09/13/2026
We thank the Meyersdale Public Library for all their work in preserving local history.
Many people don't realize our Meyersdale Public Library's Pennsylvania Room serves as the SCFLS' historical and genealogical hub. Many others likely think all our PA Room staff and volunteers do is dig into the past.
Yet that isn't the case. We are an archive, and thus it is also our job to document today for tomorrow. As we mark the 25th anniversary of September 11th, 2001, our files devoted to that day and the Flight 93 National Memorial are evidence of this responsibility. We still add relevant items to these files. In recent years we've also established a 9/11 Memorial Trail file. In 2020 we created Covid-19 files and worked to document the local stories related to the pandemic.
Too often we think of history solely as "the past." Yet each day we are writing new chapters for tomorrow's historians. History lives within us, and it is ours to create. This is especially worth remembering as we mark the two significant anniversaries of 9/11 and our nation's 250th.
The need for archives is also worth remembering. Whether a small room like ours or a large archive such as those in our nation's capital, these spaces capture moments in time that will mean something to future generations. They preserve the stories of a people and the place they occupied. They save our history so it can one day be shared, whether a quarter century or 250 years into the future.
In a world increasingly dominated by AI-generated answers and unsourced pieces of information, may such spaces - spaces devoted to documenting history as accurately as humanly possible - always remain.
