State libraries in the country. The New Hampshire state library is the oldest state library in the country. It dates from 1717 when we were still a province. We have been at this location in concorde since 1896 when we built the state library. The major purpose of the state library is to provide information to the citizens of the state and clearly that means we have to protect materials that have the information and we have to keep that information uptodate and we have to make it available to the citizens. We do that in a number of ways, the traditional materials that we have that date back to 1718 for example and the latest things that we have, reports from state agencies, etc. Are in digital format and are available on our website. Our major goal is to collect materials that deal with New Hampshire specifically so we have an exempted collection. We like to think of ourselves as the place to go for information, natural history, cultural history and political history and we think we do a pretty good job of covering. These are a number of that we have that i selected from our collection, obviously we have a large collection of over 500,000 items so i tried to collect those that might be of interest. This is a register from the pan american exhibition, at the pavilion for New Hampshire and residents were asked to signtheir names. And what you see here is that there were lots of people, they asked for both the place of birth and place of residence and as you go through this registry you see there are a lot of people who were born outside of New Hampshire who now lived in New Hampshire and that speaks to the migration in New Hampshire during the 19th century, the mills especially in manchester but throughout the state obviously had lots of workers and lots of them came from other places. The migration of the franco americans from canada, that took place extensively during the 19th century because they settled in nashua and especially in manchester. Manchester was the largest manufacturing city in the world. There were hills on the side of the Merrimack River that stretched for a mile on either side. It was an extensive manufacturing city of both low and cotton. This is an unusual treasure. This is a ring that was given to Franklin Pierce. By the people of california. President Franklin Pierce was born and reared in a New Hampshire. He was also a hero of the mexican war and he was elected president in 1852. And he served until 1856. And this is perhaps one of our most unusual items at the New Hampshire state library. It is a ring obviously it wouldnt fit the average person but it was given to Franklin Pierce by the state of california, it is solid gold and it you see that there are nine panels and each one of them has a sample of bold of a different mine in california. And its highly unusual, not one that we bring out very often and it has been part of our collection for quite a few. New hampshire is well known for its first in the nation primary. This we pride ourselves on holding this important contest every four years to pick the nominees for the major parties. Most often the Democratic Party and we have an extensive collection of political materials at the state library. We for work for a number of years the whole of New Hampshire political library. Also called the New Hampshire archive, New Hampshires political tradition. And you see here a number of what we call the currency of political campaigns, the buttons and the posters and the bumper stickers. These are important because this is how people get name recognitions basically. Youll see that the one here that says New Hampshire always first,always right. This was true until 1992 when bill clinton was running the first in the nation primary in New Hampshire and paul tsongas was considered by many to be a native son, he was born and reared in lowell massachusetts, first large city south of New Hampshire border. And was a College Graduate so he was really thought of as the hometown boy and he actually won the first in the nation primary in 1992. But bill clinton obviously went on to win the presidency. And that was the first time that somebody had not one the New Hampshire primary and was elected president. So our run from 1952 to 1988 was over. That happened subsequently as well and in 2000 and john mccain one the first in the nation primary handily but then lost the nomination to george w. Bush. We see the New Hampshire first in the nation primary as a regular election. Candidates come in, we always talk about retail politics in New Hampshire. You cant just come in, land at the airport, give a press conference at the tarmac and think that you covered talking to the people in New Hampshire you have to go to berlin and colebrook and linton which are about two hours from manchester. So you have to go around the state and talk to people and ask them whats on their mind , what they are looking for from the federal government, etc. And that was one of the things that i think people generally think that john mccain did so well. He had 142 town hall meetings. This was, weve always had politicians who come in and do a good job of talking to people but you really took it to a new level by going to all kinds of communities large and small in New Hampshire and Holding Townhall meetings and staying as long as people wanted to talk to him and that translated into a win over george w. Bush by 20 points, he did very well in the primary here and thats what New Hampshire voters expect. Because our Collection Development policy, for example dictates that we should be collecting materials on New Hampshire, we make a real effort to do that. Libraries in many cases would like to do that but they have so many other responsibilities. They have the recreational needs of their community, for example. They have the historicalneeds of their community , so its i think much better to have one state organization like the state library that is making the effort in trying to put together the resources to collect those things so they are not lost, for example. Book tv is in concorde New Hampshire. Up next week interview author Simon Montgomery on her book
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