From the Magic Forest....

The Warren (Pennsylvania) Public Library has launched a new digital collection, the Allegheny Chronicles, linked on their library web site. These emerging collections are such a boon for historians, genealogists, and the curious. It is wonderful to see so many precious items accessible to so many. From their description, "The Allegheny Chronicles brings together unique, fragile materials in a format that allows world wide access to text, maps, instructions, stories and over 350 photographs that enable users to relive the journey down the Allegheny River from Warren to Pittsburgh as the earliest pioneers and raftsmen experienced it."

Related to public libraries, here's a happy note from a conference I attended at Clarion in April: There are more public libraries than McDonald's in Pennsylvania. Hooray! One time I was in the Sheffield Hotel (near Warren) and noticed a shelf of paperbacks behind the bar... an impromptu lending library. Big props to the public libraries and all of the hard work they do to serve their communities, often with very limited resources.