Mariners’ Museum Maritime Library
Has Reopened At Nearby University
By Scott C. Boyd
(February/March 2009 Civil War News)

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — The largest maritime library in the Western Hemisphere has celebrated its move to a new, bigger and better home in a neighboring university.

A ceremony on Jan. 22 marked the dedication of the new Mariners’ Museum Library at Christopher Newport University (CNU). The museum’s library was closed last March 1 in preparation for the move and quietly re-opened Dec. 1 in the new location..

The Mariners’ Museum library includes 1,000,000 manuscript items, 600,000 photographs, 78,000 books and journals, 65,000 plans and drawings, 5,000 maps and charts, 700 volumes of newspaper articles, 400 ships’ logbooks and the archives of Chris-Craft Industries. The museum’s library also holds special material concerning the USS Monitor.

The museum’s partnership with the university was announced in September 2007. The university agreed to include space for the museum’s vast library in the library it was building on its campus next to the museum.
The Paul and Rosemary Trible Library at CNU, with more than 110,000 square feet, was dedicated on Jan. 24, 2008.

The Mariners’ library has 23,000-square-feet of space in the Trible Library. It is completely staffed and controlled by museum personnel who have full responsibility for the museum’s collection, including the Monitor material.

The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has managed the wreck site of the USS Monitor off Cape Hatteras, N.C., via the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary (NMS) since 1975. The Mariners’ Museum was selected by NOAA in 1987 as the repository for all artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Civil War ironclad. This includes NOAA’s archives related to the recovery of artifacts.

The Mariners’ Museum Library’s material on the USS Monitor is found in two parts. The first is the museum’s collection of historical documents, drawings and the like about the Monitor, its opponent, the CSS Virginia, and the Battle of Hampton Roads.

The second component is NOAA’s archives concerning the modern research, discovery and recovery of artifacts from the Monitor, officially known as USS Monitor Collection Associated Records (MS390). The collection holds 140 linear feet of records, including 15,000 photographs, 600 videotapes and 14 motion picture films.

These are designated as government documents and maintained separately from the museum library’s collection (they have their own finding aid), and access to them is strictly controlled. They can only be seen with the permission of the Superintendent of the Monitor NMS.

Other records regarding the Monitor are held by the National Archives and in public and private institutions around the world.

Jay Moore manages NOAA’s Monitor archives. He’s a Mariners’ Museum employee, but his salary is paid for by NOAA as part of its arrangement with the museum. “I’m sort of a contractor,” Moore explained.

“We’re awfully happy to be in the new digs,” Moore said on the museum’s library opening at its new CNU home. “The space is great. We couldn’t ask for better environmental controls and security measures to keep the collection safe.”

Moore said, “We’re excited about working with a brand new patron base – that would be CNU students and faculty. But we really want our old patrons to continue to come and feel welcome here as well.”

He said those patrons, the “specialists and old boats guys and history buffs,” are the library’s “backbone.” “We sure hope they’ll find their way back to the library soon.”

The Mariners’ Museum Library is open to the public Monday through Friday from 10 to 5. Parking is available in the CNU Visitor Parking Lot. Parking passes are required and may be obtained in advance by calling the library at (757) 591-7782 or from the library upon arrival. For additional information visit

www.marinersmuseum.org/library