. The Society is limited in the amount of material that can be delivered in one day. 研究ers needing more than six items from offsite storage should provide additional advance notice.

All offsite materials are identified in 阿比盖尔 and the 收集指南 with the call number "OFFSITE STORAGE."

To ensure that the materials you requested have arrived by the day on which you plan to visit the library, or if you have questions about requesting materials from offsite storage, please contact the reference desk at 617-646-0532 or library@zhkkxj.com.

缩微过程 & 代理副本

To ensure the preservation of our manuscript materials, the MHS provides microfilm or digital versions of many of our collections. 除了, the MHS holds the microfiche editions of the Evans and the Shaw-Shoemaker 系列 of Early American Imprints. Whenever items are available in both manuscript and microform formats, researchers should request the surrogate copy (i.e., the microform version) within Portal1791.

The MHS has ScanPro 2000 workstations available for researchers working with microforms. The ScanPro allows researchers to create multi-page PDF files that can either be 电子邮件ed or saved to their own USB drive.

A limited number of MHS microfilm collections are available for interlibrary loan and/or purchase. For more information about obtaining microfilm for ILL/purchase please visit the 缩微过程页面.

组

For security purposes, all researchers must work at individual tables in the reading room.  At the discretion of a reference librarian, special arrangements can be made to accommodate research teams (i.e., groups of three or more) that must work together to complete a project. If you would like to schedule a group appointment, please review our 小组研究政策 and contact a reference librarian at 617-646-0532 or library@zhkkxj.com. 请注意，这是45美元.00 per hour set-up and supervisory fee may apply.

For information about arranging a group tour of the MHS building please contact our art curator at 617-646-0508 or by 电子邮件.