The state of Maine has a great Maine history library and resource center
at the Maine Historical Society. The Maine State Library and Archives
are also an important Maine history resource available to area residents.
The first priority of the Davistown Museum library, divided into five sections
on three floors of the museum, is to provide local residents, Liberty Tool
Co. customers, museum visitors and those with a special interest in ferrous
metallurgy and the history of hand tools, access to books and materials
not readily available at other institutions. The Davistown Museum's
focus is on the hand tools of New England's maritime culture in the age
of wooden sailing ships. The library of the Center for the Study
of Early Tools is the cornerstone of our library collection, which includes
journal articles and a wide variety of books and references on local, Maine
and New England history, Native Americans in Maine, art and artists in
Maine and environmental history. Books in the library collection
are available for on-site use whenever the museum is open.
The Davistown Library includes the following:
- Davistown History Project library: a small collection of books and journal
articles about regional Maine and local history and genealogy, including
a growing collection of files on the families who first settled here, located
in a dedicated room on the third floor.
- Center for the Study of Early Tools (CSET) library: an extensive collection
of reference books on the history of tools and technology located on the
second floor. This library also includes books on colonial and New
England history, archaeology and pre-history and a large collection of
catalogs of American tool manufacturers. This library is open by
appointment whenever the museum is open; a variety of additional tool reference
texts are available for visitor perusal in the main hall on the third floor
whenever the museum is open.
- Numerous journal articles and a small collection of contemporary books
on Native Americans in Maine located in the print room on the third floor
of the museum.
- The museum's small collection of books on art and artists working in Maine
is intended to complement our exhibition of about 90 Maine artists, many
still at work, and our occasional special exhibitions of their art.
This section of the library is in the print room on the fourth floor.
- The environmental history library on the fourth floor of the museum contains
an extensive collection of journal articles on chemical fallout issues
ranging from chlorinated hydrocarbons to anthropogenic radioactivity.
- The environmental history library also contains the archives of the Center
for Biological Monitoring and their many publications, including those
documenting the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Company.
- Current periodicals within the libraries include Maine History (Maine
Historical Society), The Chronicle of the Early American Industries
Association, Tools & Technology: The Newsletter of the American
Precision Museum, Maine Archaeology and other relevant publications
as funding permits. The Museum also sponsors subscriptions to the
following journals at the College of Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine: Journal
of Environmental Radioactivity, American Antiquities, and Northeast
Anthropology.
- The Hulls Cove office of The Davistown Museum contains a wide variety of
Maine, New England and US history books as well as many duplicates of the
books on hand tools in history in the CSET library. When sufficient
funding is available, or if donations of these basic history references
can be obtained, additional copies will be added to the CSET library.
The library in Hulls Cove is open by appointment only.
- The specialty of The Davistown Museum is its extensive Internet bibliographies.
We hope our Internet presence helps offset our inaccessible location and
the lack of publicity about our museum, its collections and its role as
a regional history information resource.
- The Davistown Museum website also includes links to other Maine history resources, museums and websites, as well as to Internet
information resources pertaining to tools and technology, art and artists,
and environmental issues.
- We hope that museum benefactors, members, visitors and other interested
parties will consider donating to the Library copies of the most interesting
books listed in our bibliographies. See our list of books
wanted in the fundraising needs section of this website. If you
have other interesting books or documents relating to the history of Maine
or the Davistown Plantation, the Norumbega bioregion, Native Americans
in Maine, art and artists in Maine or on the history of hand tools and
their production that you would like to donate to The Davistown Museum,
please contact us. Donations of materials
not relevant to the collections of the museum are still desirable because
they can be sold to raise money to furnish the library with the many interesting
books that are now available on Maine history and art.
Visiting researchers, scholars and students: The Museum is now ready to welcome visitors to use the Center for the Study
of Early Tools library. Overnight stays may be arranged in the Center
for the Study of Early Tools apartment. Please contact Judith Brown. Facilities are available for visiting students, for
more information see our Education
Programs page.
Library Inventory Listing
- A list of Archaeology texts in the museum
library and Archaeology or history-related journals.
- Other books in the Davistown Museum library that have been donated, but are not listed in one of our bibliographies.
- Library display listing:
these are texts located on display within the exhibition and not within
the library stacks.
- We are currently in the process of cataloging our library collection into
an on-site searchable Past Perfect database, located at both the museum
and at the Hulls Cove office.
Bibliographies (The IS at the end of a bibliography listing indicates that the Davistown Museum
has a copy "in stock.")
