by Carol Nelson
Quick Summary
Learn more about Resource Sharing staff member, Joan Krey, and her work with requests at the Minnesota Historical Society.
It is a joy when one’s hobby can be incorporated into his or her job. Avid history lover Joan Krey travels to the Minnesota Historical Society two or three times each month to process complex genealogical and historical requests using the Society’s materials. The Society’s collections are non-circulating, except for some of the microfilm. Joan helps patrons find what they are looking for by providing copies of articles. If the citation is not specific enough, she can copy the table of contents and the index. The requests draw from multiple facets of the Society’s holdings including requests for genealogical research, general history, articles for History Day projects, county histories, newspaper archives, Minnesota naturalization records, and birth and death records from county courthouse records, to name a few.
For Joan, the best aspects of traveling to the Minnesota Historical Society are the helpful staff and the challenge of locating items for the patrons. “I get to work with so many types of materials. The depth and breadth of the collections, poking around in them, finding the requests for people, it’s been a learning adventure.” If you have questions about requests for historical or genealogical items, contact Joan Krey at kreyx001@umn.edu or 612-624-1388.
