Faces of the Cape Fear
Digitizing images of our past
As special collections librarian for the New Hanover COUNTY Public Library for thirty-one years, Beverly Tetterton organized countless historical photographs donated by area residents. Helping library patrons find and browse the growing photo collections, she was struck by the kinds of images that attracted their attention.
“I noticed that, if they were given the choice of several photos of a particular subject, they always asked for photos with people in them,” she says.
With the advent of digital archiving, Tetterton oversaw the task of scanning and cataloguing those photographic records of the Cape Fear region, and she developed a real fondness for photos of what she first thought of as Cape Fear Faces.
The process of digitizing those hundreds of “people photos” was more than the library’s limited staff could handle, so, in September, Tetterton applied for a grant from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services for a project she dubbed Cape Fearians.
“Cape Fearians could be people who were born here, who came here, or who passed through. But generally, these are people who have made some sort of impact,” Tetterton says.
The library was awarded a $32,000 grant, with local matching funds coming from the Library Foundation of New Hanover County.
Tetterton completed the grant application before retiring in September. Carrying out the project is the new special collections librarian, Jennifer Daugherty.
The grant funds enabled her to hire a temporary staffer to scan and catalog the existing photos and to solicit additional photos from regional residents. Once archived and organized, the new collection will be available online to area residents and researchers through a link on the library’s website, www.nhcgov.com/Library.
“An important part of this project has been going out into the community and meeting people and hearing their stories,”
Daugherty says. “People don’t realize their place and impact on history. They don’t realize that the everyday people are the ones that fill in the gaps of our history.”
The grant period concludes in June, but donations or loans of photos that document the lives of Cape Fearians will always be welcome, Daugherty says. To learn more, contact her at 798-6305.
