Kansas Room makes more items available for checkout, extends hours

The Kansas Room recently made a large portion of its collection of books on Kansas and the Midwest and from Kansas authors available to the public for checkout.

By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post

The Kansas Room at the Hays Public Library is making its collection more accessible to the public.

Marissa Lamer, Kansas Room librarian, took the reins of Kansas Room two years ago and has been working to reorganize the collection.

Although some older and more fragile items from the collection will still have to be viewed within the confines of the Kansas Room, a selection of non-fiction and fiction that relate to Kansas and the Midwest will now be available for checkout.

The library has added an assistant for the Kansas Room, which has allowed the library to increase the hours staff is available to help library patrons do research. Research assistance will now be available 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays.

“We are here to help, whatever it is,” Lamar said. “I love problem solving, and I am here as a resource.”

The fiction collection includes titles written about Kansas and those written by Kansas authors.

The nonfiction section includes books on the history, environment, politics and famous figures of Kansas and the Midwest. The collection even includes a section on Kansas crime, such as the infamous BTK serial killer.

This copy of an early map of Elis and Rush counties hangs on a wall in the Kansas Room in the basement of the Hays Public Library.

The library subscribes to a variety of periodicals on the Kansas history and the West.

In addition, the Kansas Room has a complete microfilm library of the Hays Days News plus other publications that predated the Daily News or had references to Ellis County or Fort Hays.

The earliest book in the collection dates back to the 1860s, but the Kansas Room also has a variety of first editions that were popular in the early 1900s.

Lamer said she would be happy to help local residents research family histories. A number of families have donated copies of books on their family histories to the library.

“You may want to start with us first so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” she said. “Someone may have already done a lot of the work for you.”

The Kansas Room also has books on the Volga Germans and census records from the Russian village from which the early Ellis County residents immigrated. These records have been translated into English. In addition, the library has a subscription to Ancestry.com, so you can research a variety of documents online that would normally cost you to access.

This copy of a land transfer signed by John Quincy Adams was donated to the Hays Public Library and now hangs in the Kansas Room.

“I really wanted to expand it,” Lamer said of the Kansas Room collection. “I didn’t want it to just be history. I wanted anyone who wanted to do a book report on the prairie environment or any research related to Kansas to be able to come here.”

Lamar said she has more projects ahead. She said she would like to better organize a collection of negatives donated from the Ekey family, who owned a photography studio in town. She estimated the negative collection spans from the 1930s through the 1980s. She said she hopes to get these photos entered into the library’s database, so they can be accessed easier.

Lamar also wants to further research a collection of Howard C. Raynesford letters and papers. Raynesford mapped trails in the area for the Butterfield Overland Dispatch, which ran wagons from Atchison to Denver.

The Kansas Room continues to accept donations of historical documents and photos and other Kansas-related materials. If you wish to make a donation, contact Lamar at 785-625-9014 or at [email protected].