Library Holdings
LIBRARY HOLDINGS
The MVM library includes hundreds of thousands of individual items, ranging from thumbnail-sized photographs to multi-volume books and rolled maps too large to fit on a single table. All of them are available to any interested user.
Contact library@mvmuseum.org for more information
ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS
Collections of the original papers of individuals, businesses, churches, and organizations, along with thematic collections organized around groups (African Americans, the Portuguese, the Wampanoag), subjects (whaling, performing arts, hurricanes), historical events (the Gold Rush, World War II), and types of material (deeds, calendars, diaries).
A list of all 450 collections, and detailed descriptions of (almost) any individual collection, are available.
AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS
The audiovisual collection includes commercially produced music, spoken-word, and video recordings connected to the Vineyard, but also one-of-a-kind amateur recordings: vacation films, local events, documentaries, and more. The Museum is actively digitizing these materials to make them accessible.
BOOKS
The library includes roughly 4,000 books and pamphlets that focus on the history, culture, and nature of the Vineyard, and on larger stories (whaling, coastal shipping, Methodism, tourism) in which it played a major role. It also includes fiction and poetry by Vineyard authors, Vineyard-themed children’s books, and fiction set on the Vineyard.
A separate Circulating Collection of 200 classic Vineyard-related titles is available for MVM members to check out. A flyer with more information and a list of titles is available.
The ground floor housed a variety of businesses over the years. In the 1920s, the four were—from left to right—a yarn shop, a specialty gift shop, Eben Bodfish’s real estate office, and Fraser’s hardware store. Fifty years later, the two right-hand shopfronts had been combined into a hardware store, and the left-hand ones into a Western Auto car-parts franchise. The passage of another half-century has brought it full circle. The building once again houses specialty shops catering to summer visitors.
GENEALOGY RESOURCES
Published and unpublished genealogies of Vineyard families (English, Portuguese, and Wampanoag), plus census records, probate records, card indexes of the members of prominent Vineyard families, and more.
IMAGES
Approximately 50,000 photographs ranging from the 1860s to the present day: regular and oversized prints, panoramas, slides, glass-plate and film negatives, stereoviews, and digital images. The image collection also includes thousands of Vineyard postcards arranged by town and subject.
ORAL HISTORIES
Recordings of multi-hour interviews with over 1,000 Vineyarders whose memories stretch back to the late 1800s. Most have been digitized and transcribed. A complete list of interviewees is available.
PERIODICALS
The library has extensive collections of newspapers and magazines published on the Vineyard, including dozens of obscure titles that may only have published a few issues apiece. It also collects Vineyard phone directories (from 1918 to the last Island Book) and town reports. Complete lists of the library’s holdings in all these categories are available.
TOPICAL FILES
Folders of photocopied and computer-printed newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly papers, and research notes on over 2,000 different Vineyard-related subjects: people, places, ships, events, historic structures, and more. A spreadsheet listing all of them is available.