A few days back, I visited Elgin's library, the Gail Borden Public Library. Gail Borden had, years ago, staked out the unusual role of a hybrid library-museum. It usually has one really big, flashy traveling museum show at a time, but sometimes has two simultaneously, with a smaller show upstairs. Such was this time.
This was the latest main show, starting with this item located in the library atrium. They like traveling shows with lots of pieces they can spread all around the spacious lower level.
Speaking of spacious, this is what the
upper level of the atrium looks like.
As an aside, Poplar Creek Public Library has a display case that, in recent years, has been used to display local collections. A recent display was a collection of Titanic memorabilia. As impressive as that was, Gail Borden here does them one better with this large scale model of the Titanic, as it looks today (I could not get a good photo of the whole thing because of the glare).
The upstairs display was nearer and dearer to my heart -- local history. You'll have to forgive the lack of scale here, but this signboard and accompanying picture of an antique milk bottle are approximately 6 feet tall.
Again, no sense of scale here, but this pair of matching panoramic pictures are on (what appears to be) cloth banners approximately 12 feet wide. It was fun comparing the two, separated by almost 140 years, and trying to find anything in common with them other than the Fox River (hint: there's at least one building in common to them both).
Can you read that? Sorry some of these came out blurry. I was excited to see a Casper having something to do with Elgin history, even if it was just his first name.
This isn't part of the displays, but the genealogy collection was (appropriately enough) right by some of the local history displays. I love how they incorporated these old card catalog drawers; someone filled them with old, local obituary notices.
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