Local Resources: How to Get the Most From Your Local Library - Pasadena and South Pasadena

By Beverly Mateer Taylor

Pasadena

The beautiful Pasadena Central Public Library was designed by Myron Hunt in 1924 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Its elegance alone makes it a wonderful place to do research. Even though it has all the modern technology needed in today’s library, the technology has been unobtrusively integrated into the structure.

The Pasadena Centennial Room contains the library’s collection of materials about Pasadena and adjacent areas. This collection includes magazines about Pasadena and California dating back to the mid-1800s, books relating to the history and people of Pasadena, maps, photographs, city directories and telephone books, and many local-area government publications. Some materials are in locked cases, which must be opened by a reference librarian. Materials may be removed from the room only to make photocopies after obtaining permission from the reference staff. There is a clipping file that can be accessed by a card catalog in the room.

A random selection of articles about Pasadena and Pasadenans has an online index allowing one to locate specific items on microfilm, which is housed elsewhere in the library.

The library keeps a comprehensive collection of Pasadena newspapers, but there is no extensive indexing before 1997, although clipping files and scrapbooks in the Centennial Room may be useful to locate specific information. The online Pasadena News Index may include articles back as early as the 1880s although the index is not comprehensive.

The collection began in the early 1900s when library director Nellie Russ assembled a collection of rare books on the early history of California.

Opening off the Centennial Room is the small Ida Lloyd Crotty Genealogy Room, which has a small but high-quality collection of genealogy references. The existing genealogy collection is kept intact for patron use, but no effort is being made to add to it, other than periodical subscriptions.

Titles available inclue the following:

• “American Ancestry: giving name and descent, in the male line, of Americans whose ancestors settled in the United States previous to the Declaration of Independence, A.D. 1776,” 1887-99.
• “Hutchings’ California Magazine,” 1856-1860, which became “California Magazine and Mountaineer,” 1861-1862.
• “California Mail Bag,” 1871-1877.
• “Pioneer” or “California Monthly Magazine,” 1854-1855.
• “The Bulkeley Genealogy, Rev. Peter Bulkeley . . . his ancestry, the ancestry of his two wives, and his relatives in England and New England, together with a genealogy of his descendants through the seventh American generation,” 1933.
• “California DAR ancestry guide: a bicentennial project of the California State Society of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution,” 1976.
• “California Historical Society Quarterly,” vol. 1-49, 1922-70.
• “Daughters of the American Revolution Index of the Rolls of Honor” (ancestor’s index) in the Lineage books of the DAR (vol. 1-160) 1972.
• Hadamitzky, “Japanese, Chinese, and Korean surnames and how to read them . . .” 1998.
• “Indiana Historical Society” publications, vol. 1, 1897.
• “Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society” (Quarterly) 77 vol., 1908-1984.
• “The New England Historical & Genealogical Register 1847-1873,” 27 vol.
• “The 1787 census of Virginia: an accounting of the name of every white male tithable over 21 years . . .” c.1987.
• “Virginia Historical Index,” c. 1961, 2 vol.

The Pasadena Centennial Room, the genealogy room and the microfilm collection are accessible whenever the Pasadena Central Library is open. The address is 285 E. Walnut St., Pasadena 91101. The telephone is (626) 744-4052, and the Web site is at http://www.ci.pasadena.ca.us/library/

South Pasadena

South Pasadena is a small town surrounded by larger cities, but in many ways, it retains a small-town feeling. The library dates from 1895. It is surrounded by lovely lawns and shares a building with the senior citizens center. Little interest has been shown in collecting the history of the town, but the library does have a complete microfilm collection of newspapers published in South Pasadena (titles vary—most were weeklies); the high school yearbooks, microfiche of old city directories, and some photo archives.

The address is 1100 Oxley St., 91030. The phone is (626) 403-7330; the Web site is http://www.ci.south-pasadena.ca.us/library/index.html .

© Beverly Mateer Taylor. Used with permission.