Today is the New Tomorrow

Post by Laura M. Poll

Today is when we continue things that began yesterday which will hopefully continue into tomorrow. There is no tomorrow without today – Today has a lot of pressure on it to perform! What better day than today to create a blog for Trentoniana.

The Trentoniana Collection was created at the Trenton Free Public Library on May 7, 1906 in order to preserve the history of the city and the collective memory of its residents. For 114 years, countless librarians, historians and volunteers worked diligently to collect and preserve these items to be made accessible to the public. Our current staff, affectionately known as #TeamTrentoniana continues this important work. You’ll learn about them and their projects here on this blog over the next months.

History isn’t something that happened before we were born – we are living it now! Today is a perfect example of witnessing history – today is what the people in our distant tomorrows will be wanting to know about as they face their own moment in history. It is our responsibility to them to start a journal, write a poem, draw a picture, shoot a photograph, and have it ready for when they need it. Do it today because tomorrow will be very different once it has passed and we’ve had the luxury of yesterday to change our perspective. Be sure to take the short survey we created to collect the feelings being experienced today.

As is most of the world at this crucial point in time, we’re all hunkered down in our homes and unable to have you come visit in person. Until we can welcome you back, we can be followed on several social media platforms, most as @trentoniana1906. See the links on the bottom right corner. We also have several portals where you can listen to oral histories, view some of the films in our collection, and try to identify faces in hundreds of photographs. Check them out; you’ve got the time now – time enough at last.

Our blog here is just one more way to connect with the public and share our collection. And of course, we have our website that can be visited, too.

Before we get started, let me introduce the archivist (me!). I was hired as Trentoniana’s first ever archivist (hopefully not last!) in September 2015. Before that, I spent nearly 15 years at a county historical society – local history is my passion. State historian John Cunningham said it best: “Everything that happened in America could be highlighted with New Jersey examples.” A Jersey Girl through and through, I come from the East Side of the state – the Shore, if you will – and knew little of the West Side story. Over the past 5 years, I’ve become fascinated and enamored with its history. Hopefully that enthusiasm at learning a new fact will transfer to others – even if you’ve become jaded by your hometown there are always cool little things to find out. The good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful all make up every city’s history, not just Trenton’s.

We welcome you to take a peek behind the door and into the stacks.

 

Image credit: The Twilight Zone. “Time Enough at Last” (1959).