The Hudson Area Library has some GREAT gift ideas! They will be open right before Winter Walk – or check out their website in December for gift purchases.
Trixie’s List caught up with Brenda Shufelt from the Hudson Area Library at Basilica’s Farm and Flea last weekend, and then we asked a few questions about their upcoming sale of items to help support the Hudson History Room.
Trixie’s List: What can someone buy at the Hudson History Room’s website?
Brenda Shufelt: Archival quality copies of historic maps, aeroviews, and posters of Hudson; sets of night-scene and Warren Street postcards and a set of note cards of prominent buildings from an 1871 map of Hudson; tote bags and tea towels with a line drawing of the historic Armory by local artist and musician Tony Kieraldo.
Trixie’s List: What is one of your best-sellers?
Brenda Shufelt: Our library tote bags with a line drawing of the historic Armory by local artist and musician Tony Kieraldo. We now sell them in ivory and red. The proceeds actually go to the general library fund; all other proceeds from our Shop go directly to the History Room.
Trixie’s List: Is this all staffed by volunteers? Where do the proceeds go?
Brenda Shufelt: We don’t have extra staffing for our Online or In Person Shops. We will have one staff member and volunteers for the one-day Shop on Winter Walk Saturday. All proceeds go to the History Room. The History Room has made a priority of digitizing images, video, and audio – including oral histories – archiving historic collections and making them accessible to the public. Current projects include developing online websites for the Black Legacy Association of Columbia County and HAL Oral History Projects, digitizing all City of Hudson directories from 1851 – 1940, and archiving the Arthur Koweek Urban Renewal Papers. We received a federal grant for the oral history website development so we hope to earn enough from our Shop during the holidays to fund archiving the Koweek papers.
All of these current projects and more are in line with our mission to acquire, preserve, archive, and make accessible the history of Hudson, Greenport, and Stockport.
Trixie’s List: What do you think would be a good gift?
Brenda Shufelt: I’ve already purchased the new postcard and note card sets for holiday gifts. The night-scene set of Hudson scenes represents a popular trend with postcards in the early 1900s of nighttime scenes with a full moon and cloudy sky. The Warren Street postcards feature so many of the historic buildings of Warren Street and go back to the very early 1900s. I love the set of 12 note cards of line drawings of prominent buildings of Hudson featured on the 1871 Map of Hudson we recently had cleaned and preserved with money from a very successful GoFundMe. In addition, we also have a new poster, The Flyers of the Hudson, which we had professionally digitized and printed. It is from the early 1900s with a scene on the Hudson River with aeroplanes (recently invented!) flying over the cruise ships that used to go from NYC to Albany. It is very colorful and quite unique! And we have two copies left of our museum quality framed 1923 Aeroview of Hudson. Those items run the gamut of our price range and all are unique gifts of Hudson history.
Trixie’s List: If you don’t make it to the shop prior to Winter Walk, where can you shop? Are items delivered? Can you pick them up?
Brenda Shufelt: You can stop by the library during open hours and purchase items. You can also use our Online Shop on our NEW website at historyroom.hudsonarealibrary.org and those items can be delivered. You can also pick them up at the library.
Brenda is smiling under her mask.
Stop by Saturday, December 4th from 3-5pm at the Hudson Area Library, or shop the History Room’s collection, here.